The gentleman seated next to me on my flight to Toronto became visibly upset when I told him that "we are an Enlightenment nation." Perhaps, I should have said that we are what the great historian Gordon S. Wood calls a "creedal nation." Our celebration this year of America's Semiquincentennial is an excellent time to reflect on why that is and how that has been our unique strength.
We are blessed with so much in America. We have vast expanses of land covered and filled with an abundance of natural resources. We are protected from the petty disputes of the rest of the world by two great oceans. Our people are productive and hard-working. Yet, that is not what makes us unique. Canada and Mexico share all of these attributes with us. What they don't have are the five words "all men are created equal." That is our creed and that is our strength.
My observation is that we take our creed for granted. The ideals articulated at our founding seem natural to us and we do not notice their absence in societies that otherwise appear so similar to us. It is the evident universality of our creed that blinds us to the simple fact that universal truths are not universally self-evident, even to those who look, act, and sound like us.
Creeds are difficult to live up to, as our own history shows. However, the absence of a creed is also the absence of difficult goals worth striving for. Anyone can be born Canadian, German, Chinese, or Egyptian, but what exactly does that mean? Is it even possible to have a national identity capable of functioning in a global world without a founding creed?
The new year is the traditional time for making resolutions. We at Treasure Coast Financial Planning are resolute in our determination to provide the highest level of professional competence within an organization committed to the fiduciary standard. My personal resolution for this year is to read books about America. I am beginning with Professor Wood's classic The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1987. Happy New Year to all.