I have been debating if there is such a thing as an “American innocence”. The term itself is ripe with pernicious consequences. Think of it in this respect, if America is innocent what does that say about the power that it possesses? If America is innocent does that imply that a nation may actually become a dominant world power without a comprehension of the implications and nature of power? Can the American people, the makers of America and the shapers of the modern world, be innocent?
Many Americans are crying out: “why does everyone hate us so much just because we are rich and live good lives?” There is some genuine assumption in the national psyche that the American public is benevolent, kind, concerned and generally unassuming. Even foreign enemies have gone out of their way to note that “they are not against Americans but against American government policies.” This, as if democratic peoples in a republic with the highest degree of participation in government, and oddly probably the highest level of government employment of its citizenry could somehow abstain from responsibility.
None of that rings true to the America that I know; living there for 33 years all I saw was a demonstratively aggressive society that does not very much think about the consequences of its actions and so rather than being innocent it is instead unwilling to check itself through the projection of consequences and analysis of effect. In this way it prefers to remain ignorant of what its powers may accomplish. I would not equate ignorance with innocence, though either one appears despicable from any angle. I don’t like innocent women and I don’t like innocent countries and don’t believe there is such a thing as innocence when one has the mass of destruction stored up in silos all over the yellow brick road.
I try to be fair but I am not in need of it. Anyone that believes that the American people are innocent consumers of the largest killing machine in world history can only be a beneficiary of that system. There may well be a need to look the other way to have the ability to use the “I didn’t know” coupon against personal guilt. The psyche of a nation is scripted in the results, the outcome triggers immediate feedback of what it is that we are, what it is that we represent, and the resulting symbology can be a cruel assertion. I don’t suffer for all the Colombians that suffer as it is obvious from a 40 year old guerrilla war and civil strife that the national psyche has invested a lot in suffering. Ireland is a poetic land the consequences of its savage poetic soul are embodied in its essence, the IRA and the infamous England a marriage made in hell, but a marriage none the less.
Saying that Americans are innocent is like saying Microsoft is innocent. Microsoft is a great generator of tax revenue, foreign capital, jobs, and national pride; technology being the least of its accomplishments but its hegemony over the technological industry is not based on the fact that Microsoft employees are innocent people. They are not innocents and they would feel insulted if they had an inkling that someone thought that.
General Electric might be the microwave oven for American Management, it nukes them clean of any morality and sends them off to kill, mane and mutilate the competition. Reality television amply shows that rather than being innocent the American public is insensitive, how else can the Trump audience derive satisfaction out of the firing and emasculation of people, or how can the ability to dip another in pig`s blood be entrainment.
American football is a sport based on the ability to inflict injury and to survive and defeat the opponent at all cost. American football is based on the assumption that everyone is willing to sacrifice their personal well being for the sake of the greater cause, defeat of the enemy an expectable of the debauchery of billions of dollars. Not unlike the political campaigns which further exploit the American psyche mandate for intensity, for a winner and a loser and the winner, regardless of the tactics is judge to be the right one for the job. American management gurus use sport as the metaphor for business practices, team spirit, offense, defense, win market share either by outspending your competitor or saturating the market with under priced goods.
American religious organizations with their blitzing proselytizing have left the inquisitions looking rather dull, the grand inquisitor was merely shock effect. No one at the New York Times writes about the modern crusades of Western religions, it doesn’t affect the columnists, they are part of Western culture, they see it as harmless that messiahs wearing ties are practicing their freedom of speech in Latin America so as to peddle faith helping to build churches and spreading the word with swords made of charity.
I met a lot of very nice people in Wisconsin, they played a lot of bridge, baked a lot of cookies for their neighbors, hunted deer, they loved good grub, hadn’t a mean bone in their bodies, read the bible or went to church. Sure they didn’t like the fact that the American Indian had titled rights to the fish harvest, and they didn’t like Mexicans because they just wanted to live off of American goodwill. But the Wisconsinites I met were a kind people, perhaps fully unaware of the dynamics of world politics. Yet as they meticulously trained themselves for the hunt, their dedication, their tenacity, their ability to camouflage themselves, sit still in a tree for 3 hours, was remarkable and no doubt helpful when deer hunting and in Iraq.
The Americans I have met are well intentioned, self taught and determined to perfect their race and their world, and to secure capitalism, freedom of expression and democracy throughout the world. This is what their president is doing, there is no innocence in inflicting self determination for others.
Of course if America were a pacifist power would it be a world power? Some historians have noted that the British Empire was good at conquering but not aggressive enough to hold on to their real estate. A dominant America might wisely claim ignorance of the consequences of all that it surveys but can it do anything else?
It is a trickier question to answer, benevolence doesn’t carry much weight in this world of slaughter your own lunch, and it appears that America is not going to be the empire that will represent a new world order, just like all the others it will fade into the sun set on that famous Wave Principle as any power controlled by the stock market must.
It is my conclusion that America is and has been helpless in its reign, it probably didn’t even know that it was its turn at the helm, and neither does it know what to do with it; Gorbachev displayed an uncanny ability to know when to end his own country, a rare treat for me as did De Klerk in South Africa. Now the American people have elected the man that can force their downfall, as it has to be forced, by way of his benign ignorance which is not innocent!
RC
