What America means to me ;-)

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday shusu and wayfairer!!!

And a very happy Guy Fawkes Day! Somebody light something on fire for me.:-)

This is probably going to be another rambly post as I try to work things out. I don't usually think about America as a mythical entity, but I sort of have been since Tuesday. This isn't a criticism of anything on lj, really, just a general something I've noticed since 9/11. Maybe it's mostly due to my personal perspective and projections, but

Right after 9/11--the day of, actually, I remember watching BBC news and they had a correspondent in NYC and asked him, "What's it like there? Presumably there's quite an atmosphere of fear and dread." At home I thought, "Huh? No, not really." And the correspondent paused and said, "No...no, actually there is no overwhelming atmosphere of fear. People are out, walking around, talking, eating at restaurants. If anything this seems to have convinced them even more that they live in the best city in the world." Heh. It was kind of true. But anyway yes, there really was no panic. It was sad and disturbing, but I guess Rudy Guilliani was the perfect face for it in the way he got to work and consistently appealed to people's common sense. When someone asked a hysterical leading question he called them on it. He kept saying things like, "NY is stronger than this. This is not the end of the world. We are not the first city to be attacked." That was very reassuring.

Unfortunately, I felt like immediately afterwards, as soon as the Federal Government snapped out of its deer-in-the-headlights shock, it set to work destroying just that kind of feeling. I kept thinking myself how 9/11 probably would have been a great mobilizing force to get people to, for instance, cut down on their fuel consumption, but no, the opposite was encouraged. I think people really wanted to do something constructive, but the government and the media, it seemed to me, kept telling people no, don't do that. If you do that the terrorists win. Here's what you do: Buy stuff. Worry about you and yours. Quietly panic. Pray to the Christian God to smite non-believers. Worry some more. Drive around in a gas guzzling car. Practice being a victim.

And people did.

In a way, those days were probably the time I got my first inkling of being "the liberal elite." I remember talking on a mailing list and saying something about how one good thing that might come of this was maybe it would inspire more Americans to see themselves as part of the world where there were other countries that affected us and that we affected. I thought this was a pretty non-radical thing to say, and was surprised to find that this statement seemed to be considered offensive by a lot of people. For two reasons: one, it was taken to mean that I was saying people were hicks for not having made The Grand Tour of Europe or something. They didn't have the money to go to Europe! How dare I suggest they go to France when they had bills to pay! I was completely confused--I didn't mean you had to tour Europe, I just suggested a sort of change in perspective. Second it was bad because thinking about other countries seemed to be the same as putting other countries ahead of America: Why should I go to Versailles? Have you ever been to Carlsbad Caverns? Ha! You hate America! So I learned: don't even suggest that other countries are countries the way America is.

Unfortunately it began to seem that for a lot of people (not all, of course), the main way they began to relate to other countries was to consider whether they felt sorry enough for America after 9/11. Genuine sympathy was sadly often taken as owed rather than really appreciated. I've just felt like the media/gov't whatever continues to appeal to just that side of the American character and it's really embarrassing! So I think it kind of is probably hard for me to not ever come across as sounding sort of...contemptuous at times, and hopefully not just along something like red/blue state lines, because I don't think it's that. It's not that I have any sort of blanket hatred for people who voted for Bush or live in a red state; I honestly don't. It's just it worries me that there seems to be such a big movement right now in this country towards both seeing yourself as a victim and easily writing off anything like the real thing. Sometimes it feels like the strong part of the country (by which I don't mean "me" or "my part of the country" but just individuals or groups that don't see things this way) is constantly having to adapt to the needs of the weak and demanding.

And I really feel--getting back to the attitude after 9/11--that this is something that can be changed, because I thought the original response to that day was healthy and strong. I think I was just really disappointed that the heroic image we immediately had seemed to get taken over by tackiness and schmaltz. I really believe that if the government had stepped up and given people positive things to do and laid out a reasonable change in attitude we would be much stronger today no matter who was president. Instead I feel like we're just encouraged to throw a blanket over our heads all the time, to be resentful and defensive for no reason. When that kind of attitude takes control I find it hard to believe we'll be able to do anything successfully. I just feel like we spend so much time convincing ourselves we've done nothing wrong we can't fix anything we have, and so much time accusing other people of being mean to us we can't benefit from any good advice we might have for us.

I mean, I realize that when somebody calls you stupid it gets your back up, but you know? Maybe I'm weird, but no matter how angry I am at somebody calling me stupid, I'll pretty much always consider the possibility before I completely dismiss it. Likewise, I do actually read posts by people who voted for Bush and wonder if they are correct in the way they see things. Honestly, there have been few that I have come across of any substance, unfortunately. But not all of them. So really, while I currently still believe I made the right choice in my vote for President, I hope that if somebody proved to me I was wrong I'd have the guts to just admit it-and be happy, really, because I would love to have the best man for the job in office. As I've said before, I'd rather be right than just win a stupid argument. I just feel like somewhere along the line somehow this country lost the desire to be that way and settled for something worse. We don't seem to strive to be anything I would consider, for lack of a better word, cool. Our national character just seems kind of petty, and that's not something I'd want my own name attached to, let alone God's.

Comments

[ljash.livejournal.com]

I really believe that if the government had stepped up and given people positive things to do and laid out a reasonable change in attitude we would be much stronger today no matter who was president. Instead I feel like we're just encouraged to throw a blanket over our heads all the time, to be resentful and defensive for no reason.

One of the fascinating movies that came out about 9-11 and such was called "Hijacking Diaster". It had most of the general information that these type of things do, stuff we all know. Their main message was that the Bush administration hijacked 9-11 as purely as the airplanes were hijacked.

One of the best things said in this was brought up by an Indian woman, talking about Gandhi. She said that the only good politics were the politics of fearlessness. Bush encourages a politics of fear. She said that those firemen and other people who helped get people out of the buildings on 9-11 were fearless. They were fearless because they had something to do, they had a concrete way of helping, and they did it.

Our country was swept together right after 9-11 largely because what we saw was how brave people can be in a crisis. Those firemen and others were the heroes. But then quickly that image became supplanted by Bush's face--he became the hero. He stood proud with his megaphone and said we'd bring them to justice, and then everyone breathed a sigh of relief and said, "good, we don't have to do anything anymore, our leader is here to make it all better." And I think that's what most people wanted to hear.

It doesn't feel good to be a victim. It feels good to be the fireman, the person with the concrete things they can do and know that they're helping. Yet people desire against their better interests and desire to have someone else do all the work. Then they don't have to change anything, or give anything up. Or do anything. People always think they'd rather have a life of not having to do anything. But that's not true. They just don't want to do stupid pointless things, which is what most of us do in our jobs. They want to do meaningful things.

But we were given no option of that. Specifically, intentionally. Even the left gave us no options. Giving things up is not really action in that way that makes you feel like you're helping. It's probably good and necessary, but just giving up your toys doesn't make you feel strong. What can anybody do that would be helpful? That film I mentioned said get involved, go protest, be an activist. That's partly good... but I never saw much real good in protesting. It was one of those things where people told you that you were doing something but you just stood around, knowing that you weren't really. I think that's why it's so easy for mobs to break out into violence in a protest--people long to be actually doing something, and waving a sign and yelling doesn't really cut it.

Hmm I'm rambling off topic. I also liked what you said about how you'd rather be right than win an argument. Nobody is like that anymore in politics and media. It's kind of chilling. Everyone is just trying to win. It's not about being right or doing right. It's about winning.

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

One of the best things said in this was brought up by an Indian woman, talking about Gandhi. She said that the only good politics were the politics of fearlessness. Bush encourages a politics of fear. She said that those firemen and other people who helped get people out of the buildings on 9-11 were fearless. They were fearless because they had something to do, they had a concrete way of helping, and they did it.

Our country was swept together right after 9-11 largely because what we saw was how brave people can be in a crisis. Those firemen and others were the heroes. But then quickly that image became supplanted by Bush's face--he became the hero

Wow...that's just such a perfect way of putting it.

Man, September 11th has been used so much as a playing piece in politics lately, it makes me ashamed sometimes to even bring it up. (Not that I'm saying it shouldn't ever be brought up...just that it saddens me. These were people and they died, they don't deserve to end up some kind of bargaining chip. Or an excuse...)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I really hesitate to bring it up for any reason because of that. It's so overused. The Republican convention was just gross the way it used it, lining up the families of victims and all that and even setting the convention here. No shame at all.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Just word to everything here. Especially about everything being replaced by Bush's face. I remember recently somebody writing an article about the GOP convention where it talked about how he had come to be behind Bush after he handled 9/11 so well and I thought...what? What did Bush handle well about 9/11? He floundered for a while, then started talking a big game about catching bin Laden and not doing it, then he whipped everybody up into a frenzy of fear. And yet people are convinced that something really bad would have happened if somebody else had been president.

It's just such a shame because there were these pockets that showed you exactly what you should aspire to, with the firemen or perhaps even more the people on that last flight who went down. There was nothing they could do to save themselves, so they spent their last few minutes saving others and doing something good. I mean, think about that. They had more reason to be terrified than anyone--they didn't even have the training or experience of firemen, yet they could keep their cool by doing something worthwhile.

I just think of people during WW2 for instance, where they could get behind doing little things like Victory gardens or rationed food because people were able to show that it made them part of the fight. This government has done everything it can to keep people out of the fight: just let us make the decisions. You can't do anything without us protecting you. Feh.

[(Anonymous)]

Barbara Kingsolver has, I think, a beautiful essay/rallying cry about this very point in [i]Small Wonder[/i], which I've practically been sleeping with since Tuesday night. She even makes the same point about WWII--and how no leader took advantage of that moment to ask us to reflect on our lives and make any voluntary material sacrifice. She says that for her parents, wartime was very obviously, both as lived and in memory, a time of sadness--something you submitted to, something you regretted even as you were doing it (which is something that drives me crazy about the "mixed messages" gobbledygook--I don't see why we can't acknowledge at minimum regretting the need for warfare).

Instead, we got a VP who says conservation is only a "personal value" (i.e., totally inapplicable to national policy) and a massive push for buying flags, which is nice, I guess, but is that the best (or maybe I mean) place that money could have gone?

Your point about fundamentalism was interesting to me, because I come from a denomination and a congregation that makes a pretty big deal out of pastors being able to read at least one Biblical language. For me, that's the biggest stumbling block with fundamentalists, especially because as far as I can see, it's completely proven there have been errors in transmission of Scripture. For a chunk of the middle ages, Moses had horns, and up into the twentieth century, the passage in Corinthians about "homosexual offenders" was translated as "masturbators." At some point, if you have two pretty different versions, doesn't that have to suggest that someone got something wrong? I tend to stick with the idea that I take the Bible too seriously to take it literally (or, as a seminarian friend of mine puts it, the Bible contains the word of God--but also a lot of static). I know I may be a hoity-toity ivory tower former English major, but dammit, words mean things! And deep down, I feel like there's a definite anti-intellectual, anti-elitist trend that devalues language and that scares me, because without language, what alternative is there to war?

[(Anonymous)]

I meant, about flag-buying, was this the ONLY place to spend our money. I'm totally into the value of symbols and talismans--I alternately wear St. Christopher and St. Jude medals, depending on whether I feel more like a traveler or someone in need of intervention in a lost cause. I definitely don't mean to knock flag-buying or displaying--if I'd had a home and a flag whether than a dorm room at the time, I would have put one out, no question. But after awhile, especially when I see them all dragged-out on car antennae and those awful t-shirts and flag-as-thong styles, I really wonder what else we could have done right then.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Word on all of this--including on the symbols.:-) There are some people I've come across on the net who are knowlegeable in the ancient languages of the Bible and it's fascinating...and crazy when you think there are people who honestly think whatever interpretation they have at the moment is obviously correct. That's especially true when you've got a nebulous concept like "homosexuals," which didn't even exist as a word in English until relatively recently! I was reading something somewhere else where they pointed out there's possibly a scene where Jesus comes across a soldier and a catamite and says nothing about their relationship being a bad thing.

The attitude towards war nowadays does seem very damaging in so many ways. In fact I think that's maybe why the Vietnam records of the candidate seem somehow significant. I mean, I don't think being a good soldier makes you a good president--the two are completely different things. But it just seemed disturbing how really disrespectful the GOP was about Kerry's war record, wearing purple heart Band-Aids and sneering at his wounds for not being serious enough while playing up Bush as a "war president" and acting as if his photo ops were actual battles or something. That we would choose the fake soldier over the real one seemed to reflect a more general trend towards the superficial: buy a flag but put it on your gas guzzling car that you drive alone and don't carpool in, demand more war and say you support troops but also demand tax cuts. I don't want to sound like I'm so much better than anybody who would do that, but the way it's presented as something to aspire to is upsetting.