Ta-Nehisi's dismissal of the "greatest nation in the history of the world" idiots got me thinking. I'm a huge fan of Gore Vidal, and especially his historical fiction, which often expresses appreciation for underappreciated historical figures (like William McKinley) and looks more coldly at overappreciated ones (like Teddy Roosevelt). I believe it was Teddy, in one of Vidal's books, who said something like this, which prompted a response that he took his country for granted. And I think Liz Cheney's doing that too.
I think this is a concept that needs to be unpacked a little bit. Normally, when one thinks of taking something for granted, one thinks of ignoring that thing--and it's usually a spouse. But that's only one way of taking something for granted. It's just as bad--if not worse--to mindlessly praise your spouse every day without meaning it. At least hatred is an honest emotion. With this form of taking something for granted, the actual characteristics of the thing in question become irrelevant, and serve only as a pleasant abstraction of a symbol of status. I'd love to see a news anchor ask Liz Cheney why America now is the greatest country in the history of the world. I suppose it's possible to devise criteria by which this statement is true, but I suspect it would be something along the lines of "powerful military/economic "freedom"/moral values/power", all of which can be found in greater abundance in other and earlier countries, though it is true that we do have some pretty unparalleled economic power.
Ultimately, though, I think that evaluating a nation on any of these things is silly. A strong economy isn't a precious thing in and of itself, but rather as an auxiliary in establishing broadly-shared prosperity. We're not terrible on that scale, but we've stumbled over the past few decades. I tend to think that merely making this about prosperity or happiness doesn't quite get at it either, but I tend to think that we judge our success according to these metrics because that's what we're good at, in the same way that the French tend to evaluate their society according to education and culture. Ultimately, I tend to think that most nations feel that they're great, largely because every country is going to evaluate itself based on what it perceives to be its most appealing features and greatest successes.
But, getting back to the Vidal quote, even if one assumes that the Cheney proposition depends in one way or another upon economic and military might, it seems baffling to want to evaluate a nation based on things that are not guaranteed, and that will wax and wane over time. I suppose one could celebrate the greater amount of economic libertarianism in America as opposed to, say, Finland, but that seems a little odd and excessively ideological. Nobody talks about how much economic freedom existed under the Romans, but presumably there was more, despite the rather significant military expenditures of the time. Laudable or not, that metric is a little too esoteric. I suppose my criteria--this is going to be solipsistic, but then again, so's this whole conversation!--would be some mixture of equal opportunity, justice, openmindedness, and freedom. All in all, according to these metrics, I'd say that we're doing pretty well, but that there's substantial room for improvement on items (1) and (2), while we do quite well on (3) and (4), despite the small chorus of pitiful wingnuts that dissents from the common American views on these subjects. Certainly, when it comes to things like free speech and multiculturalism, we do much better than Europe, while I feel that they do better on some of the economic stuff. I'm not sure what the "greatest" country in history might be, as I'm not familiar with the politics of every country on the globe, but then again, neither are the wingnuts. I'd be very surprised if Liz Cheney could name many foreign heads of state. What matters isn't the facts to them, but the abstractions. They take "the greatest country in the history of the world" for granted.
