> "The complexity of history in a country of such size and diversity means that everything we do now has roots in many, many things that came before us. You cou

> "The complexity of history in a country of such size and diversity means that everything we do now has roots in many, many things that came before us. You could say the same thing about the English common law, for example, or the use of the English language: no aspect of American life is untouched by it. You could say that about the Enlightenment. Or the climate. You could say that America’s unique existence as a frontier country bordered by lawlessness is felt even today in every mass shooting. You could cite the death of countless millions of Native Americans — by violence and disease — as something that defines all of us in America today. And in a way it does. " The way I see it, something as expansive as an entire country is doubtlessly a hyperdimensional matter. From any particular point of view, you can only glimpse one projection of that hyperdimensional mass. The projection you see is factual (insofar as any human perception can be factual) but it's nevertheless one of many factual projections. Consider if you were a flatlander looking at a 2d projection of a cylinder. Depending on your perspective, that cylinder may appear to be a circle, or a rectangle. Both projections capture factual information about the true form of the object in question, but two flatlanders with different perspectives could perceive radically different projections of the same cylinder and could have a bitter dispute over who was right.