Hi Paul, thank you for the essay above. I found your thoughts on narrative identity and national security interesting and useful. As I was reading, I had several questions. I hope you will find these questions worth answering.
1) what is your bullet list of our core American values, or heritage values?
2) do you conceptualise values as always positive? do we also hold negative values?
3) can and should core values (and therefore core narrative identity) evolve and change?
4) can we differentiate positive value evolution from negative evolution (or 'value decay')?
5) have there always been deep value divides in American culture, which are now more evident but not different in kind than the identity split during the Civil War (first, not current!)?
6) how do we differentiate 'accurate' from 'inaccurate' values? perhaps you mean 'authentic' rather than accurate, since values are by definition about meaning rather than truth values (to quote you from elsewhere).
7) does the national security community truly own the mission to restore American values to Americans? or is that a more intrinsically civil society task? As a retired member of the national security community, I heartily endorse American citizens owning the responsibility for maintaining, communicating, and cultivating our foundational values. Outsourcing the maintenance and development of core American values to our security community puts us at the mercy of that community, should it fall into toxic narrative psychosis. I tend to conceptualise the nat sec community as having the responsibility for communicating positive American values through every means possible, but particularly through enactment both at home and abroad.That includes the ability to reflect those values in key strategic narratives accurately, authentically and effectively. However, I tend to think that nat sec should reflect the best of what we are, rather than attempt to build Americans into our current forms of 'be best.' (you know where that got us!)
Hi Paul, thank you for the essay above. I found your thoughts on narrative identity and national security interesting and useful. As I was reading, I had several questions. I hope you will find these questions worth answering.
1) what is your bullet list of our core American values, or heritage values?
2) do you conceptualise values as always positive? do we also hold negative values?
3) can and should core values (and therefore core narrative identity) evolve and change?
4) can we differentiate positive value evolution from negative evolution (or 'value decay')?
5) have there always been deep value divides in American culture, which are now more evident but not different in kind than the identity split during the Civil War (first, not current!)?
6) how do we differentiate 'accurate' from 'inaccurate' values? perhaps you mean 'authentic' rather than accurate, since values are by definition about meaning rather than truth values (to quote you from elsewhere).
7) does the national security community truly own the mission to restore American values to Americans? or is that a more intrinsically civil society task? As a retired member of the national security community, I heartily endorse American citizens owning the responsibility for maintaining, communicating, and cultivating our foundational values. Outsourcing the maintenance and development of core American values to our security community puts us at the mercy of that community, should it fall into toxic narrative psychosis. I tend to conceptualise the nat sec community as having the responsibility for communicating positive American values through every means possible, but particularly through enactment both at home and abroad.That includes the ability to reflect those values in key strategic narratives accurately, authentically and effectively. However, I tend to think that nat sec should reflect the best of what we are, rather than attempt to build Americans into our current forms of 'be best.' (you know where that got us!)