On my way back to California from the Mayweather vs. Gatti fight in Atlantic City last weekend, I stopped through Indianapolis to serve as master of ceremonies for Youthlinks Indiana, a large civic event that bridges sports and charity in that city. More than a thousand people dined amid a majestically eery setting in giant Conseco Fieldhouse, there to honor Purdue University basketball coach Gene Keady and United States Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Uebberoth, among others. An appropriately star-studded crowd included Senator Richard Lugar, IOC member Anita DeFrantz, Indianapolis Mayor Bart Goodman, Hoosiers screenwriter/producer Angelo Pizzo, and many others. There was much to be proud of.
But listening to the speakers as they followed each other to the microphone, I was struck by a repetitiousness which after a while seemed almost burlesque. I can paraphrase it fairly simply: "What's great about tonight is that we all bond together across our dividing lines to do this, black and white, old and young, top athletes and people with disabiliities and everyone in between, because this is America and this is what we do in America and this is different than anywhere else because in all those other countries around the world they don't do this, we only do it in America."
Do we really believe that? Is it possible that someone as sophisticated as Peter Uebberoth, someone who has traveled and done business all around the world, thinks that broad-based charity is a uniquely American trait? I hope not. And I don't understand why people say it. Does charity require that we have some exclusive national franchise on it, or might it be possible to acknowledge that people in all developed societies organize to give, because they do.
The United States is a great and accomplished country, but it is not the only great nation on the planet, and belief in its principles and ideas should not require that we believe America to be sacrosanct. Our many reflexive outward expressions of ethnocentricity do nothing to engender respect and admiration among other peoples, nor do they make us any bigger and better. Two hundred twenty-nine years is not a particularly long span of time, geopolitically, and economic dominance is, historically, no sure sign of cultural resonance.
As Americans, we would do well to have a bit more confidence in the ultimate global destiny of our society, and not be so eager to claim superiority where it can't be proven. True patriotism is quiet, because it acknowledges that the country still has a long way to go.