Alice Lockhart is an American writer and political philosopher. At the start of our interview she had told me that she was an American by birth, having lived for several years in Germany, yet was of French and Irish national heritage. We established that on reflection. She had been thinking about writing a book about nationality, or identity, and it occurred to us that we might actually have in fact produced a national hero here in the US. For all we knew the government of our great nation and all its glory might be nothing more than an elaborate set of interchangeable costumes.
I asked her if she’d ever been curious about herself being a German by birth. She’d said she was, but had not been particularly bothered by it. I suggested that maybe she should have some pride in her heritage and consider herself as a member of a distinct nationality, like an ethnic group or a people, and not just a citizen of the United States, which was indeed what she seemed to be trying to do. She replied: “I am an American by birth, not by choice.” That is quite a distinction, I realized, and I suppose it sheds light on a very important question.
Do we have in the United States a unique identity, or perhaps two or three? We certainly have many nationalities, many races, and many ethnic backgrounds, and we are indeed a melting pot, if we choose to view it that way. What do we call our unique identity, our nationality, our people, our culture, or our identity-the things that make us one? We might prefer to use the term Unique Identity Disorder, or Unique Identity Disorder – ID – rather than Nationality, Identity Disorder, or Race. Or something like that.