Baron Max said:
Just what, exactly, is this "American way"? Please explain it more fully, otherwise one is apt to take that statement as just one more of the many "...hate America" statements.
The American way is one in which material, financial success is the equivalent of moral propriety. If you would like some rational consideration of the issue, please refer to Weber's
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (See
XRoads for hypertext.) As I do not have present with me the paper copy that has accompanied me these last ten years or so, I will skip citations, which include the overview offered in Giddons' preface. Indictments of that American way can be found variously in literature and culture; Emma Goldman, for instance, writes,
Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress.
Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right, when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the monster dead.
"Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey.
It is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this simple lesson. Every year the cost of production in human life is growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in America last year); the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever getting smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable bankruptcy of our business of production. Nor is this the only crime of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is making.
Goldman,
"Anarchism"
When a child chooses to bow to peer pressure instead of parental admonition, to fad instead of wisdom, he is honoring the American way. When a man chooses sex over love, violence over peaceful attainment, he is honoring the American way. Emma Goldman repented of her attempt to murder an industry boss, stood by her cohort Berkman's side until the end. The industry boss, however, never repented of the fraud and murder that brought his success. The industry boss, who is equally willing to cut his partner's throat as his employee's, is an example of the American way. The Arabic Muslim looks at the demon United States. Yes, Mr. Smith has a good job, makes good money. But he does so at the expense of Nepalese or Bangladeshi textile laborers, at the expense of Arabic petrol workers, with the blessings of those who would extinguish Islam. What is he to think? Mr. Smith is a representative of the American way. American historian Stephen Ambrose writes (
The Rise to Globalism, as I recall) of the American businessman as missionary, going forth to spread our gospel of commerce around the globe. Ambrose also pretends that the indigenous tribes throughout the American continent should have no objection to the Spaniard
requerimiento.
And think of the Schwarzkopf cycle. Fifty years, from father to son. Sound familiar? Gen. Norman H. Schwarzkopf, on behalf of the United States of America, helped depose the democratically-elected, Marxist-sympathetic prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. The resulting reign of Shah Reza Pahlavi was, with American blessing, so damnably evil that the people turned to Ayatollah Ruollah Khomeni. We Americans tend to think of Khomeni as evil; crazy suffices. But to think that what we wrought in Iran made someone like Khomeni an attractive alternative? Such is the American way.
Did you ever read Douglas Adams? The
Hitchhiker's triology? Do you recall how the Vogons, seeing the virgin planet in all its glory, could only think, "It's got to go"? Does anybody not recognize this notion from American real estate? Indictments of such an attitude reach all the way to Tobe Hooper's
Poltergeist. Really, when Craig T Nelson is helping to make the point, the culture is already saturated. What? Really. Think about it. Craig T Nelson, dude.
What can I tell you? The American way represents the height of individualism as a life purpose. John Wayne, Arnold Schwarzeneggar; why is it the Chinese dancer who breaks the template for action heroes? Watch any American romantic comedy. Read a best-seller. Say, the next Tom Clancy or ... um ... whomever. Make it an American. Then turn around and read something like Oates'
Because it is Bitter and Because it is My Heart. Seriously; there is no comparison. The average bestselling novel has more of what the typical American moviegoer or television viewer wants. But Joyce Carol Oates? Jack Cady? Seriously; I dare you to make a movie out of Cady's
Singleton. Something easier? Try
The Jonah Watch; the scene where the ice sheet crashes onto the deck should be inspiring. Point being: Culturally, politically, economically, and spiritually, the American way is separate from the rest of the world.
Surely, everybody wants to be rich. Or at least able to attain resources necessary to life or leisure. But the American way makes it a religion, encourages its acuity. We hear, sometimes, that somebody is willing to evict his own mother for a dollar. We usually hear this from the artist of American antithesis; Leona Helmsley, Donald Trump ... all of them have sought to exploit the law in order to line their own pockets minimally at the expense of other people's lives and livelihoods.
Yes, the design problem kills people, but it will cost a lot to fix it.
Fight Club, anyone? The dirty secret actually made the movie; whether or not to inform the public of a problem is, in fact, a simple comparison of simple mathematical formulae; what will cost more, silence or fixing the problem?
Americans are as confused about the role of wealth in life as Zarqawi is confused about the role of God in what he does. It is easier to subscribe to wealth than propriety, and that is the American way. We treat it like a dirty secret even though we believe it. Much like the man who rapes his own daughter. Shh, don't tell.
We will get in trouble, even though
we are right. You love me, don't you? I love you. Shh, hush now. I promise you, this is a good thing.
It would be one thing if we were, as a culture, honest about the sum of our values. But we're not. Someone hits me, I hit them back. That's the American way, sure. It's also the human way. But the American way also says that if I think someone might hit me at some time in the future, I ought to kill them now and deny them the opportunity. It's like someone--and someone I respect, at that--told me recently: I should be proactive, should "avoid the damn issues before they occur". Politically we call it "preemptive". As in "preemptive defense", in which you attack someone without provocation because you think they might possibly offend you at some undetermined point in the future.
Would you sell your daughter as a prostitute in order to feed her?
Essential suicide?? Huh? Please explain that one, too. It seems a bit deep for me, so be sure to use small words and short sentences!
To borrow from an Englishman: "Run, rabbit run. Dig that hole, forget the sun. And when at last the work is done, don't sit down, it's time to dig another one."
Look, the "American way" as I have indicted it makes any ethical consideration about the individual and desire. As much as I would like to blame it on conservative politics, the reality is that everyone else gave in, anyway, so they're all to blame.
As I wrote earlier, "
Ask people to be considerate of the future and they call you a liberal elitist, or hippie, or utopian. No, some of us just want the human endeavor to be successful." I'm sorry such a notion confuses you so greatly. Consider it in terms of decisions:
- You can mine a region and make money, but you will extinct a species and disrupt the food chain.
- You can develop a property and make money, but will also destroy the last public access in town to the waterfront.
- You can clear land and make money, but you must also extinct a species of tree, which only grows in the area you wish to develop.
The American way says go for the money. It also says to cut corners in education; your profits, and not your children's knowledge and capability, are what is important. Think about it, Max. If you cut off the next generation of the species, the species suffers. If you destroy the next generation, the species dies. According to the American way, however, consideration of the next generation is either hippie utopian bullshit, or a political convenience. It is never, by the American way, a legitimate concern.
Maybe bulldoze a library to make way for condos? Hey, your profits are more important than whether the guy who will mug you and kill your wife in five years ever learned to read, right? After all, profit
is the American way.
Any questions?