The challenge is that a commitment to participating in the imagined community of the nation, to some degree of forgiveness for the sins and betrayal of one’s neighbor, to a belief in the prospect of a greater and richer future together than would be possible alone, requires a faith and some form of membership in a community. Without such belonging, there is nothing for which to fight, nothing to defend, and nothing to work toward. A commitment to capitalism and the rights of the individual, however ardent, will never be sufficient; it is too thin and meager, too narrow, to sustain the human
...more
