One key purpose of the First Amendment, properly understood, is to teach toleration for political and social dissent and to uphold the expressive rights of dissenters. Among the greatest of America's myths, however, is that of the First Amendment - that we, as a society, trust in a free marketplace of ideas and beliefs to discover our governing truths, and that we, as a polity, invite and protect civic dissent. At various points in its development, the American culture fostered the nation-building myth of manifest destiny, the capitalist myth of the unregulated marketplace, and the political myths of civic democracy and social equality. Myths make life within society tolerable, meaningful - indeed, possible.Īmerica, too, lives by and through its myths. Myths are narratives that furnish the organizing principles for society and its culture. All societies live by myths, and no society can live without them.
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