03/14/2024
What are THE FIVE AMERICAN IDEALS ???
America has been described as the land of Exceptionalism or having a Manifest Destiny or even as a global Superpower, but those are just effects of her legacy both positive and negative. What really unpins the greatness of America, the real magic of America are the five core ideals that constitute the breadth and depth of the original American psyche.
For 150 years, the isolated English colonies carved a civilization out of the wilderness. Through hardship and privation the early Americans developed a view of life and the world that is unique in history. Following the path of nascent Greece and Rome, the early Americans discussed, argued over, and ultimately birthed a nation founded on the bedrock of five primary ideals. For the next almost 250 years, America became a bastion of liberty and the dream of millions of immigrants worldwide based on the perpetuation of those five ideals. That hope was immortalized in 1886 with the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, which was later made a national monument in 1924.
These five ideals were gleaned from the best of history. They were hard earned and jealously guarded for generations until the national culture was fully permeated. The globally impacting American legacy ideals are:
LIBER
GEORGICS
PROVIDENCE
PUBLIC VIRTUE
LIBERTY
Georgics – From the Greek and Latin, literally meaning “to work the earth.” Historically, a mentality and lifestyle of rural food production that results in citizens and communities who value divinity, privacy, property, traditional family, self-reliance, justice, order, frugality, duty, and self control.
Liber – In ancient Greece and Rome, the population was divided into two distinct classes: the slave class and a group we call the Liber. Liber is a Latin word, and one of its meanings is a biological term for the inner layers of tree bark. Because tree bark was written on directly or was processed to make paper on which historical records, laws, and contracts were written, we associate the word liber with those who could read, write, and engage in any form of interaction requiring a written record.
Providence – The founding generation believed that not only was there a God, but that this Supreme Being had a very personal and specific mission for each person to fulfill while in this life. They believed in a culture where everyone was supposed to search for their mission, prepare for it, and then fulfill it. This American cultural concept can be traced back through the Reformation, the founding of the Catholic Church, where it splits into two paths one that continues to the founding of the Church by Jesus all the way all the way back to the Hebrews and another path influenced by the Greek mythology and ideology, primarily Plato and Aristotle. Americans took the greater values of both the Greeks and the Hebrews (including Jesus) and became the greatest nation the world has known. Today we are losing the best of both of these culture’s values that were passed on to us by the founders.
Public Virtue – Public virtue means to voluntarily sacrifice personal benefit for the good of society.
Liberty – The mentality, will, and ability to live a life independent of government overreach or corporate monopoly and in a way that serves mankind. True guardians of liberty live self-determining lives, are financially secure, are informed and intellectually autonomous, and are self-reliant, acting to reestablish the proper parameters of government and business/industry as the need arises. Liberty can only be maintained when mankind is liber. Liberty is not just the absence of bo***ge or slavery but the fitness of an individual to be a citizen. Liberty is an environment of just positive legislation founded in natural law including the protection of the natural rights of mankind. As with Providence, many of the component ideas that constitute liberty come from Greek, Roman, and Hebrew origins.
