What is "America?"
What is America; what is "freedom?"
I was, the other day, reading a heated debate on the omission of the phrase in its entirety "truth, justice, and the American Way" from the recent Superman movie. Prepubescent squabbling over the politics of Superman aside, it did make me wonder, "What, exactly, is this 'American Way' that is, according to the masses, no longer apparently the American way?"
I suppose, if someone devoid of any information were to ask me what that phrase meant, I would respond with words like "liberty," "freedom," "opportunity," and maybe even truth or justice. Obviously this "American Way" is not a term representative of the policies of any time, but rather one coined to represent some ideal.
But for this ideal to be called "American," America must have portrayed these qualities at some point, correct? I think most would agree that it did, but we seem to have lost those qualities at some point. Well, my question is this: What do people want?
What is this freedom that we claim represents what America should be and was but isn't now? Is it just some archetypical notion which we've painted with the brush of America circa 1940? I think it may be, but I don't know.
So answer me, what is the freedom that America supposedly was supposed to have represented?
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And as an aside, do people prefer superheroes that represent human struggle or human ideals? Superman and Captain America or Wolverine and Batman?
I was, the other day, reading a heated debate on the omission of the phrase in its entirety "truth, justice, and the American Way" from the recent Superman movie. Prepubescent squabbling over the politics of Superman aside, it did make me wonder, "What, exactly, is this 'American Way' that is, according to the masses, no longer apparently the American way?"
I suppose, if someone devoid of any information were to ask me what that phrase meant, I would respond with words like "liberty," "freedom," "opportunity," and maybe even truth or justice. Obviously this "American Way" is not a term representative of the policies of any time, but rather one coined to represent some ideal.
But for this ideal to be called "American," America must have portrayed these qualities at some point, correct? I think most would agree that it did, but we seem to have lost those qualities at some point. Well, my question is this: What do people want?
What is this freedom that we claim represents what America should be and was but isn't now? Is it just some archetypical notion which we've painted with the brush of America circa 1940? I think it may be, but I don't know.
So answer me, what is the freedom that America supposedly was supposed to have represented?
---
And as an aside, do people prefer superheroes that represent human struggle or human ideals? Superman and Captain America or Wolverine and Batman?