One Nation, Under Illusion: Neil Gabler in the Boston Globe
One nation, under illusion
By Neal Gabler
Boston Globe, October 13, 2009
THE HOARIEST and most oft-repeated cliche in American politics may be that America is the greatest country in the world. Every politician, Democrat and Republican, seems duty bound to pander to this idea of American exceptionalism, and woe unto him who hints otherwise. This country is “the last, best hope of mankind,’’ or the “shining city on the hill,’’ or the “great social experiment.’’ As if this weren’t enough, Jimmy Carter upped the fawning ante 30 years ago by uttering arguably the most damning words in modern American politics. He called for a “government as good as the American people,’’ thus taking national greatness and investing it in each and every one of us.
Carter was speaking when Watergate was fresh, and government had been disgraced, but still. The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people.
Think of World War II, America’s entrance into which was strenuously resisted by the populace until Franklin Roosevelt carefully laid the groundwork and Pearl Harbor made it inevitable. Think of civil rights, which Lyndon Johnson pressed despite widescale opposition, and not just in the South. Even then it took more than 100 years. Or think of the current health care debate in which Americans seem to desire some sort of reform, just not a reform that would significantly help people in dire need, while the Obama administration is pushing to provide that assistance. In the end, government has inspired Americans far more than Americans have inspired their government. They are too busy boasting.
There is nothing wrong with self-satisfaction or national pride. But the incessant trumpeting of our national superiority to every other country in the world is more than just off-putting and insulting. It is infantile, like the vaunting of a schoolyard bully that his Dad is better than your Dad. It is wrong. And it might be dangerous both to ourselves and to the rest of the world.
Consider what it means. By what standard is one nation any greater than any other nation? Yes, the United States has vast material resources – we rank eighth in gross domestic product per capita – but we also have, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the “highest inequality and poverty rate’’ in the world, outside of Mexico and Turkey, and things are getting worse. Nothing to boast of there.
Yes, we have a relatively high median income, but our standard of living as measured by the Human Development Index of the United Nations ranks us only 15th in the world, behind, among others, Norway, France, Canada, and Australia. Are they better than we are? Even our home ownership rate trails that of the citizens of Canada, Belgium, Spain, Norway, and even Portugal.
Yes, the United States has the best system of higher education in the world, but, according to an Educational Policy Institute report, we rank 13th in the affordability of that education, and we are much less successful with lower education – 11th in the percentage of the 25 to 34 population with a high school diploma and 22d in science education.
And though Americans love to crow about the “best health care’’ in the world, the fact is that according to the World Health Organization Index, we actually rank 37th in the quality of our health care. And we are still the only industrialized country in the world without a national health care system.
Even when one considers anecdotal evidence – “If this isn’t the greatest country then why do so many people want to come here?’’ – the case isn’t particularly persuasive. Mexicans cross the border to the United States for economic opportunity. Turks go to Germany, Indians and Pakistanis to Great Britain, Arabs to France. This isn’t a sign of our special greatness, just a sign that desperate people seek a more powerful economy for their betterment.
The point of all this isn’t that America doesn’t have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia.
None of this would make much difference if the self-congratulation was just harmless bragging. But there are consequences. A country that believes it is the greatest in the world is also less likely to be constrained by that world. One could argue that the Iraq war was a direct result of a sense of national infallibility. So was our willingness to torture, our reluctance to admit our mistakes in Afghanistan, our culpability in the global recession, and our foot-dragging on global warming. Such a nation is also less likely to introspect or to strive for true greatness because it believes its greatness has already arrived.
There is something bizarre about a country whose leaders have constantly to toady to their constituents and in which any criticism is tantamount to a lack of patriotism, but that describes America today. Every politician feels compelled to ape Jimmy Carter’s old words to the point where our alleged greatness has also become our national mantra.
It seems eons ago when Bobby Kennedy, a politician who didn’t like to stroke even his own supporters, actually scolded a rally for booing Lyndon Johnson because, Kennedy said, Johnson couldn’t have done what he did in Vietnam if he didn’t have the American people, including Kennedy’s audience, as his facilitators.
We aren’t going to hear that sort of honesty from political leaders any more because the American people are too thin-skinned and arrogant to tolerate it. Arrogance in an individual is unbecoming. It is no more becoming for a nation. The Greeks understood that the gods punished mortals for their hubris – for feeling that they were godlike. They knew that overweening pride preceded a fall. One suspects that nations are no more immune to punishment than individuals. A nation that brooks no criticism, a nation that feels it is always better than any other, a nation that has to be endlessly flattered and won’t face the truth, a nation whose people think they possess some special moral exemption and wisdom, a nation without humility is a nation spoiling for calamity.
We’ve been living in a fool’s paradise. The result may be a government that is as good as the American people, which is something that should concern everyone.
Neal Gabler is the author, most recently, of “Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.’’
November 9th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Urban living separates mankind from what is exceptional ,,, the greatness of the natural world. By dwelling on what is all around us -the city-scape – a creation of architects and city planners, we are lifted up by the macabre; a creation of the human mind with it`s focus on concrete, ashphalt and steel: this separates the spirit from the continuous growth of life in the wild places – the earth`s complexion. Thusly we become macabre, thrilling on war and the crimes committed therein. A great nation is inhabited by those who see their duty: people like Sullenburger, who would be unknown to everyone, except when called upon to do their duty. If the majority would see their duty and perform for it, without recompense, the leaders would see their`s and labor without fanfare. Greatness is no handed to one, it must be sought for!
November 9th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Neal Gabler is the author, most recently, of “Walt Disney . . .
Excellent credentials for the author of this garbage.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Someone very dear to me completely agrees with this column, but far be it from me to reveal his/her identity.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Another, “Blame America First, much?”
Hah!
We are the BEST, always HAVE BEEN, always WILL BE.
Unpatriotic, traitor scum, he seems to be.
Lock ‘im up!!!
November 10th, 2009 at 1:48 am
Something on this topic I wrote a few years back:
There is a deep sickness in our society that we must recognize and soon come to terms with if we are to escape this spiral to our moral and material destruction. …
What I mean here is that we each must realize that it is necessary for us let go of our addiction to a prosperity that is dependent on the unmanaged squandering of the whole world’s resources that is the foundation for our American way of life. As oil (and other of our foundational resources) runs out and global warming transforms the patterns of livability on the planet, we urgently need to acknowledge that our future survival depends upon our discovering the consciousness that permits us to soon renounce our contributing lifestyle of wasteful consumerism and runaway capitalism that is swallowing our planetary life support system. We must first come to see that WE are the enemy of our own survivability, and we must change our own consciousness first if we are to help others see this coming reality.Otherwise, removing this regime will only lead to replacing it with another that will again have to persist in implementing the same kind of agenda of aggressive war necessary for securing the means to sustain our insane desire for unlimited growth, prosperity and progress. …
The way forward to survival is likely almost diametrically opposed to the current American Way of Life, I am afraid. In a world with real limits to energy, water, clean air, land, food, etc., the individual scramble for all we can achieve in the ‘free market’ will not work much longer. What we must do that promotes cooperation among people to share equitably our limited bounty will be something we now have little concept of how to do. Relating to the limits we face by placing limits on what individuals can possess, how many children they have, when and how they can travel, what kind of housingthey can have, etc, etc… this discipline will be a perhaps too difficult and wrenching transformation of consciousness for us all. Maybe it will be impossible for us to do, and we will destroy ourselves in our refusal to ‘negotiate our way of life’.
We can condemn Bush and call him evil for his clever playing to our exceptionalism, but we must also recognize that we bear much responsibility for bringing this madness he so blatantly manifests into being by demanding that our unsustainable life style be extended indefinitely. If we continue to hype this phony ‘war on terror’, we will see the sacrifice of many more on the altar of our refusal to let go of our illusion of exceptionalism.
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2006/06/american-exceptionalism.html
November 10th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Jim,
That was eloquent. Thank you.
You may be interested to check out one or all of these new books:
*********
Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse
by Carolyn Baker
Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture
by Thom Hartmann
The Chrysalis Effect: The Metamorphosis of Global Culture
by Philip Slater
November 10th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I do not believe any country is the best. All countries have things they are best at. Like war or torturing or arts or poetry or writing clear legal prose. There are things that the United States is good at, perhaps even the best but that is arguable nevertheless. A different measure would be what we strive for. If Americans strive to be the best in the world, what is wrong with that. So long as we acknowledge how we fail to measure up to that yardstick. In so far as many Americans no longer try to be the best in the world in terms of humanity, decency, humility and strength when necessary, then Americans are diminished as a whole.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I would also include being the best stewards of the natural world which is near and dear to my heart.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
This Neal Gabler article is right on target.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
From Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon entitled:
“The Drum Major Instinct:”
2/4/68 – Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia.
(comments from the pews included)
**********
“….we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. “I must be first.” “I must be supreme.” “Our nation must rule the world.” (Preach it) And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I’m going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken.
“God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. (Preach it, preach it) God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.
“But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. (Amen) The God that I worship has a way of saying, “Don’t play with me.” (Yes) He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, “Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. (Yes) Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.” (Yes)
“And that can happen to America. (Yes) Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.”
November 10th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
“And our text for the morning is taken from a very familiar passage in the tenth chapter as recorded by Saint Mark. Beginning with the thirty-fifth verse of that chapter, we read these words: “And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him saying, ‘Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.’ And he said unto them, ‘What would ye that I should do for you?’ And they said unto him, ‘Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.’
“….The setting is clear. James and John are making a specific request of the master. They had dreamed, as most of the Hebrews dreamed, of a coming king of Israel who would set Jerusalem free and establish his kingdom on Mount Zion, and in righteousness rule the world. And they thought of Jesus as this kind of king. And they were thinking of that day when Jesus would reign supreme as this new king of Israel. And they were saying, “Now when you establish your kingdom, let one of us sit on the right hand and the other on the left hand of your throne.
“Now very quickly, we would automatically condemn James and John, and we would say they were selfish. Why would they make such a selfish request? But before we condemn them too quickly, let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance. That same desire for attention, that same desire to be first.
“Of course, the other disciples got mad with James and John, and you could understand why, but we must understand that we have some of the same James and John qualities. And there is deep down within all of us an instinct. It’s a kind of drum major instinct—a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life.”
November 10th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
….”What was the answer that Jesus gave these men?
“It’s very interesting.
“One would have thought that Jesus would have condemned them. One would have thought that Jesus would have said, ‘You are out of your place. You are selfish. Why would you raise such a question?’
“But that isn’t what Jesus did; he did something altogether different. He said in substance, ‘Oh, I see, you want to be first. You want to be great. You want to be important. You want to be significant. Well, you ought to be. If you’re going to be my disciple, you must be.’
“But he reordered priorities. And he said, ‘Yes, don’t give up this instinct. It’s a good instinct if you use it right. (Yes) It’s a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do.’
“And he transformed the situation by giving a new definition of greatness. And you know how he said it? He said, ‘Now brethren, I can’t give you greatness. And really, I can’t make you first.’ This is what Jesus said to James and John. ‘You must earn it. True greatness comes not by favoritism, but by fitness. And the right hand and the left are not mine to give, they belong to those who are prepared.’ (Amen)
“And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) That’s a new definition of greatness.
“And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen)
“You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen)
“You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant.”
November 10th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Thanks for your kind comment, and the references, Hanu Man Ji. I am familiar with the writings of Baker and Hartmann, and will track down the Slater book. I also have found the writing of David Korten useful. The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community is very good, based on his experimentation with sustainable living models.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Yes Jim,
I’ve noticed that this site does not usually highlight the planetary context within which various political machinations are occuring.
Lots of highly intelligent folks are currently discussing the very real possibility that the human species may go the way of the dinosaurs in the foreseeable future.
My take is that we are at a crossroads. Just like any other species, humanity is sensing this crunch (whether consciously or not), and working from within to evolve and thereby successfully adapt.
This round, however, our physical evolution of new capacities (which also may be underway, but not as we might suspect) is not paramount. Rather, the necessity now is for us human-beans to allow our consciousness/awareness to flower – and in the process provide us with new paradigms and frames through which to view the world and create fresh solutions to some deep and long-standing problems.
This, too, is underway. Yet, because re-drawing our maps of the world (and our conceptions of who We are) is effortful and often involves a sense of loss and vulnerability, we can see much resistance as well.