Reposted from Horse Head Soup:
Abraham Lincoln is revered in the United States as the secular saint who won the Civil War and saved the Union. I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the idea that maybe that was a bad idea.
The United States is a big country, both in terms of geography and population. Within our borders are over 3.7 million square miles of land and 310 million people. That's a lot. Maybe even too many to be a successful country.
Now, I know what you're going to say. There are other countries that are bigger than us. Russia, Canada and China all have more land area. China and India both have more people. But those examples only serve to my thesis. Russia and Canada are indeed vast, but most of their area is uninhabited. The overwhelming majority of their people live in relatively small geographic areas. India indeed has more people -- a lot more. But India is also a desperately poor country where millions of people live in squalor. It is riven by cultural and religious divisions, and perpetually poised on the brink of nuclear war with its neighbor. That doesn't sound like a model we would want to emulate.
That leaves China. No one can deny that China has had a phenomenal rise in recent decades. They have become the manufacturing center of the world. Their economy is set to surpass ours as the world's largest in a decade or two. They are an economic and political powerhouse whose influence can only grow. If the 1900s were the American Century, then the 2000s will undeniably be the Chinese Century.
So China's success would seem to fly in the face of the "too big" argument. China, after all, has far more people than the United States. But they also have something we lack: Social and cultural cohesiveness.
Again, I know what you're going to say. China has dozens of ethnic groups, and over a hundred languages. Those statements are true, but they are also misleading. The People's Republic of China officially recognizes 55 different ethnic and cultural groups, but the fact is that most of them are very small. 92% of the population is Han Chinese. And while many languages are spoken, there is only one officially recognized national language: Mandarin. For all their diversity, Chinese governments throughout history have long pursued a policy of ethnic Han supremacy, discouraging if not outright suppressing other cultures. The result is a remarkable degree of social and cultural homegeneity.
The United States, by contrast, takes pride in our lack of homogeneity. We celebrate diversity and multiculturalism. The result is a huge disparity in social and cultural values among individuals and, importantly, geographic regions. New England is very different from the Deep South, which in turn is different from the Pacific Northwest, etc., etc. Certain states, like Texas and Alaska, are unique socio-cultural regions unto themselves. California could arguably constitute at least two such regions. It makes for an interesting country, for sure. But it also makes for a country that is difficult -- if not virtually impossible -- to govern effectively.
Consider: I am a New England liberal. I am an unrepentant socialist, a practical atheist, and a secular humanist. I believe in gay marriage and taxing the hell out of the rich. What do I have in common with a socially conservative, evangelical Christian Republican from Mississippi? Not much. His world is as alien to me as any foreign land. In fact, I feel more social and cultural connection to someone from Maritime Canada than I do from my own country's Bible Belt. And quite frankly, I don't want to share a country with them. I'm not interested in compromising my core values in order to accommodate what I consider to be their narrow-minded superstition and ignorance. I'm sure they feel the same way about my Marxist hatred of freedom.
I believe that social and cultural cohesiveness is a necessary ingredient of a successful country. The Chinese achieve theirs by an authoritarian government that restricts individual liberty. But while that method is certainly effective, it doesn't sound particularly pleasant.
So where does that leave us? I don't know about you, but more and more I wish that instead of fighting the Confederacy, Honest Abe had just let them go.