We’re unafraid to face our issues

The most important aspect of American greatness is that it is not rooted in satisfaction with what we are but rather aspiration towards what we could be.

Indeed, many people are inclined to point to American wealth or power on the world stage as being the quintessential elements of American greatness, but that doesn’t make any sense. Those are relatively recent phenomena.

It was only a short time ago that we were an upstart group of revolutionaries breaking free of the British Empire. What defined us was our ambition. We didn’t see ourselves as part of some historical legacy that therefore made us better than everybody else.

Even more, the goal was not merely to be just another country, indistinguishable from those that came before.

No. America’s founders possessed the audacious impulse to perfect the model of a democratic republic that would surpass anything that came before it. They knew it would not be easy and were fully aware of the contradictions present from day one.

So we don’t have a problem reconciling our claim to greatness with the many flaws that we acknowledge. We have poverty. We have crime. We have inequality.

Also, our history is rife with injustice, violence and indefensible discrimination. Indeed, the United States of America was built upon two egregious sins: slavery and dispossession of Native Americans.

We have had — and still have — all kinds of issues to confront.

But that’s the key point. We’re not afraid to confront them. These problems do not invalidate greatness because we never claimed perfection.

Rather, we have looked at these issues (and many others) as defects in American democracy to be corrected. A bloody war was fought to eliminate slavery. The Constitution was amended to recognize the humanity and citizenship of people who were shamefully treated as property.

That was only a step in the right direction as Jim Crow and other forms of legal and informal discrimination continued to hold people back. But civil and voting rights laws have been enacted to continue the march of progress.

Are we done yet? Of course not. Still working on it.

It was only 99 years ago that women were granted to the right to vote. Obviously, that did not end gender discrimination, let alone open all doors equally. Here too, the strong impulse to continue the progress remains and new issues come into focus: harassment and parity in pay are now in sharp relief.

To be clear, the story of American progress is not only about equality but opportunity — another bedrock of American greatness. A set of institutions intended to give everyone a chance at success including public schools and support for higher education, access to medical care for our poorest citizens, and public supports for housing and farms, has fueled our growth.

We’ve also raised our baseline expectations for quality of life. We have rejected the version of the United States, for instance, in which our elderly die impoverished (creating Social Security and other safety net programs).

Still, we haven’t yet come close to achieving perfection. But we as long as we continue to work steadily to get better, our grasp on the quintessential element of American greatness will remain strong.

Above all, we must avoid the temptation of self-satisfied chest beating. Selfsatisfaction is the enemy of elite athletes.

It’s the enemy of artists and inventors. It’s the enemy of entrepreneurs and strivers.

It invalidates self-criticism, undermines hard work and retards improvement. Only naysayers and those who profit from the status quo gain from smug self-congratulation.

For Americans, the recognition of our flaws — and the imperative to do better — is especially crucial. Our national history is rich and complex. It includes glorious accomplishment in economic, political and cultural terms and articulation of radical principles regarding liberty, equality and human rights.

But it undeniably also features multiple episodes of degradation and stunning unfairness. It includes an embrace of immigration and a national identity that is not rooted in race or ethnicity and yet discrimination is repeating storyline. How do we reconcile all this?

The answer lies in our ambition. By defining ourselves by our aspirations, we avoid the need to paper over the parts of history that fall short of our principles. We can point to them as milestones on our journey forward.

And we make it possible for all Americans — those descended from slaves, Native Americans whose ancestors were robbed of their heritage, descendants of immigrants and those who just arrived — to join together in the struggle to perfect implementation of the inspiring ideas articulated at our founding.

Here is the essence of American greatness: A relentless ambition to improve. And a hard-wired willingness to do what it takes to get there.

Without that, we will not live up to the ideals we espouse, and we will not be entitled to wear the mantle of American greatness to which we proudly claim title.