John McCain once described the United States of America as a "beacon of liberty." His vision of America, while idealized is vastly accepted at both a national and an international level. It is true. Most of us internationals believe the United States stands for values that uphold human dignity.
The recent happenings shed light onto a face of America unknown to Americans and on the existence of a crude reality that to the rest of the world seemed long-gone from the land of the free. It is no coincidence that white supremacists are making it to the headlines with terror acts now. For what happened at Charlottesville is not that different from the confrontation we saw every day during the Presidential campaign for months. The dynamics are essentially the same. The difference is the degree of escalation of hatred that white supremacists consistently display.
We could also think of what happened at Charlottesville as reflection of America’s more general political prospect, for the ever-growing polarization and constant conflict that mars today’s politics is what empowered white supremacist groups and other extremists around the nation in the first place. The point is, we should not be surprised about what happened. We should have known.
After all, we do not tolerate ideas that contradict our own. We shutdown people who do not think like us. Conservative? Ignorant, bigot. Liberal? Un-american. Social networks have not become a means to foster dialogue. Instead, they have become tools to find refuge from others' ideas inside ideological niches that strengthen biases. We'd rather read Breitbart and watch Fox News than the liberal media and their FAKE news. Or, we'd rather read the New York Times and the Washington Post than the ignorant perspectives the conservative media produces. America suffers of an acute case of tunnel vision.
Hatred should not be a mainstream feeling and yet it is one. It is our fault. For politicians promoted it and we bought it. The politics should not follow the dynamics of us-vs-them that Nazi ideologist Carl Schmitt envisioned and yet it does. Divisiveness and hatred have shredded nations to pieces. Americans cannot allow that to happen. Crisis has brought nations together in the past as well, but America should not wait for the worse to find unity either.
Diversity of thought, not ideological homogeneity, is what holds modern liberal societies together. Debate and the constant confrontation of perspectives and ideas lies at the heart of these societies. As long as debate takes place under a framework of tolerance and respect, a population that is ideologically and culturally heterogeneous should not demonstrate signs of divisiveness or polarization. Or under a more realistic light, a liberal society's social tissue should not remain chronically torn apart as it recently has.
What has earned the United States the title of “Land of the free” and made it a place where diversity is embraced and anyone can thrive is not an abstraction like the power of its Constitution but a more concrete notion like the historical frame of mind of its people. A forward-thinking mindset based upon the liberal values of tolerance, inclusion, respect, freedom of speech and thought. It is time for the modern-day American to turn back to that state of mind to end with discord and disempower the radicals that seek to make conflict and divisiveness endemic for good. It is time for a change.
