The kind of political developments you describe in your blog are deeply depressing to anyone who cares about the traditional values of western civilisation. Up to now we seem to have avoided such excesses in the UK. Following an indecisive election a few months ago, we now have two very different political parties cooperating quite harmoniously to sort out our financial mess. However, what happens in the USA is often reflected in some way in the UK, maybe a decade later, so I'm not complacent.
A thought has struck me which may be entirely inappropriate, and even offensive, to some in the USA: that faced with unpalatable international political and economic developments, many people in your country are increasingly looking inwards and retreating to the psychological comfort of old beliefs (I still find it very hard to understand how only 40% of the US population believes that humans evolved from earlier animals). At the extreme, this includes those who are not just religious fundamentalists but who look forward to the "Rapture" in their lifetime anyway; a serious case of denial of reality.
I can't help observing that something very similar started to happen in the Muslim world just over half a century ago. A combination of events - focused on the creation of the western-backed Israel in Palestine, reinforced by the failure of the Muslim world to keep up with western economic and technological developments -began to make Muslims increasingly inward-looking and fundamentalist, and more inclined to believe frankly lunatic things (e.g. that Israel was responsible for 9/11). Countries like Egypt and (most obviously) Iran are far less westernised than they used to be. And we all know what the reaction of the extremist and violent Muslim fringe has been, and continues to be.
That's a very perceptive observation, don't you think? The Muslim world, in general (I know we're talking about individual human beings here), compares the developed western world with their own societies - often flush with oil wealth, but still backward economically, technologically primitive, militarily weak. They are a proud people, so the contrast is hard to take.
But what has been the response to this unflattering comparison? Instead of learning from the west, instead of opening up to diversity, creating free societies separating religion from government, unleashing their own creativity in pluralistic democratic societies where respect for minority rights is at least as strong as other side of the coin, majority rules, they've done just the reverse. They've retreated inward, closing their societies from outside influence as much as possible, retreating into mysticism and fundamentalism.
Islamic nations try to adopt the modern technologies of the western world without changing anything else in their societies. Indeed, they've become more determined than ever that they won't change. Instead of bravely facing reality, and accepting the challenge of modern life, they retreat, as Tony puts it, into the psychological comfort of old beliefs - pretty much what the right-wing in America is doing right now, don't you think?
There's more. Looking for a reason why they don't lead the world, and refusing to blame themselves, all too many Muslims have concluded that they must be the victims of some giant conspiracy to keep them down. They've even developed the kind of victim mentality that still sees the Crusades, nearly a thousand years in the past, as relevant today. None of this is their fault, you see. It's not because they've refused to stand up and admit they need change, drastic change, but just because their enemies have kept them down. That's where the anger comes from, the anger that incites violence, that makes rioting seem like a valid response to cartoons, indeed to any criticism.
Is America also headed down this road? Is this a glimpse of our future? America was a religious nation in my childhood, but it seemed to be a moderate kind of belief. People went to church on Sunday - it didn't really matter which one - but that was all. It was just custom, just a common social activity. There was none of this "culture war" crap. And there weren't fundamentalists everywhere you turned. Both political parties supported the separation of church and state (although both were quite willing to turn a blind eye to violations of that, for political expediency).
Previously, I talked about my experiences in college, and how my nation seemed to change around me. Frankly, I've been astonished by America's retreat to religion. These days, you can't throw a dead cat without hitting a Christian fundamentalist. Are we seeing the beginnings, here in America, of what Muslim societies have already become? Does the Muslim world show us America's future?
That feeling of victimization is here, too. A few weeks ago, Christopher Hitchens pointed this out:
In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention.
The right-wing in America is convinced that they're the victims of a conspiracy by the liberal elite. (Being "elite" is not an admirable objective for the right. Instead, the ideal is to be a "good ol' boy," a proud redneck with folksy speech and no more education than you really need.) They see themselves as being under constant attack by the media, by government bureaucrats, by the education system. Ironically, they often rail against the "victim mentality" of African Americans while adopting that same mentality themselves.
The right-wing has pretty well controlled politics in America for decades, with even the Democrats moving to the right. George W. Bush was the far-right's candidate, and they wholeheartedly supported his policies (excepting only immigration reform, which failed to pass Congress). But none of the disasters that resulted from those policies is their fault. Somehow, they put the blame elsewhere. They were betrayed. Of course, they still support the exact same policies that Republicans pushed then, even using the same rhetoric. But bizarrely, they think they're the victims in all this.
In my post a week ago, I called this kind of thinking cowardice. I still think so. It's a refusal to face reality and a refusal to accept responsibility for your own mistakes. Instead of bravely standing up and facing the future, we're retreating into religious dogma, into bigotry, into bombastic patriotism and paranoia, and into a kind of victim mentality. It takes courage to change your mind when the evidence shows that you've been wrong. It takes courage to stand up in an increasingly competitive world and strive to be the best. It takes courage to welcome diversity and to understand that change is inevitable.
Is America headed toward the Christian equivalent of the most backward Muslim nations? Are we retreating into the psychological comfort of religious fantasy, praying for the "Rapture" as others take the lead in the real world? Are we retreating into a victim mentality, where nothing is our fault? (I don't exempt progressives from this either, when they stay at home or support third-party candidates in a "plague on both your houses" kind of idiocy. Progress may be frustratingly slow, but that's no excuse to give up.)
In a followup, in a personal email to me (posted with his permission), Tony Williams offers this ray of hope:
There is one reason to hope that the USA, and the West generally, will not go down the same slope as some of the Muslim countries (or at least not as far down it). That is that the most extreme Muslim countries tend to be very homogeneous in all respects: racial, cultural and in religion. So if an influential individual gets in power there, he has a much better chance of taking the whole country with him. In the West we are far more diverse in all respects (the USA especially) and it is very hard to imagine that any one extreme group could attain the kind of dominance you see in Iran. However, I fear that a Republican Party which is dominated by the Tea Party could do a lot of damage in trying to do so.
Yes, we are a diverse nation, and we're becoming more diverse all the time. To a large extent, this is what has set off the hysteria on the right - the hysteria about having a black man in the White House (clearly, not one of "us" - he must be a Muslim, a Kenyan, a socialist, a terrorist plant), the hysteria over illegal immigration (all those brown people can't ever become "us"), the hysteria about Muslims (very similar to the hysteria about Catholics more than a century ago).
White people are still the majority in America (66% of Americans are non-Hispanic whites). If we fear other races, other ethnicities, rather than accepting them as Americans just like us, what will that do to us? Christians are an overwhelming majority in America (76% of us, including Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons). What will happen if they cease to see freedom of religion and the separation of church and state as the best guarantee of their own rights. (I can, and do, disagree with them while still strongly supporting their right to believe what they wish.) What will happen if they cease to support science? What will happen if they see all Muslims as the enemy, rather than welcoming peaceful Muslims into the diverse mix that is America?
What will happen if we Americans lose our courage? Or has that already happened? Will we continue to blame others for our own mistakes, continue to fantasize about supernatural intervention instead of working to solve real problems, continue to have hysterics over the fact that 21st Century America isn't what we imagine, looking back in nostalgia through rose-colored glasses, the 1950s were like (for white people only, of course)? Will we turn into the 21st or 22nd Century equivalent of the Muslim world today?
Tony's comment was very perceptive - and frightening. He's right that we're far more diverse than Muslim nations. But we're also a superpower. We can do a lot of damage if the lunatics take charge. (Indeed, just look at all the damage the Bush administration did.) We're also at a time when the whole world faces some big, big problems - global warming, overpopulation, the destruction of our oceans. If we don't face up to those problems now, will we ever have another chance?
One thing is certain: the future is not fixed. OK, maybe tomorrow a giant asteroid will wipe out all life on Earth. But absent such an unlikely event, the future is up to us. What direction we take is our choice. We can retreat into fantasy, or we can accept the evidence of science. We can turn inward, praying for magical solutions to our problems, or we can stand up and face reality, working to change what we can.
True, as individuals, we can't do much. But that's no excuse not to try. It is always individuals, working together, who accomplish anything. Does it look hopeless? So what? Are you that much of a coward that you'll let that stop you? It's the easiest thing in the world to think of an excuse for doing nothing. That's why it's so popular, because it's easy.
What I'm suggesting is hard. It's hard to face reality, instead of a comforting fantasy. It's hard to believe what you don't want to believe. It's hard to accept the evidence that you've been wrong, and that you need to change. And it's hard, very hard, to keep working on what you think is right, no matter how frustrating it gets, no matter how hopeless it seems, no matter how little your own efforts really seem to accomplish.
But you have to look at yourself in the mirror every day. What kind of person do you want looking back at you?
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1 comment:
Great post, Bill.
You are right that the USA's power, in the wrong hands, could do great global damage (and arguably is already doing so in a way, in the refusal to take serious action to deal with climate change). I was thinking though of the damage which could be done to the USA's own society by the Tea Party attitudes, which just seem to be building on and exacerbating long-term trends as you indicate.
Internationally there's the problem of the USA's enormous indebtedness - particularly in hock to China and the oil-rich Muslim world - which is forcing a scale-back in expenditure and a reduction in military power just as China are beginning to build up their forces. Add to that the depressing and confidence-sapping outcome of the Iraq and (it seems) Afghan wars. And then throw into the mix the apparent tendency to regard public spending (and the taxation needed to fund it) as essentially a Bad Thing, leading to crumbling infrastructure. Taxes are needed, folks, they have a purpose in improving public life!
All these seem to be fuelling the isolationist, inward-looking attitudes I identified as being not dissimilar to what has happened in the Muslim world.
I regard myself as a friend of the USA, and I worry. I am also well aware that many of my criticisms apply just as much to the UK and the rest of the Western world. But the USA's size and power mean that its problems have far more effect, with consequences for all of us.
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