Garry Kasparov, “What Thanksgiving Means to Me”

A nice piece, which I enjoyed and thought I’d pass along. As with all such things, it can’t capture the whole picture, but it captures an important part of it, I think. You can see it on Persuasion, or (under a slightly different title) on Kasparov’s Next Move; an excerpt:

Democracy, freedom—politics, too. These are not ends in and of themselves. They are a vehicle for delivering human happiness and flourishing. That goal is what we’re fighting for.

The notion of a free society is abstract. Thanksgiving celebrates abundance, and abundance is tangible. You can taste it. Smell it. Hear it. The turkey and mashed potatoes on your plate, the chatter with loved ones, whom you’re free to visit—these are the fruits of a free society….

Free societies deliver abundance.

These days, there is a lot of doom and gloom about the United States across the political spectrum. I am not talking about America’s current democratic and institutional crisis, which is indeed deathly serious. I am referring to the short-sighted ideological decay that is increasingly popular with radicals of all stripes; on the right, the perception of America as sinful, deviant, and overly tolerant. On the left, it is the view that America is criminal, colonial, illegitimate….

Americans would do well to discard these self-destructive narratives. It may be hard to describe what lofty concepts like democracy and freedom really mean, but you can see the rewards of those concepts all around you if you’re willing to open your eyes.

If Abraham Lincoln could find time for gratitude in the middle of a deadly Civil War, Americans today can too. If [Boris] Yeltsin [visiting the U.S. in 1989] could be so impressed by a grocery store many Americans might consider average, then you have something to be thankful for. I’ll dispense with the caveat that America isn’t perfect (what country is?). If you are thankful for something, then you have something you can fight for.