Being an American is schizophrenic. It
is a type of organized, controlled social madness that is just barely
subverted by an incessant stream of cheap reality television,
hyper-materialistic idolatry, skin-deep nationalistic sentiments, and
other such platitudes. There is not an identity crisis in America,
its just that our “identity” has always been a chaotic mess of
people and places and things too numerous, too different to
completely reconcile. So we just jam them together, swallow the
racism and the sexism and prejudice and the inevitable delusion of
home-grown fundamentalism, and go about our day wielding the biggest
stick the world has ever seen. Its no wonder we look like a
caricature of normality, a political cartoon come to life in all of
our obtuse irrationality and fumbling foreign policy.
We have a history half-full of
greatness, progress and half-full of almost unspeakable heinousness
against millions of people across the world who simply lacked the
privilege of being able to call themselves “Americans”. And yet,
only one-half of our already-muddled selves is ever discussed,
acknowledged or claimed as part of our identity, as if one could
leave a trail of blood and bodies, built first and foremost on the
genocide of an entire continent of peoples, and have it be tastefully
and justifiably inconspicuous. Even in spite of our personal,
internal heterogeneity, it is also our inability or unwillingness to
come to terms with our own historical reality that prevents us from
ever creating an identity that could not otherwise be characterized
as any number of sociopathic psychological disorders.
Please don't get me wrong (I know how
the above must sound), but I love my country. I love it in all of its
madness and its calamity. But as an American who has lived abroad for
a significant period of time, not only have I had the opportunity to
reflect upon and dissect my American identity piece-by-piece, but I
have also been faced with the constant challenge of having to explain
that very identity to people from other countries. It is an
impossibility and a constant struggle.
No doubt, every country has its own
history and identity, and there is hardly a single one in the entire
world that got it all right or has all of their shit completely
together. But none of them have assumed the great crown of global
hegemony, none of them regularly hold the fates of millions in their
grasp whether indirectly, through the setting of global economic agendas, or
directly, through our seemingly relentless need to wage war. Whether
we deserve such great clout and power in the world seems somewhat moot at this point.
America, in its youth and idealism
(more of a political tool than an actual belief at this point), is
like the biggest kid in school, the jock who just learned about his
own physical prowess over the rest of his peers, and finds a constant
hormone-fueled need to impress that upon others. Maybe it all goes
back to masculine dominance and this age-old patriarchy that shows us
just how intellectually un-evolved we all really are, but who knows.
As an American, like I was as a teenager wandering the halls of high
school, I feel consistently embarrassed and very insecure about that
identity. I am not that kid anymore, but when I say “Americano”
to the people I interact with on a daily basis, I can tell that they
all think something along those lines. It makes me cringe. Sometimes
I just want to say Canadian.
What worries me the most is that
almost no one alive today remembers America not being top dog in the
world. This post-World War II baby-boomer generation and their
generations of offspring were all baptized in a world where America
had already filled that space of global dominance, where the world
was split into the false Cold War dichotomy of good America and bad
Soviet Union. Our perspective (and I am including myself in this) is
filtered by our short-term and selective memory. We too readily, too
willingly capitulate to passivity and corporate-issued social
pacification like sheep to the slaughter because they keep telling us
we are number one and it feels good and it is just so easy to
believe from the plastic-wrapped, self-indulgent bubble in which we live.
News flash: America is not number one
in anything except 1) Most powerful military (thank you
military-industrial complex at the expense of egregious domestic needs), 2) Largest economy (soon to be eclipsed
by China and not long after, likely India as well) and 3) Percentage
of our population that is currently incarcerated (we won't get into
how racialized our prison population is, but just as a side note...).
In every single other category, such as life expectancy, standard of
living, equality, freedom, education, health care, governmental
transparency (i.e. level of corruption), we are not only not number
one, we are consistently and increasingly lagging farther behind
other more advanced and progressive countries.
The Roman Empire held on to the
illusion of the Republic right up until the end. They faded away,
leaving their indelible mark upon history, and in the end surrendered
to the closing walls of barbarian tribes, Muslim armies, and a
corroding social system of unsustainable cosmopolitanism. In
retrospect, it was inevitable. Some might say that it was that very
illusion of their own identity that allowed them to survive as long
as they did. My personal opinion, it was that illusion and its
detachment from reality that stifled their ability to evolve, to
accept change, to grow and adapt to the constantly fluid world around
them.
As an American, from where I am
sitting right now, it seems like we are also in the midst of several
closing walls. An inconceivably deteriorating environment, global
climate change, continuous war and a still-expanding
military-industrial complex, population growth, corporate
infiltration of our political system, the general erosion of our
domestic and personal freedoms, the dissolution of our democratic
process, and our continual attempts to look outwards with our
critical eyes instead of looking inwards. We act as if we are at war
with the world, fighting for some ideal that we don't realize we left
by the side of the road a long, long time ago because it was slowing
us down in our pursuit of those true American values: greed and
power. In reality, we are at war with ourselves.
I believe there is so much potential and
goodness in America; it is my country, my home and I love it dearly.
But the first step toward historical reconciliation, a contemporary
humbling of our role in this world, and our preparedness for the
storms that sit just over our horizon, is to find a true, honest
identity, to forge it out of our mass of parts and peoples and
influences. Otherwise we are simply perpetuating the lie, sinking
deeper into the delusion, falling faster into the night from which we
may not awake. It is a personal task of every person, every American
and it is a collective responsibility of our nation as a global
leader. We should wield that power with genuine reluctance and in the
faith of serving others as well as ourselves.
So I will make this promise: I will
always say I am an American and I will not feel embarrassed by it. I
will understand that my country is not perfect, but I will continue
to love it and support it anyway. I joined the Peace Corps in that
spirit and I will continue to live in it. So for better or worse,
here is to America.
From Paraguay,
little hupo
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