What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great Essay
Abstract
This “what makes America great” essay will look at three aspects of American culture and character that help to explain American exceptionalism. America is unlike any other nation in the world.  Its critics like to point out its flaws.  But those who appreciate it for what it is recognize that America is and has always been the “land of opportunity”—more so than any other country in the world (Keuilian).  From the conquistadors to the colonialists to the Founding Fathers to the Fathers of Industry, America has been the stage where the world’s imagination has flourished and found the most food for thought and fuel for innovation.
Introduction
The fact that America is largely an accident is a footnote in history by now.  It was accidentally discovered by Columbus.  (He was shooting for India).  It was considered a Great Experiment by the Founding Fathers.  Washington called it as a much and historian Paul Johnson has remarked that “the creation of the United States is the greatest of all human adventures.  No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind” (3).  America has been called the New Rome, the New Jerusalem and the New World.  It, more than any other nation, has been at the heart of the modern world for the past four centuries.  Its exploits have shaped, determined and impacted the rest of the population on the globe as though it truly were the light shining on the hill.  What is it about America that has made it so great, so powerful, so bright, so big, and so magnificent?  If one had to boil it down to just three things, one could say it is America’s individualism, ingenuity, and all-out toughness.
American Individualism
No “What Makes America Great” essay could be complete without first discussing the idea of American Individualism.  America is truly the birthplace of Freedom.  Paris gets all the credit for its own emphasis on “liberty, equality and fraternity” and its French Revolution—but the American Revolution preceded the French one by a good decade at least.  America set the stage for Revolution.  It wrote its defiant open letter to the King of England and dared to call it a Declaration of Independence, well before doing so was a trend among much smaller nations attempting to throw off the yoke of neo-colonialism.  The colonists wanted the English Crown out of the New World.  The War for Independence won them the right to rule themselves and, ever since, American Individualism has been a force to be reckoned with.
The 31st U.S. President Herbert Hoover declared that “Individualism has been the primary force of American civilization for three centuries. It is our sort of individualism that has supplied the motivation of America’s political, economic, and spiritual institutions in all these years.”  The first colonialists were individuals, branching out on their own in the New World, cutting themselves off from their European roots and making a new, fresh start for themselves and their people in a foreign land.  The pioneers pushed the boundaries of the frontier and blazed the trail westward, facing the challenges and dangers that went hand in hand with expanding the territory.  The Founding Fathers stood their ground against not only the English crown but against the very government of monarchy itself at a time when monarchy was still the accepted form of government.
American Individualism was so great that its individual states refused to accept a single government that was centrally controlled:  in order to pass the Constitution, the states wanted guarantees that state governments would not be run over by the federal authorities.  The states even went so far as to fight a civil war over whether or not the individual states had the right to decide for themselves if they wanted to be part of the Union any longer or not—that is how fiercely protected and cherished the sense of Individuality was in America.
Freedom and democracy have been the hallmarks of this Individualism, but the idea of picking oneself up by the bootstraps and making one’s own way in the world is an essentially American idea.  The idea of the value of the individual is so ingrained in the American culture that it still shocks Americans today to think of collectivist societies wherein every person submits to the will of a single leader who makes all the decisions for the common herd.  Such an idea is anti-American to the core.
American Ingenuity
America’s Individuality was supported, however, by American Ingenuity.  This refers to the innovative spirit that fueled America’s development.  From the rise of American Industrialism (the railroad, the steel mills, the meat packing industry, the oil industry, the agriculture industry) to the rise of Big Tech (Silicon Valley), America has been at the forefront of every major scientific breakthrough—mainly because, as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of all invention.
America’s reputation for ingenuity quickly got underway with the creation of the Erie Canal in the early half of the 19th century.  The farmers of upstate New York set about doing the work of routing the course for the canal when the original planners, engineers and workers failed to achieve the goal.  The simple American farmer understood what to do and had the tenacity to do it.
This intuition drives the American character.  Everyone has heard of Dolby Surround Sound.  If they have ever been to a movie theater, they have sat in seats while Dolby systems provided them with the sounds and music meant to accompany the film images flickering on the screen.  Where did that system come from?  Ray Dolby.  Who was he?  The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History explains readily enough:  “Ray Dolby was that distinctively-American character—the independent inventor—who has always been such a prominent feature of our nation’s innovation ecosystem.  The middle class son of a salesman and homemaker, Ray’s patented noise suppression technologies changed the way we all enjoy music and movies” (Sherman).  And believe it or not, Dolby is just one small example among hundreds of thousands.  From the creator of the cotton gin to the creator of the telephone to the creator of the Model T to the creator of Windows and the iPhone, America has shown itself as a rich source of innovation and ingenuity.
American Toughness
Every good American loves to fight—that was the basic belief of General George S. Patton.  From the pioneer spirit to the promoters of “Manifest Destiny,” the idea has always been the same:  Americans will fight to get what they want and they will not stop until they get it.  America went as far west as it possibly could and then it crossed the Pacific to go west still more.  It took Hawaii and even battled for a time over the Philippines with Spain.  Its history has essentially been a history of war, and that is one of the reasons it has the strongest, toughest, biggest military in the world.
Ronald Reagan understood the value of American Toughness and he made it a core part of his approach to foreign policy:  “Deterrence means simply this, making sure any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States or our allies or our vital interests concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won't attack. We maintain the peace through our strength. Weakness only invites aggression” (The Heritage Foundation).  American Toughness is what allowed the Allies to win World War II and establish a new economic order throughout the world.  It is what compelled America to fight and claw its way through the Cold War and oppose the spread of Communism wherever and whenever it could.  American Toughness was on display throughout the whole of the 20th century and even today can still be seen, though many question whether some of the grit and toughness that used to characterize America’s fighting forces is still the same.  Part of that problem, however, is leadership, and with the election of Donald Trump in 2016 the American voter showed that he wanted a leader who would cut through all the fancy talk and political correctness and speak for the common man, the worker, the farmer, the working class, the miner.
American Toughness is what allowed the nation to achieve its “Manifest Destiny” by annexing Mexico and pushing the frontier all the way to the Pacific.  It was grit and determination that prompted Americans to forge their ways in the fields and in the cities.  It was American resilience that gave the country more than a fighting chance.  It was the never-say-never mentality that allowed America to flourish and become the greatest nation on earth.  It was the American government’s willingness to get out of the way and allow producers to innovate and design new concepts and create new breakthroughs in technology.
Today, Americans honor that same spirit of mental and physical toughness by supporting their favorite teams and professional athletes.  From the NBA to the NHL, Americans love sports and love to see their teams win.  Whether it is the World Series, the Super Bowl, college games, or amateur competitions, Americans in general will stop what they are doing to watch a good contest.  Skill, agility, toughness and persistence are all traits that Americans admire because they know that to make it in this world one cannot rely on anyone but oneself.  They know that in order to succeed, one has to be tough.   And that is what America has always been about.
Conclusion
In this "what makes America great essay" it should be abundantly clear that what makes America great is the character and vitality of the American people.  It is not a specific ideology or a specific way of life.  America is filled with all sorts of people from all over the planet.  Yet what makes them all similar is that when they come to America they all share the same vision of what an American should be:  an American should be tough, innovative and individualistic.  America is about reaching one’s potential and not letting anything get in the way of one’s goals.  It is a country where everyone is allowed to dig down and reach up.  That is why America has always been attractive to people, no matter where they are from.  It has always been seen as a land of golden opportunity.  It is a land where one’s mettle will be tested.  It is a land where people find out what they are made of.  It is a land where the ordinary can become extraordinary, where men like Ray Dolby can change the way a person experiences sound.  It is a land where anything is possible.  And that is what makes America great.
Works Cited
The Heritage Foundation. “How Strong is the United States Military?”  Heritage, 2019. https://www.heritage.org/defense/heritage-explains/how-strong-the-united-states-military
Hoover, Herbert. The Future Of American Individualism.  Hoover Institution, 2011.  https://www.hoover.org/research/future-american-individualism
Johnson, Paul.  A History of the American People.  HarperCollins, 1997.
Keuilian, Bedros.  “Why America Is Still the Land of Opportunity.”  Entrepreneur, March 14, 2018.  https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310208
Sherman, Andy.  “Long Live American Ingenuity.” The Hill, October 19, 2018. https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/412211-long-live-american-ingenui