Justin E. H. Smith delivers a searing meditation on American identity that bypasses the usual partisan noise to ask a far more uncomfortable question: can one love a country while recognizing its foundational violence? This piece is notable because it refuses the binary of patriotic cheerleading or cynical dismissal, instead locating a profound, almost spiritual tension in the experience of an expatriate who sees his homeland through the eyes of both a native son and a foreigner. In an era where political discourse often feels like a shouting match between caricatures, Smith offers a quiet, devastating analysis of what it means to belong to a "fortress" that is simultaneously a home.
The Ancestral Antinomy
Smith begins not with policy or geopolitics, but with the raw material of memory and family myth. He recounts how his American identity was constructed through a grandfather who jerry-rigged a concrete walkway for the 1976 bicentennial and another who served as an avatar for George Washington. Smith writes, "American identity and belonging were thus traduced down to me by elders, and reached all the way back to a quasi-divine first ancestor." This framing is powerful because it grounds abstract nationalism in the visceral reality of family lore, showing how deep these roots run before any political ideology takes hold.
However, Smith immediately pivots to dismantle this comfort. He argues that the modern nation-state, rooted in the Westphalian system of sovereignty established in 1648, is an irrational construct that conflicts with his Christian pacifist convictions. As he puts it, "I do not believe, ultimately, that any state's claim to sovereignty is legitimate." He views the current global order as a "murder-suicide pact" maintained by rulers who would rather destroy the world than accept their own demise. This is a bold philosophical stance, one that elevates the piece from a travelogue to a moral indictment of the very concept of borders.
Critics might argue that Smith's rejection of state sovereignty renders his subsequent discussion of American culture incoherent; if no nation has legitimacy, why does the specific texture of America matter? Yet, this is precisely where the argument gains its unique strength. He suggests that his pride is not in the state's power to "kick your country's ass," but in the human connections that predate and survive it.
My belonging is of the old kind, the kind no less salient in nomadic societies than in sedentist ones, and what I've already described as the incongruity of this sense of belonging with the modern sense of patriotism might better be called an antinomy.
The Exile's Gaze
The narrative then shifts to Smith's thirteen years living in Paris, a period that has transformed his relationship with the United States. He describes a profound alienation from both French society and the American expat community, feeling like "my own poor foreign cousin" when he returns home. This liminal state allows him to see America not as an insider or a critic, but as an observer of a "looming and rather forbidding fortress." Smith notes that this distance has made him realize how legible Black American culture remains to him, even while the lives of his neighbors in Paris remain opaque.
He captures this paradox beautifully: "By contrast, I fly to San Francisco... and on the way a group of Black American teenagers sits down across from me — I understand every word. I don't mean just the language, I mean the whole life-world from which the language pours." This observation cuts through the usual discussions of race in America, suggesting that shared cultural history creates a bond that transcends class or geography, one that is invisible to outsiders.
Smith also tackles the historical violence underpinning this identity. He references the Turner Thesis—the idea that American character was forged on the frontier—not as a celebration, but as an acknowledgment of "settler-colonialism." He writes, "We blonde Californians really were shaped by a historical experience perhaps most comparable to that of the Voortrekkers." This comparison to South African Boer settlers is jarring and effective, forcing the reader to confront the colonial nature of American expansion without the usual euphemisms. It reframes the frontier not as a place of opportunity, but as a site of "immeasurable violence" that required historical forgetfulness to move forward.
The Illusion of Political Flux
As Smith turns his gaze toward contemporary politics, he dismisses the daily churn of news cycles as mere noise. He describes American political life as "a projection of Heraclitean flux over what is in fact an unchanging monolith of Parmenidean sameness." This philosophical lens allows him to bypass the personality cults that dominate modern coverage and focus on structural continuity. When addressing the current administration's actions, he does not dwell on individual scandals but on the nature of power itself.
He critiques the invitation of global sports bodies into the American sphere as a betrayal of the country's highest ideals, calling it "exactly the wrong kind of universalism." Smith argues that this transactional approach to international relations mirrors the behavior of "Caspian Sea oil tycoons," prioritizing wealth and spectacle over moral coherence. He writes, "I see no greater betrayal of everything I love about America than for [the administration] to have invited FIFA and its army of young athletes to enter the fortress." This is a sharp critique of how the state commodifies its image, turning national identity into a brand rather than a shared ethical project.
If there is any good in philosophy, it is this — that it never looks into pedigrees. All men, if traced back to their original source, spring from the gods.
Smith uses this quote from Seneca to pivot toward a more hopeful conclusion: that American universalism, at its best, is not about bloodlines or borders but about a philosophical commitment to humanity. He suggests that anyone can be an "avatar of George Washington," decoupling national identity from genetic inheritance and re-anchoring it in shared human potential.
Bottom Line
Smith's most compelling argument is his ability to hold two contradictory truths simultaneously: the American project is built on a foundation of violence and illegitimate sovereignty, yet it contains a specific, irreplaceable cultural soul that connects him deeply to Black Americans and the legacy of the frontier. The piece's greatest vulnerability lies in its heavy reliance on philosophical abstraction, which may feel detached from the urgent material realities of those struggling within the "fortress" he describes. However, for readers seeking an analysis that transcends the daily political theater, this meditation offers a rare clarity on what it means to love a country while refusing to forgive its sins.