"Real" Americans

[Arthur Dent]

I would argue that there is no such thing as a real America. This is a nation of immigrants from all over the world who have been organized into a coherent political entity for a relatively short period of time. The reason all of these disparate peoples can get along with each other is that they all subscribe to the same ideology, this American Dream and its corollary of number-oneness. We are all living out the same collective fantasy that, in massively conspicuous ways, bares no resemblance to the economic and social realities of this country. America exists in people's imaginations and it is this mental territory that is bitterly fought over. There are huge swaths of our population that have fundamentally different ideas about the nature of our civil society. What keeps these two radically different forces together are two sacred beliefs, the virtues of capitalism and militarism. Beyond those America is a nation of ridiculous contradictions. What is "real" and what isn't just depends on an individual's particular fantasy -- a perpetual daydream that makes ideology feel like brick and mortar.

So, do you feel there is a "real" England or "real" China?

[G. Keenan]

I would argue that there is no such thing as a real America. This is a nation of immigrants from all over the world who have been organized into a coherent political entity for a relatively short period of time. The reason all of these disparate peoples can get along with each other is that they all subscribe to the same ideology, this American Dream and its corollary of number-oneness. We are all living out the same collective fantasy that, in massively conspicuous ways, bares no resemblance to the economic and social realities of this country. America exists in people's imaginations and it is this mental territory that is bitterly fought over. There are huge swaths of our population that have fundamentally different ideas about the nature of our civil society. What keeps these two radically different forces together are two sacred beliefs, the virtues of capitalism and militarism. Beyond those America is a nation of ridiculous contradictions. What is "real" and what isn't just depends on an individual's particular fantasy -- a perpetual daydream that makes ideology feel like brick and mortar.

So, do you feel there is a "real" England or "real" China?

Yes and no. I won't speak to China since I have never been there, though I imagine that it is actually quite similar to the Unites States insofar as it has a political system founded in a particular set of ideology around which their political discourse and until recently, their economy, orbits.

As per England, the no in my answer is that no nation is real in the way that a table is real or gravity is real. A nation is the result of a collective social pact that over time has formed agreed upon boundaries differentiating it from other social pacts. Individual members of a nation often have nothing in common with other citizens other than agreeing that they belong to the same nation and that said nation represents x,y, z abstract ideas. That's about it. The larger a nation is the more true this is as the differences between citizens are amplified by the effects of distance and region.

The yes part of my answer is that England is made more real by having been around a lot longer. My grandmother's funeral a couple months ago was in her local church, built in the 14th century, which was on the site of a church from the 8th century. This isn't to say that oldness has any special value, just that the institutions that shape almost every aspect of our daily lives have in England been in place for centuries upon centuries. This is true of everything from churches to the military to banking. Their legal system is not grounded in an immutable document authored by a handful of men but the accumulation of a thousand years of events that actually happened and the decisions made surrounding them. What I'm driving at is that it is a much more practical place in the way that it imagines itself as a political body. It's just an island on which people have been living for a very long time and they're primary concern is how best to go on living together. There is almost zero debate over what constitutes Englishness. Their epoch of trying to make the world in their image is over so they aren't really trying to figure out what that image should be. They just get on with it.

None of this is to say that what England has going on is better than what this country has going on. One side effect of that just get on with it attitude is that it can be a pretty dreary place. I think though that that dreariness is a more real reflection of one's actual life. What we have in the US is a lot of politicians who make a living out of telling a bunch of bad off people how awesome they are. Simply believing in whatever version of reality they are selling you makes you righteous, makes you authentic, makes you a patriot. Forget that almost no part of that fantasy corresponds to the actual conditions in your life. The American worship of small towns seems to me the most perfect example of this. Yes, the idea of them is lovely, and the ones that actually manage to pull it off are wonderful places to be. But, in my experience at least, the majority of small towns are populated by disaffected people with minimal economic prospects and plagued by problems like inadequate health care and meth addictions. They're full of fat people eating too much fast food who are willfully ignorant of the world at large because they've convinced themselves ahead of time of the righteousness of their religious and social values, so why bother. And they just spiral down and down, clinging to this notion that one day the American Dream is going to come home to roost in its rightful home.

[cards2468]

Those who would argue that there is such a thing as a "real" American in distinctive, if not exclusionary, socioeconomic and cultural terms contradict themselves because America's most distinguishing characteristic is its ability to afford room for all wavelengths of the socioeconomic and cultural spectrum.

I would argue that there is no such thing as a real America. This is a nation of immigrants from all over the world who have been organized into a coherent political entity for a relatively short period of time. The reason all of these disparate peoples can get along with each other is that they all subscribe to the same ideology, this American Dream and its corollary of number-oneness. We are all living out the same collective fantasy that, in massively conspicuous ways, bares no resemblance to the economic and social realities of this country. America exists in people's imaginations and it is this mental territory that is bitterly fought over. There are huge swaths of our population that have fundamentally different ideas about the nature of our civil society. What keeps these two radically different forces together are two sacred beliefs, the virtues of capitalism and militarism. Beyond those America is a nation of ridiculous contradictions. What is "real" and what isn't just depends on an individual's particular fantasy -- a perpetual daydream that makes ideology feel like brick and mortar.

Very. Well. Put.

And the Republicans are making themselves look like complete fools by putting such restrictive cultural and socioeconomic boundaries around this concept. But I guess that's politics, and I attribute this colossal blunder to the evangelical culture-war obsessed wing of the party. The problem is that they are boxing themselves into a shrinking (though very active) part of the electorate. And their criticisms and fear-mongering characterizations of the other side (ie "socialists") fall flat in the face of recent Republican Congressional policy. I'm far from being a card-carrying Democrat, but I just think that most Republican talking heads right now look like complete morons submerged in a deepening state of denial.

Evangelical Christians make up a good portion of those that vote, just ask Bush. I think the point is that the most vocal demographic is liberal while a good portion of America consists of conservatives that are not heard.

[Michael]

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Not very clever but I couldn't resist.

[Hungary Jack]

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Not very clever but I couldn't resist.

That's hilarious. Is Jesse Ventura still hanging out in Baja? We need him.

[Arthur Dent]

There is almost zero debate over what constitutes Englishness. Their epoch of trying to make the world in their image is over so they aren't really trying to figure out what that image should be. They just get on with it.

I believe that there was a narrative about "Englishness" during the time of the British Empire, and I imagine that we will agree that this was just as much an ideological construction as contemporary narratives about Americanness. England also has a large immigrant population. I don't know if national identity is any more real or fake there than here. I guess you could argue that English national identity is more pragmatic, but is that more "real"? As you say, nations are social compacts. In the case of both England and America, these are quite stable institutions.

None of this is to say that what England has going on is better than what this country has going on. One side effect of that just get on with it attitude is that it can be a pretty dreary place. I think though that that dreariness is a more real reflection of one's actual life. What we have in the US is a lot of politicians who make a living out of telling a bunch of bad off people how awesome they are. Simply believing in whatever version of reality they are selling you makes you righteous, makes you authentic, makes you a patriot. Forget that almost no part of that fantasy corresponds to the actual conditions in your life. The American worship of small towns seems to me the most perfect example of this. Yes, the idea of them is lovely, and the ones that actually manage to pull it off are wonderful places to be. But, in my experience at least, the majority of small towns are populated by disaffected people with minimal economic prospects and plagued by problems like inadequate health care and meth addictions. They're full of fat people eating too much fast food who are willfully ignorant of the world at large because they've convinced themselves ahead of time of the righteousness of their religious and social values, so why bother. And they just spiral down and down, clinging to this notion that one day the American Dream is going to come home to roost in its rightful home.

The fate of much of small town America is a sad story of decline that shouldn't be blamed on it's residents. Many small Midwestern towns were based around local manufacturing. Larger economic forces, often encouraged by small towns' preferred political leadership, have led to decline for this sector. This has often given rise to the social problems you describe. The ideology of righteousness can in some ways be seen as a way of coping with the problem although it is, as a practical matter, unhelpful. On the other hand, I think ideology is a fundamental human need and isn't always a bad thing. People can achieve great things when they believe a better world is possible.