ArcaMax

There is a question increasingly worth asking: Why do some of America's most privileged young people seem to have become among its harshest critics, not merely challenging policies but speaking as though America itself is fundamentally corrupt, oppressive or unworthy of their loyalty?

This is certainly not true of every young white American. Millions love their country, serve in the military, volunteer in their communities, build businesses, raise families and appreciate the opportunities America has afforded them. Nor is criticism inherently anti-American. Some of our greatest patriots challenged this nation precisely because they wanted it to live up to its promises.

But something deeper is happening within parts of our culture.

There is an unmistakable irony: Some of those most disillusioned with America have benefited enormously from the stability, prosperity, education, freedom and security it provides.

Perhaps privilege itself helps explain why.

When you have never lived without freedom, freedom can become invisible.

If you have never feared imprisonment for criticizing your government, free speech can seem ordinary. If you have never experienced genuine economic scarcity, capitalism's flaws can appear larger than the prosperity it has helped create. If you have never lived under authoritarianism, constitutional government can look frustratingly slow rather than remarkably protective.

We often understand the value of something only after experiencing its absence.

Education matters too.

Young Americans should learn about slavery, Jim Crow, the displacement and mistreatment of Native Americans, Japanese American internment, discrimination, political corruption and America's foreign-policy failures. A confident nation does not hide from its sins.

But history becomes distorted when we teach only the sins.

Students should also understand the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the extraordinary experiment in self-government they represent. They should learn about abolition and emancipation, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, religious liberty and the generations of Americans who forced their country to expand the meaning of its founding promises.

The remarkable thing about America is not that it has always lived up to its ideals. It hasn't.

The remarkable thing is that those ideals have repeatedly provided the moral foundation Americans used to confront the country's failures.

Frederick Douglass challenged America by appealing to its own principles. Abraham Lincoln invoked the Declaration's promise that all men are created equal. Martin Luther King Jr. did not ask America to abandon its founding creed; he demanded that America honor it.

That distinction matters enormously.

Social media has complicated the picture by creating an economy of outrage in which the most extreme declaration often receives the greatest attention. Nuance rarely goes viral. Gratitude is not provocative. Saying America is complicated generates fewer reactions than declaring America evil.

For young people searching for identity and community, political outrage can become a form of belonging.

Nor is there anything new about young generations challenging established institutions. Young Americans protested the Vietnam War. Earlier generations challenged racial segregation, economic inequality and traditional social structures.

Youth should question authority.

The danger begins when questioning becomes contempt, and skepticism becomes historical amnesia.

There is also an uncomfortable irony: The freedom to condemn America is itself profoundly American.

In many parts of the world, publicly declaring your nation illegitimate or fundamentally evil could cost you your education, livelihood or liberty. In America, you can condemn the president, burn the flag, organize demonstrations, attack the government in print and campaign to transform the country.

The Constitution protects even your right to question the Constitution.

That is not evidence of a perfect country. It is evidence of an extraordinarily free one.

But those concerned about anti-American attitudes should resist the opposite extreme: blind nationalism.

Patriotism does not require pretending America has never done wrong. Love is not blindness.

You can love your family while acknowledging its failures. You can love your faith while wrestling with difficult questions. And you can love America while demanding better from its government and institutions.

Responsible citizenship requires it.

The answer to anti-Americanism is therefore not censorship or anger. It is better education, greater perspective and deeper engagement.

Let young Americans encounter societies where speech is restricted, economic mobility is limited, religious freedom is uncertain or political opposition carries genuine risk.

Teach them history all of it.

Let them read Thomas Jefferson alongside Frederick Douglass, Lincoln alongside W.E.B. Du Bois, Adam Smith alongside Karl Marx, and The Federalist Papers alongside their critics.

Then trust them to think.

And teach gratitude without demanding obedience.

America is not exceptional because Americans are inherently better than everyone else. Its strength lies in a constitutional framework that allows imperfect people to disagree, reform institutions, replace leaders peacefully and continue pursuing ideals that even the founders failed fully to achieve.

Every generation inherits that unfinished work.

Young Americans should criticize injustice, challenge hypocrisy and demand accountability from corporations, universities, media institutions and government, including presidents of both parties.

But there is a profound difference between saying "America can do better" and concluding that "America is irredeemable."

One demands progress. The other abandons hope.

We should teach the next generation neither that America can do no wrong nor that America has done no right.

Give them the entire story.

Mature patriotism requires two things simultaneously: the courage to confront what America has gotten wrong, and the wisdom to cherish what America has gotten right.

A nation survives not because its citizens believe it is perfect but because enough of them believe it remains worth improving, defending and passing on.

Armstrong Williams is manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast owner of the year. To find out more about him and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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