the phrase "a nation divided against itself cannot stand"...?

Question

do you think it applies to the USA? there are so many divisions, everyone cornering themselves off with their own groups to the exclusion of others. do you think there is any hope for us? i just feel so discouraged, it seems nobody can get along. (people even fight on yahoo answers!) how much longer can we survive as a country?

Answer 1

The US is one of the few countries that can have many groups with different views and still remain whole. I believe that as long as Congress does not start taking major rights from the citizens than we will be ok. The US was founded on the right of the individual to have freedom. There are many groups on both sides that want to reduce that freedom or to restrict some people's freedom and give to others. I believe that as long as the US doesn't go to much further to Socialism than we will be ok. I know of people who would fight to the death if any group tried to take away their freedoms. We do have the right to free speech so even if I disagree with someone, I try not to stoop to name calling. I might rub in the fact that they need better history lessons or such, but I try to understand that they are allowed their own thoughts and believes even if I think that it is wrong.

Answer 2

Well, it's actually: "A Nation divided against itself cannot stand." and it was coined by Abraham Lincoln in regard to the Civil War.
His meaning is fairly clear in that a nation in which there is a clear governmental division cannot remain one nation for long without war.

Just as what is happening in Iraq right now.

Answer 3

I don't think we are divided against ourselves, but within ourselves. For the most part, all (true) citizens of America have the well-being, and prosperity of this nation in their core. Everybody just have differences on agreeing which path is the best path for the country. We just get caught up in the day to day living and forget to look beyond ourselves, our race, our family and our community. But don't lose hope cuz, if you see the problem then you can work on the solution. People will always fight until God comes back, but in the mean time do your best to spread the love~ Peace.

Answer 4

there is truth to this-a nation divided against itself cannot stand. But you don't have to worry...Since there are so many good people to balance out the not so good, we should be okay. The strength about America is that it has many people who work hard and work with others as a society to survive. There will always be not so good people...but the fact that there are many good people around will keep this country together.

Answer 5

Of course Abe Lincoln was speaking of the Civil War, not Christianity. Say you're considering sailing ships: because there are many different kinds of ships, from steel-hulled battleships to sloops to row boats to catamarans, shall we decide that shipbuilders cannot make up their minds? Let people find the religion that resonates in their hearts.

Answer 6

All of the great civilizations such as the Greek & Roman empire imploded. They were not conquered by any army. It kinda scares me that the USA might be on the same course. We are WAY TOO politically correct these days.

Answer 7

A thoughtful question. But I believe the destruction of this country will occur as a direct result of the audacious rapacity of the Bush administration/

Answer 8

yes i think it applies a long time

Answer 9

first and foremost, i'd like to say that i empathize with your discouragement. the conflicts do seem endless. and there doesn't appear to be a great deal of relief on the horizon.

i'm going to tackle this question in a roundabout way, but if you'll bear with me i think it'll make sense.

as for whether or not the usa will survive as a nation--well, certainly for a while, but all nations eventually fall (and are reborn in new and perhaps even greater empires). it's hard to do, but try to remember that history is an enormous thing--the rise and fall of petty nations is like effervescent bubbles boiling at the surface of the great big stew which is our world. america is only one small ripple in a vast river.

if you take a minute to try and step outside the quaint parochial values with which we have been inculcated, you'll see that the world is actually trying to come together into a globally unified government. it has been on this path for centuries--millenia. eventually, the world community will be bound by a single set of laws.
the idea of nation-states will be obsolete. localized distinctions will remain (much as california has slightly different laws and a slightly different culture than does, say, ohio) but the global political hierarchy will culminate in a single institutionalized authority. the conflict we see now is largely due to confusion as to how to get there. things appear particularly difficult right now because we have just recently developed the technologies necessary to make this historical project feasible.

you see, in the last 150 years (which is less than a blink of the eye in a historical perspective) humans have invented all the tools necessary to establish a single world government. trains, mechanically powered ships, airplanes, telephones, the internet--all of these things have shrunk the world to a workable scale. now we just need to figure out how to make it happen.

the divisions and fighting you talk about all boil down to this one big problem.

you see, the way you get people to work together is by establishing common values. think of it like establishing a language. in order to get people to cooperate you have to get them to agree on a basic set of meanings for a variety of sounds. in english we all agree that the words "pie" and "table" have set meanings. the sounds of the words themselves are arbitrary, but we agree they mean the same thing. because of this, we can work together. i can tell you i need "pie," and that there is pie on the "table" and you'll know where to look to solve our hunger problem. the problem is that there are distinctive value systems that have arisen in order to help distinctive groups of people cooperate with each other.
the word "pie," for instance, would mean foot to a spanish reader. in spanish, everyone has to agree that "pie" means what we would call foot. if they didn't agree on this, the whole system which allows them to cooperate would be undermined.

now, i know that this is all very simple, but if you cut and paste the idea onto the big picture, you'll be able to understand the basic dilemma better, and you might even be able to help out in the infinite process of resolving it. you see, different communities (whether they be nations or neighborhoods) have constructed differing sets of behavioral values. on a national level, value sets are woven into vast ideological constructs with which individuals are indoctrinated from childhood. this indoctrination process is what we call education. enormous institutions (legal, academic, religious) arise to stabilize value definition, installing themselves as what we call authority. in general, individuals essay to modify their behaviors in order to comply with authority. large-scale conflicts occur when institutions of authority indoctrinate individuals with incompatible value terms.

for example, one of the biggest problems the world faces centers around disparate religious values. religions facilitate tremendous cooperation within the ingroup by establishing a theoretically all-encompassing moral code, but generate enormous conflict with outgroups by literally defining them as morally inferior. and while national governments technically posit institutional authority only within legal systems, nation-states have always actually sponsored religious institutions as a more organically effective mode of establishing and enforcing behavioral codes. for example, in spite of the secular rhetoric, american values are still very much founded upon a christian ethos. christianity has been sponsored by many of the most successful governments in world history because it is incredibly effective at engendering cultural coherence. christians believe that world peace would be established if all men and women would follow the behavioral paradigm outlined in the historical texts they consider sacred. this creates a great deal of trust and cooperation among fellow christians, but it implicitly distinguishes anyone who does not believe in their interpretation of these texts (and, by extension--history itself), as morally inferior (not on god's side/path/team/etc). muslims do the exact same thing with their own book and behavioral code. what is funny/sad is that it is actually the ideological systems that are in conflict, not the human individuals, but humans are incapable of distinguishing themselves from the ideological frameworks they use to define their behaviors. (even the so-called secularists define their behaviors in accordance with the values of the ideology they tend to espouse--science.) to borrow from the language analogy, the wars we are seeing are to determine which dictionary will eventually become official in defining the language of moral behavior. in the big picture, the conflict we witness is a fight for survival between entities so much larger than us that we can conceive of them no more than a single cell can conceive of a full human organism struggling for life.

now for the good news. (well, good and bad--but i think it can bring hope).

the infrastructure for a new system is developing. right now we are using cyber-roads which make the world a single community in a way that has never existed before. this is the first time that a forum has been erected within which the voices of common people across the entire globe intermingle. as cultural commerce continues, people begin to realize that we are all remarkably similar. new ideological systems will develop to engender greater cooperation between the massive populations now for the first time interacting.

but it won't be easy. civilization is beginning a new phase of development. every phase presents new and difficult challenges. the conflict you lament here on yahoo!answers is just the beginning. people clinging to traditions that brought order to values in the past will be frightened of the new ideologies, the new modes of operation. many will fight them tooth and claw, unto death. this is natural. the training/taming program which catapults humanity from primitive beast to sophisticated citizen is not something quick, simple or easy. but it is inexorable. like any part of growing up, it's about shedding our illusions and taking responsibility. it's painful, but inevitable.

your cited phrase comes from about 150 years ago. it was in reference to something we imagine to be an enormous conflict now--but in the grand scheme of things was simply a baby hiccup. america will survive for a while, then it too will be replaced by the bigger, better, next-thing. but what we love about america--the true greatness of the idea is that it is about faith in, and determination to create, a better world. it is this concept that connects us as a nation; it is this concept that connects christians to christianity, muslims to islam, and buddhists to buddhism; it is this concept that connects us all as human beings. and i believe that it will take more that war to destroy this beautiful idea.

sorry to run on so long.