British author Aldous Huxley was right when he wrote that “most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” Today, as America approaches her 250th anniversary, we see many such displays of ingratitude — from celebrity Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who says, “America, from its foundation, is a white supremacist country,” to right-wing podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who suggests sharia-led Muslim nations and Putin’s Moscow are superior to America. Many recent polls have shown that patriotism, particularly among younger generations, has diminished in recent years.
Patriotism, of course, is more than gratitude, but it should not be overlooked. Additionally, the replacing of gratitude with grievance has diminished the way that Americans feel about America. Consider, for example, Benjamin Franklin’s rebuke to the representatives gathered in Philadelphia who hammered out the document that would govern their new nation. It was 1787, a little more than a decade after the Declaration of Independence was signed and almost six years after the British surrendered at Yorktown. America was a fragile nation, barely held together by the weak Articles of Confederation. There was no guarantee at this meeting that the nation these men founded would become the world’s leading superpower.
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