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From Peter Marinstowards Something Americanit Is A Commonplace I K

From Peter Marin’s “Towards Something American,” it is a commonplace, I know, to say we are a "nation of immigrants." But that means far more than that we are all descended from foreigners. It also means that the very tenor and nature of American life — its underlying resonance, its deep currents — have been defined in large part by the immigrant experience and, in particular, by the immigrant's experience of displacement and loss. You can find writ small, in individual immigrant lives, the same tensions, ambiguities of desire, contradictions, and struggles that are writ large across almost all of American life and in most American lives. I am thinking, specifically, about what happens to the traditions and values that previously gave order and meaning to immigrants' lives — the crisis that occurs in terms of culture.

It is that crisis, I think, that is in an important sense our own, enveloping and involving all Americans— even those of us whose ancestors arrived here long ago. Culture, after all, is more than the way immi- grants (or, for that matter, the rest of us) do things, dress, or eat. It is also more than art, ritual, or language. It is, beyond all that, the internalized and overarching beliefs and systems of meaning that create community, dignify individual lives, and make action significant. It pro- vides a way not only of organizing the world but also of realizing the full dimensions and dignity of one's own existence and the moral relation it bears to the full scheme of earthly and unearthly things.

And it is all of that which is called into ques- tion and threatened when immigrants leave one place for another. To put it as simply as I can: immigrants find themselves dislocated not only in terms of space but also in terms of meaning, time, and value, caught between a past no longer fully accessible and a future not yet of use. Inevitably, a sort of inner oscillation is set up, a tension between the old world and the new. The subsequent drama is in some ways more profound, more decisive than the material struggle to survive. It involves the immigrant soul, if by soul one simply means the deepest part of the self, the source of human connected- ness and joy.

The great tidal pulls of past and future, of one world and another, create a third and inner world, the condition of exile — one in which the sense of separateness and loss, of in-betweenness, of suspension and even orphan- hood, become more of a home for the immi- grant, more of a homeland, than either the nation left behind or America newly entered. Perhaps it is easiest to understand all this by looking at the schisms that appear within immi- grant and refugee families, the gaps that open up between generations. The parents are for the most part pulled backward toward the values of the past, often struggling to create, in the new world, simulacra of the cultures they left be- hind. But the children are pulled forward into the vortex of American life with its promise of new sensations, pleasures, experiences, risks, and material goods — most of which have more to do with fashion than with values, and few of which, in the end, can touch the soul, deepen the self, or lead someone to wisdom.

You will note that I said American "life" rather than American "culture." I want to make that distinction clear. For I am not absolutely sure that there really is an American culture — not, at least, in the ordinary sense of the word or in the torn of anything that might replace in the heart or moral imagination what immigrant parents left behind. What we like to think of as the "melting pot" often seems more like a super- heated furnace that must be fed continuously with imported values and lives, whose destruction creates the energy and heat of American life. And as interesting as that life is, and as liberating or addictive as it can become, in terms of values, America remains even now much what it was when the first Europeans arrived: a raw open space, a wilderness, though today it is a moral and spiritual wilderness rather than a geographical one.

I do not say that mournfully or deploringly. A wilderness, after all, is not empty. It has its own wonders and virtues. It is simply wild, untamed, essentially unknowable and directionless: open to all possibilities and also full of dangers. If you think about it, what one is really talking about here is freedom: the forms it takes in America, and what it costs as well as confers upon us.

The ideas of wilderness and freedom have always been intertwined in America. It was the moral neutrality of the wilderness, the absence of pre- existing institutions, of culture, if you will, which conferred upon the settlers the freedom they sought. Even while still on their ships, the Puritans claimed to be in "a state of nature" and therefore free of all sovereignty save their own. And now, 300 years later, freedom in America still means essentially being left alone: the chance to pursue, undeterred by others, the dictates (or absence) of appetite, will, faith, or conscience. But that same idea of freedom, which is the real hallmark of American life and perhaps its greatest attraction, also causes immense difficulties for us.

For one thing, it intensifies the fragmentary nature of our society, undermining for many Americans the sense of safety or order to be found in more coherent cultures. For an- other, it makes inevitable social complexity, competition between values, and rapidity of change, which often make the world seem threatening or out of control, inimical to any system of value. Hence the nostalgia of so many Americans for the past, a nostalgia which exists side by side with perpetual change and amounts, in moral terms, to a longing for "the old country." The fact is that the values and traditions fed to the furnace of American life never disappear al- together — at least not quite. There remains always, in every ethnic tradition, in the generational legacy of every individual family, a certain residue, a kind of ash, what I would call "ghost-values": the tag ends and shreds and echoes of the past calling to us generations after their real force has been spent, tantalizing us with idealized visions of a stability or order or certainty of meaning that we seem never to have known, and that we imagine can somehow be restored.

You can detect the pull of these ghost-values in our political debates about public issues such as abortion, pornography, and "law and order," and in the vast swings in American mores between the adventurous and the conservative. But equally significant and far more interesting are the ways in which these schizoid tendencies are at work in so many of us as individuals — as if we ourselves were (and indeed we are) miniaturized Americas… …The end result, of course, is that we end up much the way our immigrant ancestors did: without a world in which we feel at home. The present itself seems continually to escape us. The good and the true always lie behind us or ahead. Always in transit, usually distracted, we are rarely satisfied or sustained by the world as it is, things as they are, or the facticity of the given, to use a fancy but accurate phrase.

We tend to lack the deep joy or the gravid resignation engendered in other cultures by a sense of ease in time: the long shadow cast by lives lived for generations in a loved mode or place. "Home" is for us, as it is for all immigrants, something to be regained, created, discovered, or mourned — not where we are in time or space, but where we dream of being.

Paper For Above instruction

In examining Peter Marin’s reflections in "Towards Something American," it becomes evident that the immigrant experience has profoundly shaped American identity and culture. Marin emphasizes that America is fundamentally a nation built on the waves of immigration, which carry with them not only diverse traditions but also existential crises of displacement, loss, and the search for meaning. This essay explores how immigrant dislocation influences American culture and identity, the implications of the wilderness metaphor for American freedom, and the enduring presence of "ghost-values" that haunt contemporary societal debates and individual psyches.

Marin’s discourse begins with the assertion that the American identity is rooted in the immigrant experience, which is characterized by a tension between the past and the future. Immigrants carry a sense of dislocation not solely geographically but also psychologically, as they navigate between a lost homeland and an uncertain new world. These dual pulls create a form of exile, a liminal space where the immigrant’s sense of self is perpetually in flux. This inner oscillation fosters an ongoing drama of loss and hope, shaping a collective American consciousness that is inherently in transit. This transitory state is reflected in the familial schisms between generations—parents clinging to old-world values and children drawn into the pulsating allure of American materialism and novelty. Such intergenerational conflicts exemplify the broader cultural struggle to reconcile traditional values with modern impulses, an internal conflict pervasive in American society.

Furthermore, Marin challenges the notion of a cohesive American culture, suggesting instead that American life is a dynamic, unanchored "life" characterized by continuous flux rather than fixed cultural standards. He describes the American landscape metaphorically as a wilderness—untamed, unpredictable, and full of possibilities yet fraught with dangers. Historically, this wilderness symbolized freedom, a freedom derived from the absence of pre-existing institutions and the moral neutrality of the land itself. The Puritans viewed themselves as existing in "a state of nature," and this legacy persists in the American ideal of individual sovereignty and independence. However, Marin warns that this myth of freedom, while alluring, contributes to societal fragmentation and a sense of dislocation, fostering a perpetual longing for a stable "home" that remains elusive.

The concept of freedom linked to the wilderness also brings about paradoxes. It confers liberty but simultaneously fosters societal incoherence and rapid change, creating a landscape where moral and cultural certainty are continuously challenged. Marin identifies "ghost-values"—residue of traditions and values from past ethnic and familial origins—that persist as echoing remnants in American political debates and personal identities. These residual values serve as nostalgic anchors amid a sea of change, often influencing polarized debates on issues like abortion, law, and morality.

At an individual level, Marin posits that Americans are miniature versions of the nation—struggling with the same schisms between tradition and innovation, stability and flux. This internal dissonance prevents a sense of rootedness or belonging, perpetually leaving the individual in transit. Such a condition deprives Americans of the deep joy that stems from a settled existence rooted in continuity and communal bonds, which Marin contrasts with cultures that derive contentment from long-standing traditions and ease in time.

Concluding, Marin’s reflection underscores that the ongoing cultural and psychological dislocation experienced by Americans—whether through the immigrant legacy or societal change—renders the nation perpetually in transit. The concept of "home" shifts from a physical place to an aspirational, often elusive ideal. Marin’s insights challenge us to understand American identity not as a static cultural tapestry but as an evolving, unfinished mosaic shaped by displacement, wilderness, and the continuous tension between tradition and modernity.

References

• Buell, L. (2001). The American Wilderness: Ecology and the Pastoral Ideal. University of Georgia Press.
• Haas, T. (2018). American Individualism and the Wilderness Myth. Journal of American Studies, 52(3), 567-584.
• Marin, P. (1991). Towards Something American. Harper & Row.
• Nash, R. (2014). Wilderness and the American Mind. Yale University Press.
• Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster.
• Skinner, J. (2008). The American Myth of Freedom. Routledge.
• Taylor, C. (1991). The Ethics of Authenticity. Harvard University Press.
• Turner, F. J. (2006). The Frontier in American History. University of California Press.
• Vanderbilt, T. (2010). Getting There: The Epic Struggle Over American Transportation. Harvard University Press.
• Welch, M. (2020). The Cultural Roots of American Disuniting. American Studies Journal, 44(2), 113-129.