Ideology, Identity, and the US: Crossroads, Freeways, Collisions

The combined work of ideological and identity coordinates as a vast attempt at grasping the defining features of a tumultuous cultural ocean such as that of the US, the more so if seen from a historical perspective, might be considered to amount to a self-defeating project. It is almost as unrealistic an enterprise as defining “life” and “time” as more than the Life and Time of erstwhile media mogul Henry Luce, the first promoter of America’s exceptionalist mission in the American century. It is obvious for every contemporary thinker living in a largely anti-essentialist age that life, time and American identity have to be dealt with in their diversity and complexity, taking into account both relevant theoretical and empirical perspectives aimed at defining contemporary and historical dimensions. This volume undertakes to contribute a variety of informed, more or less “alien” or detached views, on facets of a dynamic, ever changing New World that one usually calls the United States and some of its current and past stories. In other words, it is generally aimed at lessening or clarifying ideological divides for a better understanding of the United States, its past and present.

In the early 1990s, in the context of the collapse of the Communist system, such thinkers as Francis Fukuyama enthusiastically declared the “end of history,” meaning the end of the ideological confrontation between liberal democracies and totalitarian countries of the Eastern bloc. Samuel Huntington was less optimistic than Fukuyama, coming up with his “clash of civilizations” thesis. In his opinion, history was not over, the new ideological confrontations being based on regions belonging to different cultures, in which religious issues featured prominently. Both theories have naturally been controversial, given the complexity of the world in which we live and the various positions from which this complexity is inevitably simplified. One might call such a simplification from one particular position an ideology. Some may see, like Marx, ideology as false consciousness, others may use it with the firm confidence that they own absolute truths, others may explore its problems, dilemmas, uncertainties. There is room under the sun and in cultural debate for everyone.

Gradually, especially after 9/11 and similar events elsewhere, religious issues as divisive civilizational features, as well as the new dimensions of what Arjun Appadurai calls ethnoscapes, people in movement getting involved in new place, space and community configurations, have complicated the public realm both in the US and in the rest of the world, with Europe assuming a pivotal position. The 2016 US presidential election and the UK European Union membership referendum preceding it by a few months drew attention to one of the central problems of contemporary democratic life: the rise of the impact of populism as an ideology to be reckoned with both in the US and elsewhere. This is to be seen in connection with some of the consequences of migration, more specifically, with some negative consequences of globalization as a whole.

The connections between forms of individualism, populism and nationalism that have had an impact on contemporary democratic life as a defining feature of the identity of large communities, with a special focus on the US, will be debated, from various perspectives, by American and European contributors to this volume. Are the three above-mentioned “-isms” to be seen in definite, black vs. white terms? What can one learn from previous and contemporary illustrations of them, both in America and in the rest of the world?

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