The US is the only industrialized country that does not have a strong welfare system. As a result, an alarmingly large and growing percentage of our population is poor and barely eking out a living, while millions live on the verge of going under financially, as full-time jobs are converted to part time without benefits, the minimum wage has the lowest buying power ever in constant dollars, and automation, robots, and outsourcing threaten to create a permanent jobless class.
Of all the advanced countries, our health system is the lowest in quality and availability of care, while costing more than any other by a factor of around fifty. As people age, health care costs drain their savings dry. The poor have limited access to health care and thus suffer much more from illness than the better off. If they cannot get work, they cannot afford to cook healthy meals at home and if they do get hired, often they have no time to cook. The family winds up eating cheap processed food which is full of sugar and promotes obesity and all the illnesses that accompany it. This is an intolerable situation which requires an urgent solution. Our politicians will not do this for us.
We have a spotty record on human rights which becomes clear when we look at our history of slavery, genocide of our native peoples, Jim Crow, McCarthyism, and support for foreign regimes which torture their citizens. Our police disproportionately harass and detain minorities and our agriculture depends on foreign migrant workers who are tolerated when needed and persecuted when they are not. We put large numbers of citizens in danger by allowing almost anyone to own a gun.
When compared to most countries, on balance we do well. Our economy is still huge, we have widespread home ownership, people are awash in consumer goods, and we can go about our business, home life, and worship in relative safety most of the time. We are not one of the worse countries but rather one of the best. It would seem that if we acknowledge what is good about us, we will feel good about ourselves and have confidence in our society. If we are willing to acknowledge where we fall short, we can identify what needs to be done and get to work on it. However as long as we insist on the theme of American exceptionalism, it will keep us from progressing. The choice is before us: put our heads in the sand or face the future. Commerce will not solve our problems. That's not their job. We have to do it together, and to do that we need to throw out our political class and put other people in, people whose purpose is to serve and who will listen to us rather than to those who payroll their campaigns.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
My Introduction to American Exceptionalism
Borges said that he had been given the impression that the US was such a fabulous place that when he first visited this country, he was shocked to learn the there were flies here.
I had a similar experience. My first memories are of San José de Costa Rica, where my parents were learning Spanish at school and I was absorbing it from the caretakers at home, like you do when you're two years old. We then made a brief trip to the US and boarded a ship to Buenos Aires from New York. My parents adapted well to Costa Rica and then to Argentina and loved it, but of course they talked a lot about family and conditions back in the US. They made it sound as though it were the epitome of all that is good. People were honest, you could leave the doors at home unlocked, everything was clean. The shopping was great after World War II.
They also talked about growing up in rural areas, not having electricity, churning their own butter, and riding horses. It all sounded very old to me, growing up in the beautiful industrial and commercial center of Rosario, which had pretty much all the latest. I envisioned my parents' childhood in black and white, whereas mine was in color.
Later I realized that the contrast was country versus city, more than US versus Argentina. My parents grew up in sparsely populated areas where they were known to everyone around and thus had few opportunities to get in trouble and not have everyone know about it. That sort of thing makes one circumspect and careful. No one robbed from them as they grew up because they were out in the country and in the Great Depression most people had very little or nothing of value anyway. But on the trip to New York I mentioned, as we neared the great metropolis, someone stole one of our suitcases, the one which had my beloved record player in it.
Nevertheless, my parents emphasized a thoroughly ethical way of life. So when we came to the US for our first year-long furlough, expecting most people to be like my parents, I was shocked to hear about what was going on in Little Rock. The president sent troops to the city to ensure that African-American children could enroll in the previously all-white neighborhood school. People also talked in hushed tones, tones which implied a certain amount of concern if not fear, about Senator McCarthy. It was not particularly a happy time in the mid 1950's here. Neither was it in Argentina, where Perón was deposed shortly before our furlough and the military government which succeeded him rounded up and sent several dozen of his supporters to the firing squad.
Based on the attitudes and reactions of grownups, I intuited that not all was well in either country. It was the beginning of my developing what the anthropologists call cultural relativity.
On our second furlough, soon after arrival, the country was gripped by an expectant fear as the Cuban missile crisis unfolded. Not long after, at the University of Alabama, governor George Wallace could be seen standing in the door to block African-Americans Vivian Malone and James A. Hood from entering classes. President Kennedy had to send troops to make him back down. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated shortly thereafter. Later that year Kennedy was murdered in the neighboring city of Dallas. We were told that Lee Harvey Oswald killed him, but I had heard a TV interview with the doctors at Parkland Hospital describe the wound in the back of the president's head as an exit wound. That interview has disappeared and never heard from again. History was repeating itself and I found myself juxtaposing the ideology of American exceptionalism with the reality of racism, political bullying, assassinations, and covering up of the truth. The US was certainly no worse than Argentina, but how much better was it, really? For me it was an open question into which I put a lot of thought in subsequent years.
Please check out my works of fiction at www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
I had a similar experience. My first memories are of San José de Costa Rica, where my parents were learning Spanish at school and I was absorbing it from the caretakers at home, like you do when you're two years old. We then made a brief trip to the US and boarded a ship to Buenos Aires from New York. My parents adapted well to Costa Rica and then to Argentina and loved it, but of course they talked a lot about family and conditions back in the US. They made it sound as though it were the epitome of all that is good. People were honest, you could leave the doors at home unlocked, everything was clean. The shopping was great after World War II.
They also talked about growing up in rural areas, not having electricity, churning their own butter, and riding horses. It all sounded very old to me, growing up in the beautiful industrial and commercial center of Rosario, which had pretty much all the latest. I envisioned my parents' childhood in black and white, whereas mine was in color.
Later I realized that the contrast was country versus city, more than US versus Argentina. My parents grew up in sparsely populated areas where they were known to everyone around and thus had few opportunities to get in trouble and not have everyone know about it. That sort of thing makes one circumspect and careful. No one robbed from them as they grew up because they were out in the country and in the Great Depression most people had very little or nothing of value anyway. But on the trip to New York I mentioned, as we neared the great metropolis, someone stole one of our suitcases, the one which had my beloved record player in it.
Nevertheless, my parents emphasized a thoroughly ethical way of life. So when we came to the US for our first year-long furlough, expecting most people to be like my parents, I was shocked to hear about what was going on in Little Rock. The president sent troops to the city to ensure that African-American children could enroll in the previously all-white neighborhood school. People also talked in hushed tones, tones which implied a certain amount of concern if not fear, about Senator McCarthy. It was not particularly a happy time in the mid 1950's here. Neither was it in Argentina, where Perón was deposed shortly before our furlough and the military government which succeeded him rounded up and sent several dozen of his supporters to the firing squad.
Based on the attitudes and reactions of grownups, I intuited that not all was well in either country. It was the beginning of my developing what the anthropologists call cultural relativity.
On our second furlough, soon after arrival, the country was gripped by an expectant fear as the Cuban missile crisis unfolded. Not long after, at the University of Alabama, governor George Wallace could be seen standing in the door to block African-Americans Vivian Malone and James A. Hood from entering classes. President Kennedy had to send troops to make him back down. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated shortly thereafter. Later that year Kennedy was murdered in the neighboring city of Dallas. We were told that Lee Harvey Oswald killed him, but I had heard a TV interview with the doctors at Parkland Hospital describe the wound in the back of the president's head as an exit wound. That interview has disappeared and never heard from again. History was repeating itself and I found myself juxtaposing the ideology of American exceptionalism with the reality of racism, political bullying, assassinations, and covering up of the truth. The US was certainly no worse than Argentina, but how much better was it, really? For me it was an open question into which I put a lot of thought in subsequent years.
Please check out my works of fiction at www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
More on the Effects of American Exceptionalism
Since I have been living in Fort Worth and teaching at TCU, there have been numerous derailments, impacts at railroad crossings, and other train accidents of various kinds, many with serious consequences. Recently a train hit a curve at 100 mph and flipped over in the northeastern US, causing Amtrak to commit to automatic positive train control to avoid future accidents due to excessive speed or proximity to other trains.
Argentina, a country of extensive railways, is of course not immune to accidents either. When I was still living there and attending the American high school, there was a serious train accident. The radio and television news and the newspapers covered it extensively and analyzed the various explanations that were being offered as hypotheses before all the investigation was complete. The day after the accident some of us at school were talking about it in the hearing of our eleventh-grade English teacher. She heard us mention the various explanations, which included brake failure, automatic signalling failure, and others. She said:
"Hmph! It's obviously operator failure. These Argentines..." and went on to imply that the people she lived among were somehow deficient and that in the US such a thing would not happen.
Naturally I was not pleased with that attitude, but I had encountered it before. Besides, I was already tired of defending Argentines to Americans and Americans to Argentines. My family had previously had occasion to fly all over Argentina in the local airlines. The pilots, navigators, and flight engineers were highly professional and had an enviable safety record. After reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes" in Outliers, I assume now that part of that has to do with the fact that Argentines speak their minds openly and no co-pilot is going to let the pilot slip up without telling him or her about it in no uncertain terms.
We are not the only people who have this kind of attitude about people of other countries, but that is no excuse. They are no worse, and no better, than we are. We are no better, and no worse, than they are. If we have been paying attention, we see that our technology from time to time slips out of our grasp and bad things happen. It goes on everywhere.
I sometimes wonder whether our national cultural theme of exceptionalism has contributed to our neglect of our infrastructure. We are so used to thinking we are at the top and that no one else has reached where we are that we often think it's a given for everything to work great and we don't worry about the inevitable breakdown of machines and structures if not kept up. We became great by putting a lot of money into public works of all kinds, including the Interstate Highway system which used to be envied. Now its condition is rapidly deteriorating. Of course our gridlocked politics has a lot to do with our failure to act. If we keep cutting taxes, of course we will not have funds to repair the infrastructure.
We cannot sit back and rest. We must set our formidable capabilities to the task of moving ahead. The corporate world will not do that for us.
Argentina, a country of extensive railways, is of course not immune to accidents either. When I was still living there and attending the American high school, there was a serious train accident. The radio and television news and the newspapers covered it extensively and analyzed the various explanations that were being offered as hypotheses before all the investigation was complete. The day after the accident some of us at school were talking about it in the hearing of our eleventh-grade English teacher. She heard us mention the various explanations, which included brake failure, automatic signalling failure, and others. She said:
"Hmph! It's obviously operator failure. These Argentines..." and went on to imply that the people she lived among were somehow deficient and that in the US such a thing would not happen.
Naturally I was not pleased with that attitude, but I had encountered it before. Besides, I was already tired of defending Argentines to Americans and Americans to Argentines. My family had previously had occasion to fly all over Argentina in the local airlines. The pilots, navigators, and flight engineers were highly professional and had an enviable safety record. After reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes" in Outliers, I assume now that part of that has to do with the fact that Argentines speak their minds openly and no co-pilot is going to let the pilot slip up without telling him or her about it in no uncertain terms.
We are not the only people who have this kind of attitude about people of other countries, but that is no excuse. They are no worse, and no better, than we are. We are no better, and no worse, than they are. If we have been paying attention, we see that our technology from time to time slips out of our grasp and bad things happen. It goes on everywhere.
I sometimes wonder whether our national cultural theme of exceptionalism has contributed to our neglect of our infrastructure. We are so used to thinking we are at the top and that no one else has reached where we are that we often think it's a given for everything to work great and we don't worry about the inevitable breakdown of machines and structures if not kept up. We became great by putting a lot of money into public works of all kinds, including the Interstate Highway system which used to be envied. Now its condition is rapidly deteriorating. Of course our gridlocked politics has a lot to do with our failure to act. If we keep cutting taxes, of course we will not have funds to repair the infrastructure.
We cannot sit back and rest. We must set our formidable capabilities to the task of moving ahead. The corporate world will not do that for us.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Some Effects of American Exceptionalism
What follows are some effects of our default exceptionalist mode, in no particular order.
Since the metric system was developed in France and not in the US, we assume that surely it is not is good as what we use. We are happily unaware that our measurement system dates from ancient Roman times as handed down through the Middle Ages. It a mishmash of ad hoc values for weight, distance, and volume which gives headaches to every school child and wastes many hours in attaining mastery. Several years ago, NASA lost a Mars lander which crashed into the planet instead of entering a smooth orbit prior to touchdown. The cause was traced back to a single programmer in a company NASA had contracted to create the software for the approach and landing phase. NASA does its measurements in metric, as do all scientists. It never occurred to the programmer, however, that anyone uses anything other than our old imperial system and put the instructions in miles instead of kilometers. This could only happen because of an assumption that no one would choose to do things differently from the way we do them, which in turn is based on the tenet that we are the epitome of all the best.
We have always assumed that we are the pinnacle of human social evolution. Consequently we view our government as the most advanced in the world rather than as a product of a particular culture, as are all governments. We share this trait with some of the European countries. When they granted independence to almost all of their colonial holdings following World War II, they drew boundaries to create "countries" meant to be nation-states like France, the United Kingdom, or Germany. There were two big problems with their procedure. The first is that these new countries contained numerous ethnic groups with competing cultures and values and speaking numerous different languages. As if that were not bad enough, several ethnic groups were split into two, and sometimes three countries. In consequence, they lacked the social and cultural cohesion that European countries forged over centuries and which is not complete even there. The other problem is that political systems are part of a people's culture. Every ethnic group has a set of values, procedures, and power arrangements which they take as natural as breathing. The situation has led to instability, oppressive governments, wars, and genocide. Africa would be much better off if the Europeans had never gone there.
We apparently think we are so much better, that if we intervene in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, or any other place, people will share our democratic values and happily adopt our political system. We see the effect of that: it has never worked. Having grown up in Argentina from age 3 to 18 and having lived in Brazil for four years as an adult, it is my sad duty to report that although Latin Americans are glad to know individual Americans and give them the benefit of the doubt at first, they thoroughly detest our foreign policy.
I went to Argentine schools before high school, when I entered the American Community School in a suburb of Buenos Aires, where I did my last three years in preparation for college in the US. The American community would never consider having their elementary-school children in Argentine schools (it gets too complicated in high school for people to transfer in and out). They all congregated in wealthy neighborhoods, living in houses as big as the ones they could have in the States. There they replicated American life and seldom interacted with Argentines and thus missed the warmth of friendship, the cultural memory of Europe, the wonderful food, and the adventure of absorbing a new culture Argentina could give them. The British have more schools than we do down there. My sisters attended some of them for many years. The Germans also have schools all over the country. They, as well as we, are averse to accepting other cultures.
When we lived in Comodoro Rivadavia, the main city of the Patagonia and a major port in a stunning location, American oil companies had extensive concessions for petroleum exploration and extraction. They shipped in prefabricated houses from the US and created a small American town on the other side of the mountain from the city. People noticed, of course. They and their ways are not good enough for us. That's the message.
So my point is that we are making enemies and setting potential friends against us because of our assumption of superiority. We are damaging our own interests. If we just understood that we are one country among others, acted with humility, and learned other cultures before acting, our many great accomplishments would begin to get a hearing and the world would like us much better.
Since the metric system was developed in France and not in the US, we assume that surely it is not is good as what we use. We are happily unaware that our measurement system dates from ancient Roman times as handed down through the Middle Ages. It a mishmash of ad hoc values for weight, distance, and volume which gives headaches to every school child and wastes many hours in attaining mastery. Several years ago, NASA lost a Mars lander which crashed into the planet instead of entering a smooth orbit prior to touchdown. The cause was traced back to a single programmer in a company NASA had contracted to create the software for the approach and landing phase. NASA does its measurements in metric, as do all scientists. It never occurred to the programmer, however, that anyone uses anything other than our old imperial system and put the instructions in miles instead of kilometers. This could only happen because of an assumption that no one would choose to do things differently from the way we do them, which in turn is based on the tenet that we are the epitome of all the best.
We have always assumed that we are the pinnacle of human social evolution. Consequently we view our government as the most advanced in the world rather than as a product of a particular culture, as are all governments. We share this trait with some of the European countries. When they granted independence to almost all of their colonial holdings following World War II, they drew boundaries to create "countries" meant to be nation-states like France, the United Kingdom, or Germany. There were two big problems with their procedure. The first is that these new countries contained numerous ethnic groups with competing cultures and values and speaking numerous different languages. As if that were not bad enough, several ethnic groups were split into two, and sometimes three countries. In consequence, they lacked the social and cultural cohesion that European countries forged over centuries and which is not complete even there. The other problem is that political systems are part of a people's culture. Every ethnic group has a set of values, procedures, and power arrangements which they take as natural as breathing. The situation has led to instability, oppressive governments, wars, and genocide. Africa would be much better off if the Europeans had never gone there.
We apparently think we are so much better, that if we intervene in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, or any other place, people will share our democratic values and happily adopt our political system. We see the effect of that: it has never worked. Having grown up in Argentina from age 3 to 18 and having lived in Brazil for four years as an adult, it is my sad duty to report that although Latin Americans are glad to know individual Americans and give them the benefit of the doubt at first, they thoroughly detest our foreign policy.
I went to Argentine schools before high school, when I entered the American Community School in a suburb of Buenos Aires, where I did my last three years in preparation for college in the US. The American community would never consider having their elementary-school children in Argentine schools (it gets too complicated in high school for people to transfer in and out). They all congregated in wealthy neighborhoods, living in houses as big as the ones they could have in the States. There they replicated American life and seldom interacted with Argentines and thus missed the warmth of friendship, the cultural memory of Europe, the wonderful food, and the adventure of absorbing a new culture Argentina could give them. The British have more schools than we do down there. My sisters attended some of them for many years. The Germans also have schools all over the country. They, as well as we, are averse to accepting other cultures.
When we lived in Comodoro Rivadavia, the main city of the Patagonia and a major port in a stunning location, American oil companies had extensive concessions for petroleum exploration and extraction. They shipped in prefabricated houses from the US and created a small American town on the other side of the mountain from the city. People noticed, of course. They and their ways are not good enough for us. That's the message.
So my point is that we are making enemies and setting potential friends against us because of our assumption of superiority. We are damaging our own interests. If we just understood that we are one country among others, acted with humility, and learned other cultures before acting, our many great accomplishments would begin to get a hearing and the world would like us much better.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Origins of American Exceptionalism III
Perhaps the Civil War and its immediate aftermath shook the confidence of the nation temporarily. The British Empire was entering the height of its power and several European countries had foreign holdings of various sizes and types, particularly in northern, central, and western Africa. We, by contrast, had no imperial ambitions. As the century was drawing to a close, however, the US and Spain went to war. The American forces proved stronger and suddenly we were an imperial power, with holdings in the Caribbean (Cuba) and the Pacific (The Philippines). We also bought Alaska from Russia. An era of affluence and technological advance ensued and as a result we were feeling confident again but, it seems to me, not quite as cocky as before. Massive immigration and industrialization absorbed our attention and many people were busy building fortunes.
During the same period (after the Civil War and into the early 20th century) the US and Britain underwent a spiritual awakening which brought about a rapid growth of Christian denominations belonging to the more radical Reformation: Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals, among others. The Baptists, especially, were gripped by missionary fervor and began sending missionaries all over the world.
When the Great Depression hit in the 1930's, these churches became a source of strength, comfort, and support for many Americans. Being in need and not knowing for sure where the sustenance for the next day will come has a way of focusing one on the essentials of life. Ideology was set aside to make room for survival. The experience devastated some people but strengthened others. Those who lived off the land and were accustomed to self-reliance did well.
We did not come out of economic depression until the second World War forced the government to inject unprecedented amounts of money into the economy in order to build all the materiel that would be needed (guns, airplanes, ships, tanks, artillery, ammunition, uniforms, and so on) and to employ thousands upon thousands of Americans as soldiers, pilots, sailors, and all sorts of support staff. The war was unusual in that it was thrust on us, who did not really want it, and in that it had clear villains who had to be defeated in order to ensure the continued path of the country.
Through unprecedented tenacity and sacrifice and under horrible conditions, and largely single handed, the US fought the Japanese back westward across the Pacific, one island at a time. At the same time we had armies in Europe working in concert with Britain and France. The war was won on both fronts and the US emerged rich and strong. The factories switched from making the war machine to turning out consumer goods. They continued to employ workers to make that possible, therefore putting good money into the hands of millions of people who proceeded to spend it with alacrity. The country started into its period of greatest affluence for the largest number people, which lasted from the late forties into the late nineteen-sixties. We were the wonder of the world.
The believers in American exceptionalism returned in force. What could be clearer than our superiority to the rest of the world? Now we had huge numbers of Evangelicals who were eager to embrace the idea that God was on our side. Suddenly the Soviet Union, with its atheist ideology, rose up to counterbalance us and the fight began between "godless communism" and "godly free-market America," the favorite of God. Anyone who wished to express a more nuanced, considered, and analytic approach was considered dangerous (unbelieving and un-American) and effectively silenced.
Next: the effects of American strength coupled with the ideology of exceptionalism.
www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
During the same period (after the Civil War and into the early 20th century) the US and Britain underwent a spiritual awakening which brought about a rapid growth of Christian denominations belonging to the more radical Reformation: Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals, among others. The Baptists, especially, were gripped by missionary fervor and began sending missionaries all over the world.
When the Great Depression hit in the 1930's, these churches became a source of strength, comfort, and support for many Americans. Being in need and not knowing for sure where the sustenance for the next day will come has a way of focusing one on the essentials of life. Ideology was set aside to make room for survival. The experience devastated some people but strengthened others. Those who lived off the land and were accustomed to self-reliance did well.
We did not come out of economic depression until the second World War forced the government to inject unprecedented amounts of money into the economy in order to build all the materiel that would be needed (guns, airplanes, ships, tanks, artillery, ammunition, uniforms, and so on) and to employ thousands upon thousands of Americans as soldiers, pilots, sailors, and all sorts of support staff. The war was unusual in that it was thrust on us, who did not really want it, and in that it had clear villains who had to be defeated in order to ensure the continued path of the country.
Through unprecedented tenacity and sacrifice and under horrible conditions, and largely single handed, the US fought the Japanese back westward across the Pacific, one island at a time. At the same time we had armies in Europe working in concert with Britain and France. The war was won on both fronts and the US emerged rich and strong. The factories switched from making the war machine to turning out consumer goods. They continued to employ workers to make that possible, therefore putting good money into the hands of millions of people who proceeded to spend it with alacrity. The country started into its period of greatest affluence for the largest number people, which lasted from the late forties into the late nineteen-sixties. We were the wonder of the world.
The believers in American exceptionalism returned in force. What could be clearer than our superiority to the rest of the world? Now we had huge numbers of Evangelicals who were eager to embrace the idea that God was on our side. Suddenly the Soviet Union, with its atheist ideology, rose up to counterbalance us and the fight began between "godless communism" and "godly free-market America," the favorite of God. Anyone who wished to express a more nuanced, considered, and analytic approach was considered dangerous (unbelieving and un-American) and effectively silenced.
Next: the effects of American strength coupled with the ideology of exceptionalism.
www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Origins of American Exceptionalism II
The Puritan line of ultra-Calvinism was so protective of the sovereignty of God (a reaction to the claims to sovereignty of Roman popes of that time) that they considered it encroaching on God's purview to say that they could be sure they were right with him. Only God could determine who is to be given grace and entry into his Kingdom.
Their strong emphasis on the Hebrew Scriptures helped them form the idea that wealth and health were signs of God's favor, so they worked hard to be affluent. It's an illogical procedure but they derived comfort and affirmation nonetheless. They saw the richness of the British colonies as proof of their righteousness and therefore of their superiority. They should have stopped to think that Jesus was most concerned with the poor, dispossessed, unprotected, deprived, needy, and ill: all the people on the margins. His offer of salvation extended to all people, including the rich, but it was for the rich and powerful of the religious establishment of his day that he had the harshest criticisms. the Puritans did not see that part of scripture clearly, however.
The defeat of the British in the war of the American Revolution was taken as proof that God favored us (disclosure: I already had British and Native American ancestors in the land) and that therefore we were clearly better than other countries. This is called jumping to conclusions. It is all very understandable, so we should not judge them, and let's keep in mind that not all Americans shared this way of thinking.
The move westward in the following (19th) century is well known by most of us. After the war with Mexico, we had suddenly doubled in size. If we did not think about the people who were being dispossessed, it seemed clear, as they liked to say, that it was our manifest destiny to expand to the Pacific and become a large and well-endowed nation. The Civil War of the 1860's was of course a crisis which set up some major contradictions in who we are as a country.
We are not alone in expansionist mentality and in contradictory thinking. After declaring independence, Argentina waged a war against Spain which sought to make a grand country out of the lower third of South America, which it pulled off only in part. To do this, the Argentine army bought thousands of African-descended slaves to fight as soldiers. They fought valiantly and died in huge numbers. The remainder was liberated and slavery ended, but then the country pursued a European-Argentine policy and to this day African-Argentines keep a very low profile. Like the US, Argentina waged war against its native peoples at about the same we did, and came close to wiping them out altogether.
Both countries came to see themselves as the world's breadbasket and a land of promise. The difference was religion. Argentina, officially Catholic, saw itself as part of a larger Christendom under the spiritual (but not temporal) leadership of Rome. The US disestablished religion but embraced the idea that the emerging greatness and the rich bounty of the country were signs of God's special favor and became more religious-minded than Argentina. Not everyone agreed with all parts of this thinking, but it developed into a powerful cultural theme.
If interested, please check out my fiction at www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
Their strong emphasis on the Hebrew Scriptures helped them form the idea that wealth and health were signs of God's favor, so they worked hard to be affluent. It's an illogical procedure but they derived comfort and affirmation nonetheless. They saw the richness of the British colonies as proof of their righteousness and therefore of their superiority. They should have stopped to think that Jesus was most concerned with the poor, dispossessed, unprotected, deprived, needy, and ill: all the people on the margins. His offer of salvation extended to all people, including the rich, but it was for the rich and powerful of the religious establishment of his day that he had the harshest criticisms. the Puritans did not see that part of scripture clearly, however.
The defeat of the British in the war of the American Revolution was taken as proof that God favored us (disclosure: I already had British and Native American ancestors in the land) and that therefore we were clearly better than other countries. This is called jumping to conclusions. It is all very understandable, so we should not judge them, and let's keep in mind that not all Americans shared this way of thinking.
The move westward in the following (19th) century is well known by most of us. After the war with Mexico, we had suddenly doubled in size. If we did not think about the people who were being dispossessed, it seemed clear, as they liked to say, that it was our manifest destiny to expand to the Pacific and become a large and well-endowed nation. The Civil War of the 1860's was of course a crisis which set up some major contradictions in who we are as a country.
We are not alone in expansionist mentality and in contradictory thinking. After declaring independence, Argentina waged a war against Spain which sought to make a grand country out of the lower third of South America, which it pulled off only in part. To do this, the Argentine army bought thousands of African-descended slaves to fight as soldiers. They fought valiantly and died in huge numbers. The remainder was liberated and slavery ended, but then the country pursued a European-Argentine policy and to this day African-Argentines keep a very low profile. Like the US, Argentina waged war against its native peoples at about the same we did, and came close to wiping them out altogether.
Both countries came to see themselves as the world's breadbasket and a land of promise. The difference was religion. Argentina, officially Catholic, saw itself as part of a larger Christendom under the spiritual (but not temporal) leadership of Rome. The US disestablished religion but embraced the idea that the emerging greatness and the rich bounty of the country were signs of God's special favor and became more religious-minded than Argentina. Not everyone agreed with all parts of this thinking, but it developed into a powerful cultural theme.
If interested, please check out my fiction at www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Origins of American Exceptionalism I
There are numerous historical and cultural reasons for our exaggerated sense of nationhood. Let us go easy on ourselves, try to understand, and after that see what we may want to do about it.
The second British colony in North America is the starting point. The Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts Bay, like the Virginians of the first colony, were running a publicly traded corporation. Unlike Virginia, the settlers owned majority stock in the company and therefore were self-governing, Also unlike the first colony, the settlers all belonged to a fervent Christian denomination of Separatists characterized by congregational governance and an ultra-Calvinist outlook on life. They often called their colony the City on the Hill, a reference to a saying by Jesus which meant they saw their society as pointing the way to righteousness, Inherent in that concept is the idea that they were closer to God than the rest of the world and inescapably superior.
In 1647 the colony passed the well-known Old Deluder Satan Act, which mandated the teaching of reading to all children. The purpose was to counteract ignorance, which according to them is a recipe for sin, and to enable them to read the Bible for themselves. With it and two prior laws, Massachusetts took the lead in education in the colonies. Such has been the influence of this push for education, that many Americans mistakenly think that Massachusetts was the first colony, a misconception the colony and subsequent state has not felt any need to correct.
The resulting conflation of government, religion, and education continued well into the 20th century. It is one reason that the schools taught that the US was superior to all other countries and in turn why so many still accept the idea without questioning it and resent those who want to rethink our concept.
A questionable logic derives from this tradition the conclusion that God must be on our side. If Biblical principles are the foundation of our law and if we are the City on the Hill, then we are by definition the best, a sort of new chosen people. Please note the fallacy: the premises are not necessarily acceptable and there is no middle term, therefore the conclusion does not follow. No matter, that is lost on most people. It is much more comfortable and tempting to see ourselves as morally superior and therefore enjoying a status no other country has. To think that in God's eyes we are just like all the other people in the world is an intolerable reduction in status.
A dispassionate and open reading of the Bible is a vivifying dose of humility that we all need.
If you are interested, please take a look at my fiction at www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
The second British colony in North America is the starting point. The Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts Bay, like the Virginians of the first colony, were running a publicly traded corporation. Unlike Virginia, the settlers owned majority stock in the company and therefore were self-governing, Also unlike the first colony, the settlers all belonged to a fervent Christian denomination of Separatists characterized by congregational governance and an ultra-Calvinist outlook on life. They often called their colony the City on the Hill, a reference to a saying by Jesus which meant they saw their society as pointing the way to righteousness, Inherent in that concept is the idea that they were closer to God than the rest of the world and inescapably superior.
In 1647 the colony passed the well-known Old Deluder Satan Act, which mandated the teaching of reading to all children. The purpose was to counteract ignorance, which according to them is a recipe for sin, and to enable them to read the Bible for themselves. With it and two prior laws, Massachusetts took the lead in education in the colonies. Such has been the influence of this push for education, that many Americans mistakenly think that Massachusetts was the first colony, a misconception the colony and subsequent state has not felt any need to correct.
The resulting conflation of government, religion, and education continued well into the 20th century. It is one reason that the schools taught that the US was superior to all other countries and in turn why so many still accept the idea without questioning it and resent those who want to rethink our concept.
A questionable logic derives from this tradition the conclusion that God must be on our side. If Biblical principles are the foundation of our law and if we are the City on the Hill, then we are by definition the best, a sort of new chosen people. Please note the fallacy: the premises are not necessarily acceptable and there is no middle term, therefore the conclusion does not follow. No matter, that is lost on most people. It is much more comfortable and tempting to see ourselves as morally superior and therefore enjoying a status no other country has. To think that in God's eyes we are just like all the other people in the world is an intolerable reduction in status.
A dispassionate and open reading of the Bible is a vivifying dose of humility that we all need.
If you are interested, please take a look at my fiction at www.amazon.com/author/bedforddavid
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