Review and Reflection on “A Great Disorder” by Richard Slotkin

“A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America” was published in 2024 and came out before the 2024 election. And I think Slotkin helped make sense of the election results. This is a book about national myths and values and about who we are as a nation. It’s an existential type of book. It’s a book I have been referring to many times since reading it following the fall election. I highly recommend this book and found it to be one of the most important books I have read in understanding the United States and its history.

National myths are foundational. They “expose the deep structures of thought and belief that underlie today’s culture wars.” (Pg. 3). And in this book, Slotkin identifies five foundational myths of America: The Myth of the Frontier, the Myth of the Founding, the Myths of the Civil War, the Myth of the Good War, and the Myth of the Movement.

These myths matter because “no modern nation is more indebted to, or dependent on, its myths than that United States of America.” (Pg. 4). That’s because our country isn’t based an ethnic or language shared heritage. Rather, what ties this diverse country together is a shared set of beliefs. Of course, that shared set of beliefs is struggling. In some sense, it has always struggled. It’s always been tenuous. We have to rise above our animal instincts. Sometimes we do, but history has shown that other times we give in to them, and fall into tribalistic concerns over country.

Slotkin talks about myths – “myths are stories – true, untrue, half-true – that effectively evoke the sense of nationality and provide an otherwise loosely affiliated people with models of patriotic action.” (Pg. 5). This relates to patriotism, which Slotkin describes as well – “Patriotism in this context is the political expression of nationality. It is not simply loyalty to the state, but the acting out of a particular understanding of why that state exists and for what purpose. It entails a distinct set of understandings about the nation’s history, which see its past as the necessary prelude to a certain kind of future or destiny.” (Pg. 5). Even just reading that leads my mind through a variety of scenarios and seeing how patriotism and myth are applied and used as a lens by which we look at the country, what has happened, and what is happening. Myths become the justification for actions. Patriotism becomes the expression of those justifications.

This also applies civil religion, which Slotkin defines as “a useful way of describing the core ideological values carried by American national myth.” (Pg. 5). “National myths transform the principles of civil religion into scripts, in which believers see themselves as actors on the historical stage, fulfilling – or failing to achieve – the nation’s historic destiny.” (Pg. 6). When looking at current events, we can easily see how this plays out. When we listen to the arguments being used for any policy or political idea, we can hear the foundational myths informing the arguments when we listen just a bit closer and with a curious ear.

Slotkin addresses quickly how national myths are formed. “When we speak of national myths, we refer not to single episodes or stories such as these but to broad and consistent patterns in storytelling, which directly address the fundamental character and purposes of the American nation-state.” (Pg. 7). This is an important point. “Because they encapsulate perennial conflicts, myths are always partially open-ended.” (Pg. 8). We’re talking about themes that are ever evolving and taking on new shape. That’s why the myths are powerful. They are abstract enough to be utilized across a variety of issues, policies, political parties, politicians, and more. They are like a blanket that gives a child a sense of security and safety – something known.

None of this should be a surprise. And none of these is unique to the United States either. Rome had national myths, just like every empire has had. Other nations also have foundational myths.

Slotkin talks about how national myths help produce consent of the govern as well as constrain “our ability to understand and respond to unprecedented crises, and provide a limited path of action.” (Pg. 8). That’s what religious beliefs have always offered, whether we are talking about true religion or civil religion. Think of myth as a pair of glasses that help us to see a bit clearer, but only through the lens. It’s blurry outside the bounds of those lenses. Myth in a way is like oral tradition, or sacred scripture, if we wanted to think about it in a theological sense.

I’ve often talked about how religion and politics are very similar. Both offer origin stories, have sacred documents and holy places, have some form of sacraments and holy objects, have a type of clergy or those that proclaim what the faith is about, and more. Myth is a part of this as well.

Slotkin divides the book into two parts – the first part will dive deeper into each of the national myths, and the second part will use the national myths as a lens by which to look at the culture wars of the last fifty years. When I was reading the book, I wrote a note here at the end of the Introduction which reads: “If the culture wars have taught us anything, it is that the culture wars are a bunch of bull in the sense that the dire warnings never came to pass. It never turned out as bad as the true believers of those culture war positions made it sound.”

Why study national myth at all? Slotkin answers this question quite clearly – “The culture war of our time can be understood as a clash between conflicting versions of the myths that define our national identity. The dysfunction of our politics and our continued coherence as a nation will depend on our ability to reconcile that conflict, and that will require a reform or revision of our lexicon of myths.” (Pg. 16-17). National myths are important. National myths offer justification for all sorts of things – violence, revolution, our perspective on individualism, capitalism, what peace means, and more. And when we forget these things or don’t understand that fact, we are going to have severe problems because we aren’t just debating issues, we’re talking about how the national myths are shaped and used as we progress. And we’re talking about what people will do and what they will accept. In a similar sense, I have often said, we waste our time arguing about issues when they remain abstract. That’s because they are depersonalized and distant. Instead, bring an issue down to earth, where real people live and have a story with the issue. We don’t necessarily solve the issue, but we start to see some things in common. And that’s where national myth can play a role in the discussion. So let’s look at each of the myths in summary.

First, It’s important to mention that I’m only offering a short summary of each of the myths. Slotkin gives a detailed history and significance about each of the myths that help shape a fuller understanding. My goal here is to offer you a basic understanding of each of the myths so that we can talk about the second part of the book – how these have shaped the culture wars over the last 50 years and to look at how we ended up where we are today. I highly recommend reading the chapters to get a fuller understanding.

The first myth is the Myth of the Frontier. The core of this is the so-called American Dream. It’s the idea that there’s always somewhere to expand to in order to solve our problems. “To truly have a world at your will, and enjoy its benefits free of interference, you need to keep your fellow man at a distance.” (Pg. 25). This started by removing the Indigenous Tribes. This is also about a belief that American nationality was defined by whiteness. This myth also lays the foundation for the concept of Manifest Destiny and other seizures of land. At it’s core, when Americans feel crowded or when there is a problem, the myth of the Frontier swoops in to promise that there is always somewhere else we can expand to, or that there are always more resources to tap into in order to solve our problems, rather than face the problems with what we have.

The second myth is the Myth of the Founding. This has to do with the Revolutionary War and the written principles it produced – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – “Two documents that have acquired a standing akin to sacred scripture.” (Pg. 40). At its core, this myth is about the belief of American exceptionalism, that God somehow and for some reason has made a type of covenant with the United States. The irony about this isn’t lost on Slotkin. “…it is worth noting that the Declaration refers to “Nature’s God” rather than the biblical God; that the Constitution makes no mention of God; and that the Bill of Rights, adopted two years after ratification, forbids the establishment of a state religion.” (Pg. 41). The core of this myth centers around why the nation was founded. You can summarize it down to a key phrase – universal human equality. Of course, this is where the fight over the myth takes place. How is that defined? As in all people, or just a select few (based on gender or skin color or nation of origin). Who is equal and who gets to determine equality?

The third myth is the Myths of the Civil War. There are actually three myths rolled into this one. And all them leave out a key group of people – the voice and vision of formerly enslaved blacks. These are white-centric myths. The first is the “Liberation Myth which sees the Civil War as an ordeal of regeneration through violence that not only preserves ‘government by the people, for the people’ but produces a ‘new birth of freedom’ that now includes Black people formerly held as slaves.” (Pg. 63). The opposing version is the “Southern Myth of the Lost Cause, which celebrates the traditional culture of the Old South and justifies violence to restore that culture and its social and racial hierarchy.” (Pg. 63). The last alternative is the “Myth of White Reunion which sees the war as a conflict between kindred branches of the White race that are finally reunited through mutual recognition of each other’s courage and devotion to their cause – minimizing the importance of slavery, emancipation, and Black claims of civic equality.” (Pg. 63).

Slotkin goes in depth into all three of these Civil War myths over a total of three chapters, dealing with Reconstruction, Redemption, Slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, Southern nationalism, history, and more. As with the other myths, Slotkin tells the conflict of narratives that shape each of these myths. There is one quote that I want to highlight in this section though because I think it is a good example of the conflict that still exists today over how words are defined and in the case of this book, how the various myths are used. It’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln distinguishing “the Southern idea of liberty from that espoused by advocates of free labor. ‘With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.'” (Pg. 99). We see this dispute over definitions continue to this day with such words as liberty, freedom, patriot, freedom of religion, government, and more.

In the next section, Slotkin moves us through American history from the aftermath of the Civil War until the 20th century and the World Wars. He spends time talking about the railroad and what he refers to as bonanza economics (think the Gilded Age). This is the period where Reconstruction officially ends, with its unresolved racial challenges. These challenges are often met with violence – “…the necessity of suppression overrides the values of civil liberty, justifying measures to disenfranchise the Black and immigrant elements of the new proletariat.” (Pg. 125). “The result was a sixty-year period of widespread social violence which lasted from 1870-1930. It was characterized by vigilantism.” (Pg. 125).

This is also a period of national imperialism, with continued expansion of American territory – thus reinforcing the myth of the Frontier.

In this section, Slotkin does devote a chapter to the New Deal, saying “The New Deal is, in historian Jefferson Cowie’s phrase, ‘the great exception’ of American history, ‘a sustained deviation…from some of the main contours of American political practice, economic structure, and cultural outlook.'” (Pg. 134). Here, Slotkin argues that the New Deal is the as close to a national myth as one can get without it being a national myth. Part of the reason the New Deal doesn’t quite rise to the level of national myth is because of the Second World War, which produces the fourth national myth – The Myth of the Good War.

The Myth of the Good War takes a specific shape and deals with long standing issues and challenges. “The platoon movie became the basis of the new national myth, the Myth of the Good War, lining the embrace of ethnic and racial diversity to the transformation of America’s role as a world-liberating Great Power.” (Pg. 146). The essence of this is that the good guys (that’s us) are racially diverse in our fighting platoons, fighting against the enemy who claims “racial singularity and superiority.” (Pg. 147). Nevermind that the reality of the American military was for the most part segregated. Myths are interested in the literal truth, but rather in telling the story of our aspirations. There is a core belief about the Myth of the Good War – “By dominating movie screens during and after the way, the platoon movie shaped Americans’ belief that World War II was a good war: inescapable, essentially defensive, righteous in its aims, and entirely successful in its result, one that united the American people as equal partners in a great cause. In retrospect,…Americans would come to thing of it at the Good War – a standard against which all others are to be measured.” (Pg. 153).

In the next section, Slotkin moves us from the Kennedy presidency to the Reagan presidency. In here, he talks about “regenerative violence.” (Pg. 169). It’s the belief that violence can solve a problem and redeem the situation, especially when done by a hero figure who fights to save a community. Slotkin talks about the Vietnam war, the Sixties, and more, moving us further through American history. It’s in this section that he talks about the fifth national myth – the Myth of the Movement. “A new mythology began to emerge, the Myth of the Movement, in which the success of the civil rights movement figured as the model for social movements aiming at the ‘liberation’ of other racial, ethnic, and gender groups; a new environmentalist movement; and a peace movement aimed at ending the Vietnam War and achieving nuclear disarmament.” (Pg. 175). Slotkin goes on to talk about how the civil rights movement shaped this national myth, which was a change from previous national myths. “In mythological terms, this was a shift from the symbolic space of the Western and the Frontier Myth to an expanded understanding of the social justice ethic at the heart of the Good War Myth.” (Pg. 176)

It is at this point that Slotkin takes all of these myths and shows how they have been woven through so much of recent history – from Reagan to the present. It was during this time that we had a reaction and counter to the culture of the Sixties, the establishment of a “neoliberal” order in the world, the end of the Cold War, the culture wars, and more.

So much of this time is still centered on the conflicts that have always been present in this nation. Slotkin summarizes this by saying: “If the civil rights revolution of the Sixties was a Second Reconstruction, Reaganism offered a Second Redemption.” (Pg. 201). Slotkin gives plenty of examples of where each of the national myths have been present.

The Culture War has held a dominate place in American culture since the 1970’s and continues to this day. It’s what makes addressing important issues of our day seem almost impossible. Whether we are talking about climate change or economic issues or anything else, the culture war is there, inserting itself into issues and forcing people to take sides, rather than working on solutions.

The last section of the book takes us from the Obama presidency through the end of the first Trump presidency. Here we see the triumph of the Myth of the Movement, personified with the election of Obama, and the counter reaction of the Tea Party Movement, which would be a precursor for the MAGA movement.

Slotkin has some important insight about the MAGA movement. “It’s symbolism and rhetoric invoked three of our national myths in their most traditional forms: the Myth of the Frontier, with its ideology of non regulation and the mystique of vigilante law; the Myth of the Founding, in the form of a ‘fundamentalist’ understanding of the 2nd Amendment; and the Myth of the Lost Cause, in which merciless vigilante violence is required to save civilization from liberal reformers and their racial clients.” (Pg. 265)

It’s in here that Slotkin talks about the gun rights movement and culture war conservatism. “America’s gun culture is rooted in our origin as an expanding settler state.” (Pg. 267). Violence is justified in this sense. You can practically hear the various national myths coming into play through this. Gun culture isn’t about the weapons, but what the weapons symbolize and the identity they shape for adherents. This carries over to other culture war issues as well – so often we are not actually talking about the issue at hand, but an identity, a set of values, and myths.

Slotkin dives into Trump and MAGA – their interrationship, and the methods of their policies including cruelty, the image of toughness and strength. Much of these things are performative – a way of Trump being a character in the telling of a new myth. Slotkin spends a few chapters going through the first Trump presidency and how the myths were used to various effect.

His last chapter before the conclusion is titled: “The Last President of the Confederacy: Trump’s Lost Cause.” (Pg. 354). This is all about the 2020 election. Here Slotkin says “In the aftermath of the Tulsa debacle, and in the face of the COVID crisis and ensuing economic recession, Trump focused on all-out prosecution of the culture war. At a Michigan rally in October, be cast the election as a battle not just for the future but for the redemption of the past: ‘This election will decide whether we preserve our magnificent heritage or whether we let far left radicals wipe it all away,’ Trump said. ‘They constantly smear America as a racist country….America is the most magnificent, most virtuous nation that has ever existed.” (Pg. 358). This becomes the rationale for the Big Lie and the insurrection.

In the conclusion, Slotkin addresses some important issues we need to face. “American democracy is caught in a potential death spiral.” (Pg. 383). He says we need to develop “a social consensus about what has gone wrong and what should be done about it.” (Pg. 383). But that is not easy when you have a MAGA movement that is “based on the effectiveness with which it expresses the cultural and economic grievances felt by a large share of the electorate. Its adherents’ identity, and their sense of moral authority, is reinforced by their embrace of the most traditional forms of the Myths of the Founding, the Frontier, and the Lost Cause. These provide them with a comprehensive theory of the American past, which they use as a template for charting the national future.” (Pg. 384). Combine this with a political party whose core since 1990 has been “ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” (Pg. 385). On top of this, “The driving force behind MAGA is resentment of the diversion of government resources to immigrants, Black people, and Latinos by liberal officials.” (Pg. 386)

So where does this leave us? “This is the history to which our myths connect us: a dark and bloody ground in which slavery shares space with freedom, dispossession with progress, hatred with heritage.” (Pg. 405). It’s all there. It’s our job to wrestle with this reality.

And what about the Democrats? He says that the Democrats include “‘identity’ groups whose experience of discrimination and economic injustice has been severe.” (Pg. 398). “The task facing the blue coalition is not just to enact policies but to combine political action with cultural reframing to convince a skeptical public that the federal government can be a force for meaningful change.” (Pg. 399). And that comes through the use of the myths. For the Democrats, “The integration of the New Deal and Movement myths is critical to the blue agenda. Taken separately, they symbolize the ideological split that has divided liberal politics since the 1970s…The success of the blue reform program will depend on its ability to reconcile these two myths.” (Pg. 402)

Slotin has another key insight in the conclusion: “MAGA’s problem is that it can rule, but it cannot govern: it can use the instruments of law and government, the dictates of a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and vigilante intimidation to impose a degree of obedience. But its theory of politics precludes the possibility of working with the opposition toward mutually acceptable policies. Thus it cannot create a stable political order.” (Pg. 415). In other words, it’s not sustainable.

This book came out before the 2024 election results. When we look back at the election and what has happened since then, we can hear elements of these national myths running through it all.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It offers great insight into how we got to where we are today and where we are headed.