a cynic's guide to modern life
AMERICA:
A Nation in Denial
Revised
October 2003
"If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness."
- Carl Sagan
Brief
Introduction
America is a nation
of two minds. One mind is
clear and obvious. America is
a nation of power and unity, of freedom and liberty.
A nation where everybody has the opportunity to succeed.
A nation of wealth and plenty.
A nation of diversity. A
nation of justice and morality.
This is the image America projects to
the world and her own citizens. It
is the image most Americans believe in, because this is the America they
see on their television screens and newspapers.
It is also the America most people believe in because the
alternative view is not a pleasant one.
There is a growing undercurrent in
American society. It contains
most of what the conservative set would call the “have-nots”. It is a loose group of people who have become immune to the
propaganda that the public relations arm that sells America to the people
fills our media with. Some
are educated; some are not. Some
are white; others are people of colour. Some are rich; some are poor.
But they all share the same idea. America is not what they are
telling us. The real America
is far more insidious and corrupt. Some
hold the idea that America embodies the exact opposite of what Americanism
is supposed to ideal.
Growing
numbers of people feel that America has become a failed experiment, a
nation guided by greed, segregation, corruption and a fierce and brutal
sense of nationalism. These
people feel that as a result, America lays dying, a victim of its own
successes and bloated on its sense of self-righteousness.
The
following sections will examine some of the core problems that America
faces. These problems exist
in all cultures at all times. This
is not the issue. In my
opinion, the far more glaring and pressing issue is the mass denial that
is taking place. Nations are
not static. They grow,
mature, and change over the course of the centuries.
But a citizenry unable to face their own weaknesses makes for a
nation that does not challenge their shortcomings and change them for the
better.
There
is a great need to wake up the people of America.
There must be an understanding that people in a democracy are
ultimately accountable for the actions of their leaders and the course
that their nations take. For
too long now, the American public has become lazy in this respect.
People need to be educated, not just academically, but politically
as well. They must, or else I
fear that one of the great empires in human history will only be a memory
in a few generations’ time.
The
thing that troubles me most is that most Americans know that their
nation is in trouble. You can
sense it in the national character. Instead
of a radical and vocal demand of accountability from America’s leaders,
people placate themselves with whatever bauble Madison Avenue dreams up
that month.
1.
The United States of Apathy
In
2001, the foundations of democracy were shaken when George W. Bush was
inaugurated under very questionable circumstances.
And yet, few of the voting populace responded at all, let alone
responded with righteous anger. Later
that year, terrorists ran jets into the World Trade Center towers and the
Pentagon. Three thousand people died.
Instinctively, Americans know that their foreign policy is
malevolent toward many people in the world.
In fact, most Americans privately knew that an attack like this was
going to come sooner or later. And
yet few Americans said anything. They
obediently raised a flag on their front lawns and kept silent.
In 2003 America invaded Iraq on the pretext that they were packing
weapons of mass destruction. When
no weapons were found, and the ruling party started to flip-flop between
that excuse and Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorist activity (of which neither
were ever proven), few Americans held their leaders accountable.
Why?
Why are so many people silent?
The facts are plain and clear.
There is a lot of deception by the hierarchy going on here, and yet
nobody says a thing.
The
reason, and the only reason why, is despite the terrorist attack, and the
possibility of future attacks, Americans are comfortable.
Stupefied by merchandise and advertising and acquisition, people
have left politicking to those who have the desire to exploit it for their
personal gain. I believe that
America has now reached the point where most of the people cannot launch a
proper dialogue against the abuses of their government, and those that can
have no platform in which to express their views.
Not that it much matters, because even if they did, they could not
divert the audience’s attention away from the character conflicts on Friends.
Just
as America’s waistlines are growing soft from a steady diet of processed
junk food and lack of exercise, Americans’ minds are growing soft from a
diet of mollifying entertainment and lack of stimulating thought.
An incalculably large amount of journalism is dedicated to the
intellectual pursuit of studying the habits of the rich and famous.
The death of a famous Hollywood actor upsets people more than some
real-life losses they’ve experienced.
This
has happened because the American public has lost its capacity to think
critically. Glaring problems and abuses abound in the media and on the
streets of American cities. But
Americans don’t act either because they expect this kind of abuse or
they feel as long as it doesn’t bother them, it’s acceptable. It is the non-involvement of the American public that has
crippled a once-great nation more than anything else imaginable.
2.
The Race Problem
The
problem of racial inequality has been around as long as the country
itself. Historical issues of
slavery, segregation and genocide have been unfortunate black marks on the
United States, and even more glaring is the continued racial unrest that
exists today. Most of the
issues surrounding race stems from the fact that most groups of people
can’t even agree on what the race problem actually is.
One
view, held openly by many conservatives and held privately by many others
is that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the great leveller, creating an
equal playing field and erasing the moral debt that America has accrued
for the issues of slavery and racial discrimination.
But opposition to other programs such as Affirmative Action shows
that these people feel that racial minorities have been given too much and
their continued complaining about economic and social disadvantage is
proof that these programs are making minorities reliant on handouts.
It is believed that once minorities are cut off from these
programs, they will be forced into self-reliance and it will follow that
they will start to succeed. “If
they can’t help themselves, what can we do?”
In
a book published in 1992 by James Patterson called The Day America Told
the Truth: What People Really Believe About Everything that Matters,
when people were asked to respond truthfully about what they think about
the issue of race, the white respondents overwhelmingly stated that they
were tired of giving blacks handouts, and they personally feel that they
have done everything they could to make racial equality a reality and now
it is up to black people to meet them halfway.
There is nothing that I have personally witnessed that contradicts
this view, even among people who claim themselves to be very liberal.
The
other current of thought, one espoused by most black leaders and some
liberals, is that over two hundred years of slavery and racism has
crippled the black community on so many levels, more is needed than the
Civil Rights Act to level the playing field.
They argue that discrimination and segregation have long-term
effects beyond what the Civil Rights Act can possibly achieve.
They also argue that racism still exists, that the deck is stacked
against them in many forms, from racial profiling by the police to denial
of opportunity in the ways of education and employment to the shockingly
disproportionate number of blacks in the penal system.
It is felt in these circles is that while there is no overt system
of racist thought in America, there is an implied institutionalized racist
policy in all levels of government and society.
They
need only to point to the major cities to prove their point.
Neighbourhoods in the US are primarily divided by race, an official
civil planning policy in the earlier part of the century and subsequently
also divided by material status. Also
as a result, schools are largely racially segregated as reported in the PBS
Online NewsHour report by Gwen Ifill.
I could spend hours detailing what this all means, but I think the
most important issue here is community segregation, the issue this whole
problem hinges on.
While
realizing that every individual in the world has his or her ideas on race
problems, as well as their own ideas of solutions, these two camps I have
described represent the two main schools of thought in America.
So why can’t these two camps cannot seem to see eye to eye on
many points of the race problem?
The
most pressing point, as I alluded to earlier is community separation and
the underlying problems of the community structure itself that is falling
apart. There is no better way
to understand people who are different from you than to live with them,
work with them and go to school with them.
All the periodicals, news reports and essays in the world can’t
hold a candle next to actual experience.
It is hard for one person to sympathize and understand another
person’s problems if they aren’t exposed to it.
Perhaps most frustrating for black leaders is trying to detail
racial problems in America to an audience who can’t get the message.
Even more frustrating for black artists is trying to address race
through their artwork, only to have corporate America co-opt music, film
and fashion into a more profitable and more vacuous endeavour.
A generation of white suburban kids has grown up thinking black
ghetto life is cool but have entirely missed the message that ghetto life
isn’t cool; it’s destructive and violent.
As
more affluent young professionals move further and further away from the
communities they grew up in and move into more affluent, more secure
neighbourhoods, condos and “gated communities” (the biggest example of
modern American doublethink), widening the racial and wealth gaps in the
cities, the less hope we will all have in coming to terms with the
continued issues of race that plague American society and more likely we
will perpetuate the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that seems to be gaining
more and more momentum in both the suburbs and the inner cities.
3.
The Education Crisis
“Education
isn’t just dying in America, it’s been dead for a century.”
-
Scott Bidstrup The Gathering Darkness:
America in the 21st Century.
Few
are willing to argue that America faces a crisis in education.
Many industrialized nations in the world are leaving America in the
dust when it comes to academic curricula, standards and achievement.
The US is graduating thousands of young people every year who are
functionally illiterate, who do not possess the basic intellectual skills
to make competent decisions and form individual opinions, and have not
picked up a working knowledge of the world around them or the systems and
ideas that govern it. There
is so much in education that’s failing here, it’s hard to know where
to begin, although I suspect that all roads lead back to the same initial
problem, namely if you want a population of unquestioning consumers who
think very little beyond what affects them personally, then the current
education system is working just fine.
Carl Sagan, the late astronomer and spokesperson for the scientific
community gauged the attitudes of modern students in his book Demon
Haunted World to illustrate how far the standard of education has
slipped. Overwhelmingly, high school students could not grasp the
importance of education, even going as far as stating that skilled and
educated people can simply be imported from other countries, if needed at
all.
How children have arrived at this conclusion is quite simple; I grew up in
the Canadian education system, which is very similar to the American one.
Children don't value education because our society doesn't value
education, at least not in any serious way. If education was valued
in our society, then children would be taught the most important life
skill of all: critical thinking. Instead, the most children are
taught in schools is the bare minimum of skills required to hold a job --
if they're lucky. Children are shuffled through the system like
cattle with little or no attention paid to their progress, either because
the system itself is under funded, or those in authority could care less.
The reasons why this is are complex and varied, but I personally believe
the system is this way because somebody wants it this way. There is
great value in a nation of which a good portion of her citizens are
under-educated. Which means that those who make the decisions in our
country can work with a free hand if the populace does not have the
thinking skills to question those decisions. Instead, the clear
mantra running through our society is shut up and shop
The
Political Correctness Curse
There
is a definite correlation between language and thought.
So it isn’t surprising that an offensive word like nigger is
used as a basis for banning literature like Huckleberry Finn and Of Mice
and Men from school libraries. While
the PC movement would like nothing better to sanitize the curricula of the
school system, they are effectively wiping out the platform in which
students can develop critical thinking skills.
Controlling
language and controlling history is the two best ways of controlling
thought that I can think of. The denial of classic literature is tantamount to the denial
of the attitudes and ideas that people had in those times, let alone that
both of the books listed above were powerful statements of equality and
anti-racism for their times. When
characters in Of Mice and Men use the word nigger, it is because farm
hands in the early twentieth century, right or wrong, used it freely.
In a classroom, these books can be used as a springboard for frank
discussion on these issues, why racial equality is an important issue, why
epithets like nigger are hurtful and derogatory simply by looking at our
past, by looking at how we used to live and think.
But
current philosophy says no. Current philosophy would like to simply tell us that racism
is wrong and not give students any reference points as to why it is wrong
and what effects racism have on our society as a whole.
This is simply one issue; there are dozens more.
But
where is the problem with this? Racism is wrong; shouldn’t that fact be reinforced in
schools?
I
completely agree, but simply telling somebody that racism is wrong and
that you shouldn’t use the ‘n-word’ is not enough.
Telling people that racism is wrong might reach some people.
But it will not reach everyone.
People have to understand racism, what it does and what its
effects are. I feel the best
way to do this is to study it and discuss it openly and honestly.
And as with any controversial and important topic, ideas and
opinions might offend people.
But political correctness would like for us all not to think; only to
speak and behave in a manner that is the least offensive as possible.
Which is fine as far as civil ethics are concerned, but it does
nothing for real attitudes regarding race.
If students are denied the opportunity to examine and study
controversial subjects on the basis that they might offend somebody,
little will ever be really accomplished because there will never be any
real understanding. Racism
will be driven underground where it will continue to fester and grow.
From
my somewhat left point of view, I am extremely suspicious of any group
that would like to supress thought and discussion, especially when they
claim to work in my best interests. The
long-term effects of the PC movement has had on education will have yet to
be seen. I am certain,
however, that we have sacrificed real growth for the sake of sensitivity;
the same idea that graduates children that aren’t ready for the sake of
self-esteem, discourages thought and study about our true, ugly history
for the sake of a sanitized utopia where as long you don’t think and
don’t question, we will all live in harmony.
America’s Soma
Television has changed the world in very basic and fundamental ways.
It represents a whole new reality for a generation of people that formerly
had their roots in a structure of community and cultural tradition.
Children of this generation has looked to television for many things:
entertainment, guidance, morality, education and a yardstick for measuring
one's worth and place in the larger world. Parents, schools,
ethnicity and churches have been supplanted by television for all of these
aspects of growing up. As a result, it is hardly surprising that
children have trouble responding to the demands of a traditional academic
routine. While television as a medium is neutral, it is how the
content is used that determines its effect on its audience.
Primarily, this means that children have received the message loud and
clear: intelligent people are to be mistrusted, materialism is everything
and to be beautiful and rich are the ultimate goals to strive for.
Considering
how many people grew up with television as their main source of guidance
in America, it is little surprise that the current education system is
ill-equipped to meet the demands of educating these people.
Competing for children's attention is a collage of glossy and shocking
imagery that jolts the imagination and renders attentive ability crippled.
Children by their very nature are spirited without the activation that
television provides. It is little wonder then that they can't sit
still in a classroom and read from a book without medication.
How
do we even begin combating this? Television is here to stay, no
questions asked. It is up to parents and educators to start
demanding better quality television, one that provokes and encourages
thought and learning in young people.
But the real problem here is not
television. It is
television’s powerful grip on the nation.
It soothes and calms, while simultaneously making us afraid of the
outside world and making people feel like their lives are inadequate.
It’s scary out there, so sit inside and watch.
And
people do. According to a
national survey in 1998, the television is on in the average American home
for 7 hours and 40 minutes. Children watch an average of 20,000 commercials a year.
I believe that this has eroded thought to the point that people
cannot make even basic decisions drawing conclusions based on evidence at
hand. America is a nation of
willing sheep in front of the television. And meanwhile the powers-that-be continue to run the country
without fear of accountability.
4.
Patriotism Isn't Waving a Flag
Waving flags and giving your unquestioning support for Americanism is
ironically the exact opposite of the spirit of American ideals. This
is the exact behaviour exhibited by totalitarian regimes, namely:
- using the flag as a symbol of worship
- continuing to support a country, despite the fact their foreign
policy often supports brutal dictatorships that support the oppression of
their people
- a news media that doesn't report the misdeeds of a ruling
government
- the perceived infallibility of policy decisions
I
remember the days and weeks after September 11th, there seemed to be
American flags everywhere. Understandable considering the plight of
the nation. But there was an undercurrent of fear that I had sensed.
It wasn't patriotism itself that fuelled all of those flags; it was the
fear of not appearing patriotic enough. It is that kind of thought
that I find truly disturbing. Not only does it conjure images of an
Orwellian nightmare, it severely quashed any sort accounting toward the
government. A real patriotic American would have been on the soapbox
immediately demanding why the American government is sponsoring terrorist
organizations like the US had been doing with both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda,
but also demanding to know exactly what America's current foreign policy
is, and how it might affect the state of the nation in the future.
Unfortunately, there was none of this. There was, apart from
some maverick journalists and publications, no discussion on this activity
whatsoever. It was all cleverly disguised as "let's not bother
the president while he is leading the nation into war." This is
precisely the time when the news media must be asking these questions.
It was by not asking these questions in the first place that cost the
lives of thousands of people.
Real
patriots question authority. It is a popular slogan on t-shirts and
stickers in lefty groups. It is also a fundamental truth of living
in a free society. We not only have the right, but we have the duty
to question our leaders on any decision they make regarding the course of
our country. If the media doesn't do it, then it is up to the
average citizen. Waving a flag does not make you patriotic.
Understanding your role in helping to guide the course of a nation
honourably and justly is being a patriot. A real patriot boots the
leaders in the ass when they do wrong, not hide behind the stars and
stripes. Punishing and pursuing the terrorists is not the issue
here. The damage has already been done. Minimizing further
damage is the key goal here, and I believe that only a radical overhaul of
American foreign policy could possibly make it happen.
EPILOGUE
Can America be saved? Can America become the beacon of freedom and liberty and enlightenment that it claims to be? Of course it can. But it’s going to take a lot of help from her citizens. As I had said before, American citizenry has to wake up to what’s going on and take an active role in their government. No ruling class in the history of mankind has been any match for the will of the people. Ultimately, it is the people who govern their own course in history.
America has a systematic goal of dumbing-down, distracting, and deflecting the population away from her abuses. It is time that the people have an honest account of the actions of their country. It is not necessary that you agree with everything that I’ve written. It is necessary to make yourself aware. Get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. Weigh the options. And then make your move. The worst crime in an intellectually free society is to do nothing. Americans still have the freedom, the freedom that people in other countries have literally given their lives for, to make themselves heard. It is your duty living in a privileged society to do so.
RESOURCES
One of the best collection of personal essays on the Internet today is written by a man named Scott Bidstrup. It is his essay The Gathering Darkness that has been the inspiration for writing this essay.
Television statistics courtesy of tvturnoffweek.org.
Copyright © 1998, 2003 Don Porter. All rights reserved.