There is Only One American, and Their Name is All People

Thoughts on the American Prana Dharma

When my maternal grandfather was 18, he left Scotland, seeking fortune in the Alaskan gold rush, but on route he was waylaid upon meeting my grandmother in Seattle. My maternal grandmother’s family name was “Mason”, indicating English ancestry. My paternal grandfather’s family came to America fleeing religious persecution in France, and my paternal grandmother’s family left Ireland during the potato famine to settle in British Columbia, from which my grandmother came to Seattle.

This makes me a mongrel American. My daughter by my first wife, in addition to Scottish, Irish, and French lineages, also has Norwegian. And my daughter by my present wife has additionally Danish, Sicilian and Cherokee blood.

It’s this way for most of us in America. The specifics of our lineages may vary, but not the mixing of ethnicities.

Then there’s religion, the other major basis for identity for most people on the planet. My younger daughter’s ancestors were Presbyterian, Catholic, Mormon, Lutheran, Huguenot, Jewish, Free Methodist, and Native pagan — none of which she feels connection with, just as she feels little connection with any of her ethnic roots.

Much like so many Americans.

Peggy Freeman’s Question

I bring up this personal background because I’ve been mulling over a reply to a thoughtful question Peggy Freeman made in her comment on my last Substack article about prana dharma:

I need to know: In America, do we have a prana dharma? We are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants who brought a bit of their culture and beliefs and merged them with others. What has always made me proud to be an American is the fact that we are so multi-cultured, so diverse.

For those who didn’t read last week’s article (Vitalizing the Human Spirit), a little catchup. “Prana dharma” is a borrowed term that refers to those aspects of personal or collective identity which give us vitality of mind. Our prana dharma comes from being “in our power”. As a people, it comes, in the main, from being connected with the deep patterning of the culture to which we identify. So if, say, a Japanese woman, whose mind is patterned for restrained subtlety, tried to express herself like an outgoing South African woman from Soweto, it wouldn’t flow naturally. It would be artificial, awkward, not in her nature, and her vitality of mind would be compromised.

The lives of most people on the planet are rooted in rich and ancient cultures. Their cultural ground is deeply established in traditions, mannerisms, cuisine, dress, history, music, language, literature, etc. that flows through their culture to support their vital expression of mind.

Then there is America. And Canada. Places where the mongrelization of culture is the reality.

This is what Peggy is asking about. What is America’s prana dharma? What is there of substance to nurture depth to our identity and purpose, our capacity to stand in our power? This quality of mind isn’t nurtured by jingoistic nationalism, or vacuous consumerism, or from being purveyors of faddish culture. These may occupy the mind, but they don’t vitalize the mind. Particularly the collective mind.

Compared to most of the world, America has no established culture to speak of. What culture it has is somewhat ephemeral in nature, with much of it tied to materialism, to the consumption of things and experiences.

Proud of Our Diversity

Now, what about Peggy’s thesis that, “We are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants who brought a bit of their culture and beliefs and merged them with others”? And her observation that, “What has always made me proud to be an American is the fact that we are so multi-cultured, so diverse”?

I’d say she’s onto something important.

We may be young and awkward as a culture, just an adolescent compared to humanity’s matured cultures. And the consumer-oriented culture that we do have may distract us from living in our depths, creating a superficiality to our American identity.

But then, there’s this: “We are a nation of immigrants, immigrants who brought a bit of their culture and beliefs and merged them with others.”

Like Peggy, I’m proud “that we are so multi-cultured, so diverse.” And it is not just that America, as a nation, is so diverse. It is also that for many Americans, this diversity lives within us — within our lineages, within our family relations. Within our own genomes.

A New Way of Constructing a Collective Identity

What is the effect? We cannot fully construct our identities as being of this people, or that people. Americans must, at some level, layer onto our identity that we are of all people.

This, I believe, puts us on the growing edge of humanity’s future (though not all want to accept that future).

Let me explain. American culture has come through a kind of integration of so many different nationalities and peoples. It is unique in the degree of mixing and mingling of different people. There is a kind of melting pot, with no dominant cultural heritage, so this culture is devoid of a base or root of its own. Instead, it is rooted in many other cultures. It is a synthesis of many different sources.

There is not a main cultural foundation to draw from. The indigenous people do not provide a foundation, for they are just one of many groups who have come together to form the American synthesis. And it is not a synthesis of European cultures, because there are many Asians, and many Black Americans and Native Americans.

It has great potential, but it has no foundation. It is developing through synthesis without a foundation of its own.

Claiming Our Humanity in Universalism

So America must take its roots in all the cultures, and there is great potential in this because universalism may be most easily adopted in this place. It is a young culture, without a foundation, but it is forward-looking. It is not based in the past but in the future. Because of this, it holds great potential as it is the ideal location for the adoption of universalism. There is the potential for America to readily evolve toward a cultural foundation in universalism.

And this is the future of the whole world. Globalism is an irrepressible trend. There is coming to be a more and more synthetic mixture of humanity and of cultures. We are planetarily evolving toward universalism.

America is on the growing edge of this evolution. It is in America that there are those who can say, "I am a member of the human race. I claim no nation, no clan. I claim my humanity as my base. I have so many different origins. My father is from the ancient culture of North Africa. My mother’s father is from the Canadian shield and my grandmother was from China. All of these cultures are in me." That is a synthesized human being, a synthesis of so many cultures who must claim their humanity and their culture in universalism.

For many Americans, the understanding that “humanity is one and indivisible” comes naturally. For many, but not all.

Undermining the Vitality of Our American Identity

Of all of the horrors of the present in this country, the one that cuts deepest for many of us is seeing the fear and hatred being incited toward the Haitian Americans, the Afghani Americans, the Mexican Americans, the Iranian Americans, the Venezuelan Americans, etc. We are revulsed by the abominable notion of “shithole countries”. This cuts deep into our vision of America.

All can agree that reasonable border controls are needed. But the brutal, heartless rounding up of so many who have made a home here and contribute to our communities, to the American synthesis — this is more than just morally wrong. It strikes at the wellspring of America’s prana dharma.

Is this not what Peggy Freeman is expressing when she says, “What has always made me proud to be an American is the fact that we are so multi-cultured, so diverse”?

Does not the source of our pride, the vitality of our American identity, lie in our embrace of the rich depth of human feeling that lives in universalism?

When the American poet Carl Sandburg died in 1967, President Lyndon Johnson observed that he was "more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."

Here’s an excerpt from Sandburg’s prologue to the Museum of Modern Art’s photography exhibit, The Family of Man:

There is only one man in the world and his name is All Men.

There is only one woman in the world and her name is All Women.

There is only one child in the world and the child's name is All Children.

This is from the poet who “was America”. For this is America — if we will fight to secure it.