The essay contrasts two incompatible visions of American (and English) identity: one based on lineage, blood and soil (“heritage Americans”) and one based on ideals that anyone can embrace, as advanced by Vivek Ramaswamy and, in the UK, by historian Robert Tombs.

Drawing on M. E. Bradford, it argues that Rome—and by analogy the American founding—was not a self-conscious propositional project but a historical growth rooted in familial piety and place; ideals matter but cannot be detached from the specific people who held them.

It concludes that national identity requires both a people and their ideals; a set of abstract propositions alone does not constitute a nation, while pure blood-and-soil without ideals is likewise incomplete.

The public debate about whether America is a proposition nation has pitted those who describe themselves as heritage Americans against those who believe anyone who embraces the ideals of America is just as American. Vivek Ramaswamy, writing in the New York Times, said:

There are two competing visions now emerging on the American right, and they are incompatible. One vision of American identity is based on lineage, blood and soil: Inherited attributes matter most. The purest form of an American is a so-called heritage American – one whose ancestry traces back to the founding of the United States or earlier. . . . The alternative (and, in my view, correct) vision of American identity is based on ideals.

There are two competing visions now emerging on the American right, and they are incompatible. One vision of American identity is based on lineage, blood and soil: Inherited attributes matter most. The purest form of an American is a so-called heritage American – one whose ancestry traces back to the founding of the United States or earlier.

The alternative (and, in my view, correct) vision of American identity is based on ideals.

A similar debate is unfolding in the United Kingdom, where controversy rages over what it means to be English. The distinguished history professor Robert Tombs argued that, “Being English is not a matter of your ancestry,” but can be taught and learned, for example by studying Rudyard Kipling and “singing the national anthem.”

In the age of “inclusiveness” it is understandable that recent immigrants would prefer to define national identity as a set of ideals. After all, that is the only definition that can fully include them. As they see it, by embracing American or British ideals, they can claim to be just as American or British as anyone whose family has deep historical roots—perhaps even more so, if they can claim to have a stronger commitment to the relevant ideals.

Professor Tombs perhaps has that in mind when he criticizes Englishmen who campaign to denigrate English history in the culture wars, by peddling “evil British Empire” narratives and demanding reparations for historic injustices that they pin uniquely on England. Tombs says, 

Schools, universities and cultural institutions across England – from the National Trust via the Museums Association to the Church of England – are busy undermining Englishness by propagating distorted and negative........

© Eurasia Review