The world has grown closer through a globalized economy. Nations rely on each other for their goods and even services, and some more than others. Borders between nations have become easier and safer to cross, especially in regions where countries are allied, such as the European Union. Alliances, like NATO, and agreements, such as NAFTA, have encouraged a sense of global unity. Seventy-five years ago, the United Nations published its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a quasi-Bill of Rights to be adhered to by all nations―a list of rights that has increased as time progresses and social norms change.
Despite the growing global population, the world seems to have shrunk, and the idea of individualism for both nations and persons seems to be dissipating. Therefore, what does it mean anymore to be a citizen? Is the idea of citizenship nearing extinction?
Victor Davis Hanson, classicist, historian, and best-selling author, has long pondered the demise of the modern citizen and has specifically addressed the demise of the American citizen in his latest work, “The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America.”
Hanson traces the historical forces that have conspired to eradicate our once-cherished concept of citizenship. Courtesy of Victor Davis Hanson
Mr. Hanson on Citizenship
American Essence: Where did the idea of citizenship originate, and what encompassed that early understanding of what it meant to be a citizen?Victor Davis Hanson: Citizenship originated in the 7th century B.C. among Greek city-states, originally as a means to protect the property (i.e., farms) of an emerging middle agrarian class. The citizenship bargain gave adult free males, as the heads of a household, the right to select their own leaders and to enjoy some rights of free expression, in exchange for serving in the hoplite phalanx [soldiers in a strategic formation], participating in civic functions, voting, and obeying the laws as established by the assembly of their peers.
AE: Socrates is quoted as saying, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” Do you see that vision of cosmopolitanism taking shape today, and what are the pitfalls of revoking a national identity and, if there are any, the benefits of adopting a cosmopolitan identity?
Mr. Hanson: Socrates is reportedly embracing cosmopolitanism as a contrarian, heterodox point of view, given city-state orthodoxy was to place one’s first loyalty to his polis and its surrounding territory, his second to Hellenism, as defined by a shared language, religion, and place, and his third only to the Enlightenment idea of a common humanity—hard to reify when a huge neighboring Persian Empire sought to destroy a free Greece.
An etching of Plato’s symposium by Pietro Testa, 1648. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public Domain
AE: In regard to the history of citizenship, would you say that Rome and London had the most influence on America’s perception of citizenship? If so, what benefits and responsibilities of citizenship did we adopt from them?
Mr. Hanson: Rome expanded the idea of Greek citizenship beyond the notion of blood and soil, or the idea [that] one could, in the late republic and early empire, become “Roman” without being Italian. The British gave us the added idea of an evolving citizenship, known but not practiced widely by the Greeks and Romans—that is, the concept of expanding citizenship beyond a property-owning class, beyond males, and beyond people’s superficial appearance—in a sometimes-controversial quest for ever greater freedom and equality.
“Socrates” etched by Paulus Pontius after Peter Paul Rubens, 1638. (Wellcome (CC0 BY 4.0, CreativeCommons.org/publicdomain/by 4.0))
AE: With the influx of illegal immigration, are we witnessing the degradation of American citizenship? And if politicians pass legislation to give noncitizens the power to decide America’s political landscape, how will that affect the purpose of American citizenship?
Mr. Hanson: Citizenship hinges on common and shared values, commitments, histories, customs, traditions, and the reassurance of a common secure homeland. Illegal immigration—especially en masse, non-diverse, and non-meritocratic—makes all those classical requirements impossible, especially when 8 million in just two years violate the law to enter the United States and cannot possibly rapidly and effectively be assimilated and integrated into the body politic.
An engraved illustration of Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s painting depicting a scene in ancient Rome, “An Audience at Agrippa’s.” mikroman6/Moment/Getty Images
AE: If you sat down with a young American who demurred about the idea of citizenship, what would you say to try to convince him or her of the importance and necessity of being a citizen?
Mr. Hanson: I would ask a student what is the alternative to Western consensual government and citizenship? Life in theocratic Iran, chaotic Syria or Gaza, authoritarian China, tyrannical Russia, dysfunctional Venezuela, communist Cuba, nightmarish North Korea? And why is immigration always a one-way phenomenon: one from anti-Western, non-democratic, failed states without citizenship to secure, prosperous, and free Western nations? Second, why are naturally rich nations like Mexico or Nigeria failed states, and naturally poor countries like Japan or Switzerland successful nations? The answer is that they embrace Western or Westernized notions of a free citizenry and consensual government that lead to greater security, freedom, prosperity, and confidence in a nation.
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
