If it isn’t already quite evident, most of my contributions on this website have been eulogies, attempted hymns of motorcycling and all the things uniquely American. My dad and great grandfather also used to motorcycle, so for that obsession I’d conveniently blame the inherited genes. But curiosity about Americana and in general Western civilization is probably acquired. Would like to believe for the most part these ideas were shaped by an honest sense of inquiry, sort of an amateur study into the causes of relative peace and prosperity.

If it isn’t already obvious, most parts of the world are in a constant state of strife or state of tension. It varies in terms of degree, but people are in general deadlocked in some form of bickering, often these inter-group squabbles are over disputes hundreds of years old, and probably even inflicted by unknown individuals. Generations continually born into this baggage and their minds shaped by these artifacts of the past. Without reconciling these disputes there is no peace or path to prosperity. Even if someone manages a truce, it is often fleeting, the mischief inevitably reemerges.

Thanks to some fortunate accidents of history, somehow the reconciling cultural strand of Englishmen survived, and often thrived. From common law jurisprudence and related institutions, to its more evolved form of American Federalism, for hundreds of years there is a constant recurring theme of attempting to reconcile divergent views. This framework itself is designed to resolve disputes without taking sides or enforcing collective goals. An unconditional 1st Amendment is a perfect illustration of this tendency. Even when most countries emulated Constitutionalism and all the surrounding institutions, they adopted a caricatured variant devoid of that impartial reconciling strand.

Not just in dispute resolution, peace through reconciliation is evident in all the functioning layers of the political system. Whether it’s reconciling majority views with minority or legislature with judiciary or democracy with rule of law or states rights with Federal — seems like English tradition constantly steered towards that simple goal of peaceful coexistence. But that mere goal of peaceful coexistence has lead to lofty outcomes of stability and prosperity, because that peace also allowed channeling individual energies to higher goals. In short, while simple goals lead to elevated outcomes, numerous political systems striving for explicitly high ideals consistently fell off the cliff. Well, yet another Thanksgiving, and felt like we have a lot to be thankful for, including that rarely acknowledged reconciling institutional gene.