ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the main theoretical principles that will guide the subsequent analyses. These principles are primarily of two sorts. First, because we are dealing with characters, they include principles drawn from social psychology on the nature and consequences of group identification. Second, because we are dealing with stories, they include principles developed out of cognitive and affective science that accounts for cross-culturally recurring narrative genres (narrative universals) and the way these genres affect our thought about nationalism broadly and American nationalism specifically. As to universals, a fundamental tenet of this study is that subnational exclusion—racial or sexual—presupposes difference. No white person considers black people inferior to whites because they are the same as whites. One justifies disenfranchisement of a group because one takes the group to be different. Moreover, that difference is profound, bearing on important aspects of cognition and emotion. A further tenet of this study is that such a presupposition is both pervasive in the U.S. and mistaken.
