On Manifest Destiny

I enjoyed Stephanson's work because it gave me a slightly new perspective on the concept of "manifest destiny". Before reading the text I would have defined manifest destiny as a justification that individuals hold for their actions in terms of expansion, colonization, genocide, etc. I had always assumed that Christian individuals used the idea of manifest destiny, or the inherent right of Christians to conquor non-Chrisitans, for the purpose of reducing their own cognative dissonance (because they were killing or taking from people which is against Christianity). I never really considered the policies of U.S. leaders from the American Revolution to the present day to be motivated by the same concept of manifest destiny. I feel that Stephanson's overview of the philosophies that led to the concept of manifest destiny was very accurate and interesting (especially where Stephanson describes Vattel's natural law and the Bible as the justification for westward expansion and the basis for the concept of manifest destiny).

For me manifest destiny is a fairly horrific concept that has motivated the most embarrasing historical events of the U.S. which include the genocide of Native Americans and Slavery among others. However, I understand that it is easy for me to be critical of manifest destiny because I am simply analyzing the past. The U.S. would certianly not be the country that it is today if we had not had leaders that saw their goals as the correct course of action and that used manifest destiny to defend their course of action. Manifest destiny is an example of the type of justification and/or motivation that is necessary to pioneer into a new frontier. Without a Christian justification for their actions it would have been difficult for settlers and for U.S. leaders to complete westward expansion and create the powerful country that the U.S. is today. In relation to Star Trek, it seems as though the federation would be a metaphor for the U.S. in the sense that the federation sets the standards for what is good and bad, and acts upon these standards. Although in both the episodes that we watched and the movie the Borg was portrayed as an evil enemy that needed to be defeated, who is to say that the federation was correct in defeating the Borg? If we consider the conflict between the Borg and the federation from a more objective perspective (rather than the standpoint of the federation) we find that the only justification for the federation destroying the Borg is really thier own manifest destiny in a way. The federation's own ideas of what is right and wrong guide their decision to destroy the Borg.