On 2002-05-29 11:09, gordontait wrote:
Could someone please explain to me, the American obsession with discovering your roots.
Maybe I’m just a little naive, or maybe your lack of history/heritage… (better not go along that line > 
> )
Gordon, that’s potentially an inflammatory and hurtful statement, though I am responding in good humour. Please read in a spirit of understanding my comments.
In the US case, I believe that having a constitutional culture based on our liberties and rights rather than a specific ethnic identity leads to periodic bursts of either religious or genealogical identification and activity in our history.
Interestingly, the Mormon church, which was mentioned above, represents both. Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, came together in the mid 19th century and sort of reunited various types of most North Europeans or Brit heritage types into a unified group of people pursuing a utopian covenanted community. That same group, which grew and grew, then embarked on this massive genealogy project that has given us so much information. Its intent, to baptize dead ancestors, may have its detractors but the benefits have been enormous. They share their info freely (I am not a Mormon but have used their database a lot) as well.
We have had other periodic religious movements that also unified people of differing backgrounds.
I believe that the true American cultural existence is pretty stark: each of us and our Constitution. When you realize that most of us in a given community don’t go to a single type of church, eat the same foods, dress the same ways etc. people miss out on some familiar touchpoints.
I think its “easier” to find some pre-determined path of behavior and characteristics to identify with rather than make your own way, which is lonely and requires maturity, independence and a definite rejection of patriarchy. We bend to no Pope, dictator (for the most part) or monarch. At our best, we are grown-up men and women who study our laws and know that we are part of the decision-making that shapes our country, rather than metaphoric children, who some religious figure, socialist bureaucrat or dictator tells how to live (I know, I know, corporate socialism pretty much sets the gas prices and so forth but the illusion is somewhat livable).
And by the way, Gordon, a good part of the anarchic independence in our historical culture came from the Ulster Scots, who were pretty much cut free of old ties of clan and monarch when they came here. High minded Viriginians and proprietary New Englanders might have proposed the laws, but Ulster Scots were the shock troops who made it happen.
I have very mixed feelings when Americans get all worked up and try and identify with some historical culture because they often bring the bad with the good. As soon as some jackhole discovers he’s Scottish, he can likely decide he hates Irishmen because he is supposed to. And vice versa. This goes on and on and is not confined to Europeans by any means. It is times like those that I especially appreciate our Constitutional culture. People may practice cultural animosities but its not hard-wired into our identity via a single church or monarch. And for those who would point to our oppression of Indians, I would say that we have tried (and mostly failed) to repent and amend our excesses and still practice legalized guilt about it in the form of special treatments and citizen status for Native Americans.
When I look at situations like the Northern Irish Troubles, the Balkans, the Poles-Germans and on and on, I am especially grateful to be a New World resident, not an old, notwithstanding our own problems.
Try and appreciate our position and realize that a great deal of research about Scotland, an influx of money-bearing well-meaning tourists is not a bad thing, nor something to be ridiculed. And as far as history, we are the oldest living constitutional republic, a history that I am quite proud to be part of. No better than anybody else in an absolute sense, but we do have a history. It’s just tougher to identify with and leads to the interests you asked about.
So my father was born some years later with the very American name Myron Rosenberg.