Woven into the fabric of the United States, are certain cultural myths. These myths paint a specific portrait of America. The myth of the chosen nation portrays America as a “City upon a Hill”. Like the land of Canaan in the Bible, the U.S. is the promise land and Americans, much like the Hebrews, are a chosen people. The myth of nature’s nation says that America “was based on a natural order” or the American way of life is the way its suppose to be. There are three types of responses to these myths: the absolutist response, the cynical response, and the oppositional response. The absolutist response affirms the myths. The cynical response doubts them. Finally, the oppositional response provides a different point of view entirely. There are many examples of these types of responses in the American media.
It would have been easy to find a conservative person’s speech and use that as an absolutist example. However, it is important to note that liberal also draw from these myths. Case in point, then Senator Barack Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Massachusetts back in 2006, affirms the myth of the chosen nation. In his speech, he claims, “It was right here...where the American experiment began. As the …show more content…
One of their articles, “6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America”, though, was a cynical response to the myth of nature’s nation. Essentially, they showed how the idea that America was carved from nature could not possibly be true. They discussed how Native Americans essentially carved out the North American wilderness, which made it easy for European settlers to move out west. Another aspect of nature’s myth is how it is ahistorical-American is essentially untouched by human tradition. Cracked’s article destroys that part of the myth by showing how many things were borrowed or learned from people and cultures outside of the one found in American
It would have been easy to find a conservative person’s speech and use that as an absolutist example. However, it is important to note that liberal also draw from these myths. Case in point, then Senator Barack Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Massachusetts back in 2006, affirms the myth of the chosen nation. In his speech, he claims, “It was right here...where the American experiment began. As the …show more content…
One of their articles, “6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America”, though, was a cynical response to the myth of nature’s nation. Essentially, they showed how the idea that America was carved from nature could not possibly be true. They discussed how Native Americans essentially carved out the North American wilderness, which made it easy for European settlers to move out west. Another aspect of nature’s myth is how it is ahistorical-American is essentially untouched by human tradition. Cracked’s article destroys that part of the myth by showing how many things were borrowed or learned from people and cultures outside of the one found in American