The United States of America is not so much a nation or a country, as it is like an entire universe. A library of volumes devoted to the subject would be inadequate to describe the complexities of this society. There are many Americas. Hence, there are many different kinds of Americans who, understandably, often disagree about what America “is” not to mention what it “should be.”
No two of us have to agree about the essence of this fascinating nation in order for each of us or all of us to be right in what we say. Nearly anything you can say about the U.S. may be true from some perspective, and usually is.
If it is “true,” say, that an African-American young man growing up in the South Bronx, with a life-expectancy comparable to that of a young man in the war-torn Middle East and a young upper-middle class white woman in suburbia are both “Americans,” then we need to wonder again about what it really means to call someone an American, besides using the term as a convenient political label. What does it really mean to speak of an American today, especially when the designation is self-chosen?
In a foreign country, both the young African-American and the the young white woman are instantly recognizable to others as Americans. The key to that recognizability, I think, is a kind of confidence and ease, a sense of entitlement resulting from possessing the “correct” nationality in this world, which I assume to be comparable to what a Roman must have felt in the days of the empire.
Yet the most important part of being an American, for me, has to do precisely with the freedom to decide what it means to be an American and what America is, something which – to an astonishing degree by comparison with other places – is primarily each individual’s responsiblity in this country.
Is this sense of entitlement and privilege something that people should feel guilty about, to the extent that they recognize it at all? Does it have something to do with the epidemic of anti-Americanism in the world at the moment? Perhaps.
No discussion of anti-Americanism will be very helpful unless some definitions and clarifications are established at the outset. By anti-Americanism I do not mean a willingness to criticize the United States government or the war in Iraq or any particular politician, whether Republican or Democrat. Criticizing the country and complaining about politicians is as American as apple pie, however American that is.
I certainly do not care what anyone, anywhere, thinks of George W. Bush or his “War on Terror,” neither does he probably. Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution encourages and protects the right of persons to do exactly that, to criticize the government, especially when that government pursues a controversial military policy.
As for my own views, although I was against the war in Iraq, I do not believe that the efforts of the U.S. in that nation can now be permitted to fail. Whatever one thinks of the details of Mr. Bush’s “War on Terror,” it seems clear that in the aftermath of the 9/11 events, something like that effort was called for. Domestically, the Bush administration is much more liberal than people realize: some of its proposals for increasing access to health care, for example, and coping with financial pressures to ensure continuing access to higher education are nothing less than admirable, whatever one’s politics or opinions of Mr. Bush himself may be.
Areas of concern include the encroachments on civil liberties and the growing secrecy in governmental actions, but these are the sorts of criticisms that might be levelled at any American administration under these trying circumstances.
Jonathan Tepperman has argued, persuasively, that criticism ceases to be constructive or meaningful or sane, for that matter, and becomes blatantly anti-American, when it is primarily vindictive and insulting. For instance, when the U.S. is caricatured as suffering from an “unfree press” by nations that imprison its critics, or as a non-functioning democracy by one of the world’s dictatorships, I reach for my barf bag.
To call President Bush a “Nazi” is more than irresponsible, especially when it happens in Germany of all places. To suggest that there is no “real dissent” in this country or that Americans are all “fat and stupid” is more than a little off the mark. Some are; some are not. The point is that similar remarks made about any other country on the basis of such appalling stereotypes would immediately call forth condemnations and outrage. You can say anything insulting about Americans and it is O.K., as far as the international community is concerned. It should not be.
The United States is powerful and rich. American culture and popular media are overwhelmingly dominant in the world not because Americans are all “fat and stupid,” but because many (including the present writer, I hope!) are not. This power, wealth and the attractiveness of so much American culture inspires a great deal of resentment and envy. Let me say it again: envy. Americans are hated precisely because of their freedom and creativity, because of what they have done in the twentieth century, which has led to a success that everyone now wishes to emulate. If you doubt this, look at the way people are dressed anywhere these days. Take a look at the movies they go to, the expressions they use, and so on. To condem the U.S. while doing your best to resemble an American cinema star and mouthing rock-n-roll lyrics is a little ridiculous.
It is regrettably true that Americans are often ignorant of the cultural achievements of others. Americans are disinclined to bother learning much about subjects that are unlikely to lead immediately to increased wealth, with some notable exceptions. On the other hand, many of the world’s greatest scholars, on the impractical subject of your choice, are located in the U.S. – and this includes some of the world’s most fascinating philosophers, people like Richard Rorty, Martha Nussbaum, Cornel West, Robert C. Solomon, Robert Pippin and lots of others. We forget that these people are right here, in the good old U.S. of A. In fact, it is Professor Rorty who writes: “Most of us, despite the outrage that we feel about governmental cowardice or corruption, and despite our despair over what is being done to the weakest or poorest among us, still identify with our country. We take pride in being citizens of a self-invented, self-reforming, enduring Constitutional democracy. We think of the United States as having glorious – if tarnished – national traditions.” “Philosophy and Social Hope” (New York: Penguin, 1999), p. 252.
If American cultural ignorance is a national character flaw, something I admit, then by comparison with the national character flaws of others – such as the tendency to replace political leaders by means of assassination or the stoning of adulterers who happen to be women, both practices which made a comeback recently in some countries that have criticized the U.S. – cultural ignorance simply does not seem like such a terrible thing.
While the U.S. is far from perfect, it is better than many other places in the world. Our criticisms of America are often the result of our high or maybe unrealistic expectations for this country, together with our tendency to foget that it is a human society, like any other. This is something its critics should bear in mind too.
After the recent Tsunami, the U.S. was immediately criticized by a U.N. official for “only” contributing 35 million dollars. Actually, the U.S. eventually contributed more like 350 million dollars and the logistical means by which aid could be distributed to the needy. The U.S. is the single greatest donor of humanitarian aid in the world, a fact that hardly fits the “greedy-American-capitalist” stereotype and which gets little publicity. Individual European nations with their own shameful histories of colonialism and empire are often, proportionately, far less generous and are hardly in a position to denigrate the moral achievements of others. But they do anyway and I am tired of it.
So I do not want to hear any more knee-jerk anti-Americanism, fueled by hypocrisy, from people who should know better, especially when most of them would do anything for a green card.
), or a communist baastard (to a’s to indicate the British accent), or a proverbial dead cat. Its cool. I only mean well and I like you.