Herman Melville famously captured the concept of America as a “New Israel” in his 1850 novel White-Jacket. He wrote, “We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people—the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world”. This notion reflects a long history of American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The Melville Context
While the quote sounds like a celebration of American missionary zeal, Melville often used it with deep irony. In White-Jacket, he critiqued the military, the government, and the authoritarian nature of the American naval system. He recognized the immense promise of the nation but warned heavily against its hubris and cruelty. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The “Chosen People” Concept
The idea of being the “new chosen people” or the “Israel of our time” is one of the most enduring civic conceits in American history: [1]
Roots: The metaphor dates back to the Puritans, who viewed their journey to the New World as a biblical Exodus and the Atlantic crossing as a path to a new Promised Land. [1]
Revolutionary Era: Preachers and politicians frequently cast the break from Britain as a new Exodus, casting King George III as Pharaoh and the American colonies as God’s chosen. [1]
Melville’s Usage: In We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people, Melville contrasts this lofty ideal against the nation’s capacity for violence, viewing it both with “delirious passion” and profound skepticism. [1]
Broader Perspectives
Scholars often examine this paradox of the “chosen” American identity, which elevates the nation to a universal standard while also tempting it with tribalism and violence. For an in-depth breakdown of how this theological metaphor shaped U.S. politics and history, you can read the Americans, the Almost-Chosen People analysis provided by Tablet Magazine. [1, 2, 3]
The concept of a “Chosen Nation” is a powerful political and religious myth. It suggests that a specific country is selected by a divine power to fulfill a special mission on Earth. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Core Characteristics
Nations that claim this identity usually share specific traits:
Sacred Mission: Believing they must spread democracy, freedom, or religion.
Exodus Narrative: Viewing their founding as a miraculous escape from tyranny.
Moral Superiority: Judging their actions as inherently good or divinely sanctioned.
Promised Land: Treating their physical territory as a holy or gifted space. [1, 2]
Key Historical Examples
Ancient Israel: The original biblical archetype, serving as the foundational model for later Western nations.
The United States: Rooted in the Puritan “City upon a hill” metaphor and evolving into Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism.
Great Britain: During the Victorian era, the British Empire often viewed its global expansion as a divine duty to “civilize” the world.
Apartheid South Africa: Afrikaner nationalism heavily relied on a chosen-people narrative to justify minority rule and separation. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Double-Edged Sword
This belief system creates a powerful paradox within a society:
The Positive: It fosters deep national unity, inspires social reform, and drives monumental national achievements.
The Negative: It frequently justifies colonialism, the displacement of indigenous peoples, imperialism, and blind nationalism.
The “Hollywood Ten,” often confused as “Hollywood Seven,” were a group of prominent industry professionals cited for contempt of Congress in 1947 after refusing to testify about their alleged Communist Party ties before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). They were subsequently blacklisted from working in the entertainment industry. [1, 2]
The Hollywood Blacklist and the Red Scare
In October 1947, HUAC launched hearings into alleged communist influence in the American film industry. When 10 prominent writers and directors (Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo) refused to answer the committee’s questions about their political affiliations, they were sentenced to prison and effectively blacklisted by studio executives. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
This purge was a cornerstone of the broader Red Scare and McCarthyism era, which terrorized the entertainment industry through the 1950s. Studio bosses surrendered to pressure, and individuals were often denied employment based on vague accusations or for having exercised their First Amendment rights. The blacklist was actively enforced by private publications like Red Channels, which targeted actors and writers for suspected progressive political sympathies. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The blacklist’s chokehold on Hollywood only began to crumble in 1960 when prominent figures like Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger openly credited blacklisted writers like Dalton Trumbo. [1]
For a deep dive into the historical exhibits and the lasting legacy of the Hollywood blacklist:
And did November 19, 2024 mark the entry of ChatGPT into the general marketplace?
ChatGPT:
No, that date does not mark the entry of ChatGPT into the general marketplace.
ChatGPT was released to the public on November 30, 2022. This was nearly two years before Pluto permanently entered Aquarius. [1]
However, during ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, Pluto was in the final degrees of Capricorn, right on the edge of transitioning into Aquarius. Astrologers often point to the timing of the AI boom as the “preview” energy of Pluto in Aquarius, which is traditionally associated with technology, innovation, and collective shifts.
Timeline of AI Breakthroughs and Pluto’s Transitions
Here is the timeline mapping major AI milestones against Pluto’s shift from Capricorn (structure, corporations) to Aquarius (technology, networks, collective future).
The Late Capricorn Era: Foundation Building
November 30, 2022: OpenAI launches ChatGPT to the public.
Pluto Status: 28° Capricorn.
Astrological Context: The ultimate power shift begins at the very end of Capricorn’s rule over institutional tech.
February 7, 2023: Microsoft integrates AI into Bing search.
Pluto Status: 28° Capricorn.
The First Aquarius Previews: The AI Explosion
March 14, 2023: OpenAI releases GPT-4.
Pluto Status: 29° Capricorn (on the absolute cusp of Aquarius).
March 23, 2023: Pluto enters Aquarius for the first time since 1798.
Astrological Context: The initial 3-month preview of the technological revolution.
March 21, 2023: Google opens public access to Bard (now Gemini).
May 23, 2023: Adobe integrates Firefly generative AI into Photoshop.
June 11, 2023: Pluto retrogrades back into Capricorn.
The Back-and-Forth: Regulation vs. Innovation
January 20, 2024: Pluto enters Aquarius for the second preview.
February 15, 2024: OpenAI reveals Sora, a hyper-realistic text-to-video model.
March 13, 2024: The European Union passes the EU AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive AI law.
Astrological Context: Classic Pluto-in-Aquarius tension between decentralized tech and social governance.
September 1, 2024: Pluto retrogrades back into Capricorn one final time for “unfinished business” regarding global financial and corporate structures.
♒ The Permanent Aquarius Era: The New Normal
November 19, 2024: Pluto enters Aquarius permanently until 2043.
Astrological Context: The official, uninterrupted era of the digital and decentralized revolution begins.
December 2024 – Present: Deep integration of AI agents managing daily human workflows, decentralized open-source models rivaling massive tech conglomerates, and ongoing global debates over AI labor replacement.
Historical parallels
The last time Pluto transited Aquarius was from 1778 to 1798. This 20-year period completely reshaped global power, human rights, and technology, offering powerful parallels to today’s digital revolution.
⚙️ The Industrial Revolution vs. The AI Revolution
Then: The late 18th century marked the peak of the First Industrial Revolution. The widespread adoption of the steam engine (perfected by James Watt in 1776, just before Pluto entered) automated manual labor, shifting society from agrarian economies to manufacturing hubs. [1]
Now: Generative AI, robotics, and automation are shifting society from an information economy to an automated intelligence economy. Cognitive labor is being disrupted just as physical labor was then.
⚡ Power to the People: Decentralization
Aquarius rules the collective, networks, and the democratization of power. Pluto rules control, destruction, and transformation.
Then: This era hosted the French Revolution (1789) and the aftermath of the American Revolution (ending in 1783). Power was violently stripped from centralized entities (monarchies and empires) and redistributed to the collective “common man” via early democratic experiments. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Now: We are seeing a massive pushback against centralized authority. This manifests as the rise of decentralized open-source AI models that bypass tech monopolies, the growth of blockchain technologies, and a cultural shift toward citizen journalism and creator economies.
Scientific Breakthroughs & The InvisibleWorld
Aquarius is an air sign, associated with the intellect, the invisible forces of nature (electricity, data), and the sky.
Then:
The Hot Air Balloon was invented (1783), allowing humans to conquer the skies for the first time.
The discovery of Uranus (1781), the planet that ironically rules Aquarius, shattered the traditional view of the solar system.
Early experiments with electricity (like Luigi Galvani’s work on bioelectricity in the 1780s) began. [1]
Now: Our “invisible world” is the cloud, global data networks, and wireless technology. Aerospace innovation is booming with private space exploration, satellite internet networks, and the integration of quantum computing.
Human Rights and the Social Contract
When Pluto is in Aquarius, society is forced to re-examine how it treats its citizens.
Then: The period produced foundational texts on human rights, such as Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791) and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). It also saw the early momentum of the British abolitionist movement against the slave trade. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Now: The global conversation centers on digital human rights: data privacy, AI ethics, universal basic income (UBI) to combat technological unemployment, and who owns the rights to human-created art and writing.
From the archive, an Independence Day message from the Founder of The Prosperos.
Introduced by Heather Williams
Recorded July 5, 1981 Approximately 44:00 minutes
Thane explores the philosophical / religious underpinnings of the American revolution and the founders and identifies challenges of his day – the opening year of the Reagan administration – with insights that resonate in our own time.
Sturm und Drang (literally “storm and stress”) is a late 18th-century German literary and artistic movement. It rebelled against the strict rationalism of the Enlightenment by exalting raw, subjective emotion, individualism, and the power of nature. Today, the phrase is commonly used in English to describe any period of turmoil, upheaval, or intense emotional conflict. Merriam-Webster +4
History and Philosophy
Emerging in the late 1760s and peaking in the 1770s, Sturm und Drang took its name from a 1776 play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger. Instead of prioritizing logic, reason, and neoclassical order, writers and artists—most notably Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller—believed that the most profound human truths could only be reached through passion, instinct, and intense feeling
. The movement celebrated the rebellious individual who fought against oppressive societal norms, often leading to tragic ends. Wikipedia +5
Legacy in Art and Music
Though it was fundamentally a literary movement, its philosophy quickly spread to other mediums, paving the way for the broader Romantic movement: Metropolitan Opera +1
Literature: Masterpieces like Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther set social trends, deeply influencing the European imagination through its themes of unrequited love, personal despair, and the beauty of the natural world.
Music: Composers began writing with stark dramatic tension, minor keys, and sudden, intense shifts in volume and tempo. You can hear this emotional extremity in the early symphonies of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Metropolitan Opera +3
Visual Arts: Paintings shifted toward depicting the terrifying, awe-inspiring aspects of nature, such as stormy seas, jagged landscapes, and nightmarish visions. Metropolitan Opera
For a quick breakdown of how this intense, emotion-driven movement functioned within the broader context of Romanticism:
French support for the American Revolution began well before the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. King Louis XVI saw the rebellion in North America as an opportunity to weaken his British rival and avenge past defeats. FRANCE 24 looks back at how European colonial rivalry and Enlightenment ideals forged a decisive alliance between the nascent United States and its “oldest ally”.
Issued on: 03/07/2026 Modified: 04/07/2026 – France24.com
On July 4, 1776, 13 British colonies in North America broke with the British Crown and declared their independence in a momentous act of rebellion that would change the course of history. As the United States celebrates its 250th birthday, FRANCE 24 looks back at France’s decisive – and often overlooked – role in the American Revolution.
Behind the fight for independence lies another story: that of a long-standing rivalry between Great Britain and France, the two great European powers at the time. When the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed their independence, they were still a long way from winning the war. Across the Atlantic, France watched the brewing rebellion with increasing interest.
For the young King Louis XVI, the dispute between American colonists and the British government represented an opportunity to exact revenge on France’s historic rival. Far from being a spontaneous show of support for a democratic revolution, France’s support was rooted in decades of conflict with its neighbour from across the Channel.
France and Britain had been competing for control of North America, the Caribbean, the Indies and trade routes since the 17th century. The French monarchy had colonised territory spanning from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in the north, in modern-day Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico in the south.
“France held nearly half the territory east of the Mississippi,” said Steven Ekovich, professor emeritus of politics and history at the American University of Paris. “For both monarchies, America was part of a much wider global conflict between the English and the French.”
The rivalry between the two powers did not prevent trade. As early as the 17th century, steady commerce developed between the British colonies of New England and the French West Indies. Timber, supplies, livestock, and construction materials all regularly crossed the Atlantic Ocean. These early economic ties between French and American colonists were well established before independence.
A break between the colonists and the mother country was unimaginable at this time. “The Americans were Englishmen in America above all, and they wished to remain so,” said Ekovich. The Thirteen Colonies and their 2.5 million inhabitants thus far did not consider themselves as citizens of a single nation.
New York: French air force soars over Statue of Liberty
The Seven Years’ War (1756 to 1763), pitting England and Prussia against France, Austria and Russia, changed everything. The global conflict fuelled by colonial rivalries ended with the Treaty of Paris, which forced France to cede several of its territories to the British: including Canada, part of Louisiana, parts of the West Indies, Senegal and most of its territory in India – except for a few trading posts such as Pondicherry and Chandernagore (now Chandannagar).
The French defeat was perceived as a national humiliation. The court in Versailles became obsessed with one idea: preventing England from becoming the dominant power. But Louis XVI, a pacifist at heart, remained cautious at first. His kingdom had emerged significantly weakened from the conflict and needed to rebuild its navy.
“France had only one objective on its mind: reclaiming its territory and undermining the English,” said Émilie Mitran, a historian specialising in the United States and the author of Des Américains en France,1776–1792 (Americans in France, 1776-1796). “If Britain lost part of its empire, it would be proper payback from the French point of view following its own humiliation of 1763.”
Britain was also under financial pressure after the Seven Years’ War, which had cost a colossal fortune. To compensate, it imposed new taxes on its colonies – specifically on sugar, tea and stamped papers through the infamous Stamp Act, which applied to all printed documents. Since the colonists had no representatives in the British Parliament, they refused to pay and angrily chanted, “No taxation without representation.”
Supporting the rebels without encouraging a revolution
France’s newly appointed foreign minister Charles Gravier, count of Vergennes, watched from the sidelines as tensions continued to simmer between the British Empire and the Thirteen Colonies. The friction evolved into the American War of Independence in the spring of 1775, with the first clashes between insurgents and British troops in Lexington, Massachusetts.
It was a historic opportunity for Vergennes. His plan was to exploit the crisis to the fullest while holding back from entering the conflict prematurely.
For an absolute monarchy like that in France, support for insurgents revolting against their king was a striking paradox. Louis XVI could not officially condone the rebellion. Yet unofficially, every British setback served French interests.
“It was initially a matter of political realism,” said Ekovich. “France wanted to use the Americans against its hereditary enemy. (…) French support was primarily driven by the logic of realpolitik.”
Enlightenment ideas also guided French supporters of the Thirteen Colonies. For decades, Parisian salons were the setting for philosophers like Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau as they launched debates on liberty, the separation of powers and popular sovereignty. American leaders picked up these concepts while fighting for their independence.
“Two sets of logic coexisted from the beginning,” said Ekovich. “The king acts against Great Britain, while a portion of the French elite supports the Americans out of conviction.”
This duality was embodied by two figures: Louis XVI, who pursued a strategic objective, and the Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who later became the most famous French figure of the American War of Independence. The latter viewed the American struggle as a just cause driven by Enlightenment ideals.
Shadow diplomacy
Versailles opted for discretion before initiating any formal alliance. On May 2, 1776, Louis XVI authorised Vergennes to covertly send arms, ammunition and supplies to the insurgents through Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, who used a shell company known as Rodrigue Hortalez et Compagnie as a cover for the transactions.
“Beaumarchais became an irreplaceable secret agent for Louis XVI,” said Mitran. “He made it possible to fund the rebels as long as France refused to commit officially.”
France’s caution was based on several imperatives. “No one knew whether the insurgents would declare independence or if they could withstand British military might,” she said. “For France to commit prematurely meant running the risk of another financial and diplomatic disaster.”
The break between the British Crown and the Thirteen Colonies was finally sealed two months later with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The young nation’s name went from the “United Colonies” to the “United States of America”.
Fighting between Britain and the colonists continued. British troops captured New York in September 1776. For the representatives of the American colonies who had just declared their independence, finding reinforcements became urgent.
Eager to forge a bond with France, the American Congress dispatched a new diplomat named Benjamin Franklin to Paris. His mission was to persuade France to openly support the American rebels. Soon after arriving in France in December 1776, he became a celebrity.
“Benjamin Franklin captivated the French as much with his inventions as with his personality,” said Mitran. “He visited the salons, mastered their social codes and incarnated the new ideals arriving from America for the French.”
Despite the successful charm offensive, Vergennes remained cautious. He continued to wait for the right moment before transforming France’s covert support into an open alliance. That moment did not arrive until October 1777, when George Washington’s troops inflicted a decisive blow on the British at Saratoga, forcing 6,000 soldiers to surrender.
This military success finally convinced Versailles that the rebels could prevail. A few months later, France signed an alliance with the United States and officially entered the war against Great Britain – a decision that would profoundly alter the course of the conflict.
Johnathan Bi Jul 4, 2026 My lecture celebrating America’s 250th at the Chateau de Tocqueville: “Democracy with American Characteristics” Professor Aaron Herold tutored me as I was going through Democracy in America. His insights were critical to forming my own reading on Tocqueville and you can read more about them in his wonderful book: https://amzn.to/3Ssp7zt Subscribe to my newsletter if you want content updates, invitations to events, and to support my work: https://greatbooks.io Transcript: https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/transcr… Companion interviews:
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Streamed live 2 hours ago Ronnie Pontiac was the personal research assistant for Manly P. Hall at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. He is author of American Metaphysical Religion: Esoteric and Mystical Traditions of the New World and The Rosicrucian Counterculture: The Origins and Influence of the Invisible Society. He is coauthor with Tamra Lucid of The Magic of the Orphic Hymns: A New Translation for the Modern Mystic and The Unobstructed Way: A True Account of the Exploration of Life After Death. He is also a practitioner of astrology. For this Live Stream Event, Ronnie will draw upon astrology, history, and esoteric traditions to explore America’s founding and its astrological significance today.
Marianne Williamson Jul 2, 2026 E.A. Hanks joins Marianne to talk about Hannah Arendt, the philosopher who saw fascism coming in Germany before it arrived. She names what many of us are feeling about the moment in which we live. EA Hanks’ Substack EAHanks.Substack.com Subscribe to Marianne’s Substack: MarianneWilliamson.Susbtack.com
Google AI Overview
The quote “At least I am not innocent, no one can accuse me of that” comes from Hannah Arendt’s reflections on her arrest by the Gestapo in Berlin in 1933. [1, 2, 3]
The Historical Event
Following the Reichstag fire in early 1933, the Nazi regime began mass illegal arrests of political opponents. Distressed by how quickly German intellectuals conformed to the regime, Arendt refused to be a passive bystander. She agreed to clandestinely gather data on official anti-Semitic propaganda for Kurt Blumenfeld and the Zionist Organization of Germany. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Her illegal research was discovered, leading to her arrest and eight-day imprisonment by the Gestapo. After successfully securing her release, she immediately fled Germany. [1, 2, 3]
The Meaning Behind the Words
Arendt later recounted the satisfaction she felt during her arrest. Her full recollection states: [1]
“I immediately knew: Jews could not remain. However, I did not leave peacefully. … I thought ‘at least I did something! At least I am not innocent!'” [1]
In this context, Arendt uses “innocence” with a sharp, ironic bite: [1]
Innocence as Passivity: To Arendt, being “innocent” under a tyrannical regime meant you had done nothing to oppose it. Passive innocence was equivalent to compliance, cowardice, and looking away. [1, 2]
Guilt as Action: By breaking the law to conduct counter-propaganda, she intentionally stripped herself of legal “innocence” in the eyes of the Third Reich. [1, 2]
Political Responsibility: The quote highlights her core belief in personal and political responsibility. She took pride in the fact that the state recognized her as an active threat, proving she had exercised her moral agency instead of falling into line. [1, 2, 3]
To read more about her life and activism during this period, you can look through her archived collection at the Library of Congress or explore biographical materials provided by the Hannah Arendt Center. [1]
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