The American Cowboy

Americans have a unique vision of themselves and their role in the world.  Unlike perhaps any other peoples in history, Americans see themselves as people of destiny and a people who were put here to do something phenomenal and something significant for history and for all peoples of the earth.  This unique self-concept, sometimes perceived as arrogance, is deeply grounded in a set of archetypes that Americans use to form their vision of themselves in the world.  And no other archetype is as powerful in the American psyche than that of the cowboy.

The actual American cowboy was indeed a unique individual.  While probably not as noble and ruggedly handsome as the images created of him in the movies, they were unique types of men who carved out a civilization from the rugged wilderness that was the American west in the years before the turn of the last century.

Some of the reasons that the image of the cowboy sometimes includes elements of the outlaw and the loner is that much of the legend of the cowboy came from stories of refugees from the broken southern army who took to the life of the cowboy rather than attempt to integrate into a society that included making peace with “the Yankee”.  And that type of individual certainly did account for many of the outlaws who went on to become the stuff of legend and stories even to this day.

The renegade and loner image combined with the rough life of an actual cowboy whose job it was to guide those huge herds of cattle along trails such as the historic Cumberland trail where they could be sold to become the steaks, leather and other goods that were sold in rustic American stores of the time.  This was a difficult life and the stories of the trail make up many history books for sure.  But far more of the stories of the trail are glorifications of that lifestyle that must have been difficult indeed.

But the image of the cowboy was also something that grew larger than what the actual lifestyle of those simple but rugged men must have lived in the American west.  It was an image that pulled together heroes as far flung as the Australian Gaucho cowboy, the Japanese Samurai and a knight in King Arthur’s court.  It was an image of a man who demonstrated the rugged individualism that all Americans consider to be one of the central unifying traits that makes America great.

The cowboy image is one that even has its influence as high in the social strata of America that it influences the presidency.  It is said that there is a tradition for any president when he first is elected and comes to Washington to begin learning this big new job.  Tradition h olds that each president has as part of their early duties to sit down and watch the movie High Noon.  They say that President Clinton watched it dozens of times in his early years.  If this is true, it accounts for how often a new president seems to grow and change in the office and becomes his own version of the great American hero that is depicted in that movie.  The American cowboy defends the virtue of the weak and helpless.  He is a staunch defender of families and those in society who are trying to carve out a home in a difficult world.  As such, the American cowboy fits with the “superhero” image that also appeals to the American system of justice and morality and values.

Even the star wars epic films were fundamentally grounded in the legend of the cowboy.  The cowboy concept grew up from a history of our country that included the settling of a big land and the settling of a wilderness that pit the god given will and intellect of man against God’s creation.  And it was the will of man that prevailed.  That is why American’s admire the cowboy because he represents their own struggles for greatness, for success and to be a heroic figure at least for their families, home towns and churches.  And that desire so deeply rooted in the culture of American history will always be what makes America and Americans great.

American Inventions

The history of how America emerged as the premier superpower in the world is about more than just a great military or a homeland so rich in natural resources that we were able to become the breadbasket of the world.  There are many forces that combined in the American experiment that has made this country so great.  One of those great forces is the phenomenal inventive minds that have graced America virtually since its inception.  Starting with the powerful mind of Benjamin Franklin, the history of inventions that started in America and transformed the world is lengthy indeed.

The computer has become so much a part of our lives that we forget that it was once invented.  The history of the development of this “futuristic” device is long and filled with genius.  The actual first prototypes of the computer were developed by the Defense Department, which is oddly the source of a lot of the great innovations in American history.  But it was the early PC developers including Steve Wozniac, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates that took the computer to the level of familiarity we know it to be now and made computers a part of our everyday lives.

Most world changing inventions have a profoundly positive influence on mankind’s quality of life.  But an invention that did not improve life but destroyed it is also an American invention that changed the world.  That invention, of course, is the Atomic Bomb.  Developed by the fabled “Manhattan Project”, this bomb changed everything about war, diplomacy and the way nations relate to one another.  And to find a positive amongst all the death the bombings in Japan brought about, that bomb may be one of the key elements that brought an end to a horrific war, World War II.  And in the long run, that is a conflict that the world breathed a sigh of relief when it came to an end.

There is a joke that makes its rounds frequently during political jesting that “Al Gore invented the internet.”  If he had invented it, he would be a world changing inventor for sure.  But it is not out of line to declare that America invented the internet.  Again, the original primitive retypes for what became our modern internet was the work of the American Defense Department as a measure to insure that America’s computer security was guarded by decentralizing the network.  From this simple goal, the vast World Wild Web has emerged that has transformed everything about how we look at communication, information and knowledge.  We have American ingenuity to thank for that.

But of the thousands of American inventions that have done so much in the fields of medicine, technology, research and communications, none can compare to an invention by a brilliant thinker by the name of Henry Ford.  That invention, obviously, is the automobile.  Just like with some of the other inventions we have talked about, we can hardly imagine a time where there was no such thing as an automobile. 

Mr. Ford’s amazing invention literally transformed society not just in America but around the world.  From it came the freeway system and an overhaul to how cities and towns are organized and linked together.  And while there are downsides to the widespread use of automobiles, it has been a huge leap forward for America and civilization as a whole.  And Mr. Ford, like any of the inventors we have talked about and thousands we have not, would see the betterment of mankind as their greatest calling.  America has hosted this great calling for centuries and will continue to produce brilliant inventors such as these for a long time to come.