There is much to criticize about America; have no doubt about that. I cannot solve all of society’s ills, nor even begin to comment on all of them. I cannot address them all in my lifetime. I cannot express everything that needs to be said about a nation that is part superpower, part developing country. America is indeed fraught with problems.

To name but a paltry few: the wrong industries are privatized (healthcare for one, and that will merit a separate post); lawyers have too much power and therefore create a culture of fear that affects our economics; middlemen, such as stockbrokers or any sort of financial agents feed off of necessary transactions and therefore charge exorbitant fees to customers; access to healthcare and quality education is still tragically unequal; the right wing controls religion, patriotism, and social issues; “family values” is a joke, for adequate maternity/paternity leave, affordable childcare, and child-friendly facilities are virtually nonexistent; civil liberties go to such extremes that our government and social institutions are often prevented from being able to care for people’s well-being; corporate culture dominates so much of the business world; developers have all too much power and get away with all sorts of environmental and urban atrocities; unions, though begun with noble goals, get out of hand and create unreasonable demands on any given financial system; ridiculous Puritanism coupled with excessive lechery prohibit a healthy expression and understanding of sensuality and sexuality in American culture; an obsession with money and work clashes with basic fundamentals of health (how many sick people or injured have to drag themselves to work out of fear?); racism still exists on subtle levels; the sexual revolution has been just that—-sexual—-and women still in many cases do not get equal rights or at least respect from men outside of the bedroom.

That take away all of these negatives in American society, strip all of these extremes and unethical behaviors away, and at the bottom of it, there exists a wonderful culture and people. Gloria Steinem once made a remark that America was the greatest living social experiment, or something to that effect, and one cannot help but feel that she had a good point. Ours is a country with an arguably unparalleled diversity, diversity that often shocks visitors from other countries and, inadvertently, biases our minds when we visit homogenous countries that seem “racist.” A Jew might live across the street from Hindus whose neighbors are Polish Catholics and whose friends down the block are a secular Turkish Muslim married to an atheist (my childhood). Those fortunate enough to live in urban areas might eat cereal for breakfast, pad thai for lunch, and gnocchi from the trattoria for dinner.

We have a genuine openness that stuns foreigners, trusting optimism that says “yes” rather than “no.” Our society is built on the premise that mobility and self-betterment are okay, that there is no shame in these things. (Recall the scorn heaped by the British upper classes on the self-made, enterprising Middletons). The American spirit is a can-do one, a spirit with a minimum of suspicion. Yes, in certain areas of the country—-usually regions with strong community ties in the interior, or in small towns—-there is a sense of jealousy against those who try to get ahead. But generally speaking, success is greeted positively in America, especially when compared with how it is viewed in other parts of the world.

Even romantically, as Americans, we want a happy ending. We want the guy to get the girl at the end of the movie. We women want to have the career *and* the husband. We want the nice wedding reception at the vineyard. We have a certain “teleology” (as a friend of mine put it) with romantic relationships. This is often in stark contrast to the very rationalistic, social welfare cultures of Northern and Western Europe where many couples don’t feel the impetus to have their relationship recognized by the state, and don’t need marriage as a means of economic fulfillment since one’s needs are taken care of by the government. “We are happy as we are” many of them might say, and there is no arguing with that. A number of Americans feel the same way as well. But romance is one of the oldest, and most fundamental human impulses and marriage one of the oldest institutions—-why shouldn’t it “lead somewhere”??

We want to move forward as a culture, we are always moving forward, and certainly sometimes this can be less than a positive. Look at the stress levels of Americans compared to those of people in other developed nations. Look at the waste we create in our highly consumerist society. Look at the shallowness of our popular media in the age of Kardashian Kulture. Again, we have to add these things to the list of our society’s ills. There are many countries that come out ahead of the United States on indices of quality of life, and it’s not often hard to see why.

But our optimism will always include awareness; there are always those who want things in our country to grow sustainably, so to speak. We don’t have stigmas against trying. Our educational system fosters an openness of thought even from an early age, and the older I get, the more I realize how special this is. Criticize what you will about the United States, but you cannot justifiably criticize her optimism. Those who don’t believe it can only be considered the worst kind of skeptics.

Happy 237th Birthday, America!