Civilian Disconnect: Patriotism and the Global War on Terror

Following the attacks on September 11^th, 2001 American popular culture has been influenced maybe more than ever by simplified versions of foreign relations. This manifests itself, in one way, through what historian Drew McKevitt termed an “insidious sort of low-intensity patriotism” in his essay “Watching War Made Us Immune”[i] Though the Global War on Terror has been the subject of music, film, and political discourse, the rise of nationalism following 9/11 has diverted intellectual analysis of the GWOT, replacing it with a focus on the men and women who serve in the military. This is most clearly seen through the popular “support the troops” slogan commercialized with accessories and apparel. Two texts that help to understand the relationship between American civilians and soldiers are Ben Fountain’s 2012 novel ­Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and the 2008 film The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow. In analyzing these texts and other examples of American popular culture post 9/11, it is apparent that the United States has developed disconnect with what it actually means to go to war. Instead, the GWOT has become an abstract symbol of the soldiers’ courage and sacrifice in fighting for American freedom, while critical discourse over the nature and effects of Bush’s war are deemed unpatriotic.

There is a misconception of what it means to “support the troops” while also opposing United States’ occupation and military intervention. In an article on Huffington Post, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff, says that supporting the troops should be “separate from your feelings for or against the war.”[ii] It would seem compassion for American citizens serving in the military would directly affect support or objection to the United States’ military actions, but this is not the case. Understanding that war results in the physical and mental damage of Americans should initiate critical assessments into the merits of every conflict.

The kinds of support that Rieckhoff argues for are VA benefits and adequate body armor. Last year Republican Senators blocked the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014. The bill proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders was expected to cost around $21billion with most of the money coming from the $1 trillion budget reserved for fighting global terror for the next ten years.[iii] Despite Republicans being the party to commonly invoke the “support the troops” slogan, it was blocked with a vote of 56-41. Laughably, they believed the bill was fiscally irresponsible even though the Iraq War alone has costs more than $2 trillion so far. All forty-one votes against the bill were Republican, while only two in support were Republican. Reickhoff’s argument is invalid because “support the troops” is commonly used in support (or disregard) of combat, and avoided when the actual welfare of soldiers is involved.  In the words of Billy Lynn, “they love to talk up God and country, but it’s the devil they propose.”[iv]

The nationalistic principles that inspire romanticized worship of soldiers go hand-in-hand with the hatred expressed towards the enemies they fight. In the eyes of “patriotic” Americans, 9/11 was a result of al-Qaeda’s hatred towards American liberty rather than the product of the complex effects of Westernization. On September 20^th, 2001, President George Bush addressed Congress and the nation where he called the United States a country “awakened to danger and called to defend freedom,” as well as claiming the attack was because “they hate our freedoms.”[v] In Fountain’s novel, Billy Lynn “suspects his fellow Americans secretly know better, but something in the land is stuck on teenage drama, on extravagant theatrics of ravaged innocence and soothing mud wallows of self-justifying pity.”[vi]  This revenge-driven misunderstanding of the nature of military intervention in the Middle East produces the naïve Manichean narrative that allows something as farcical as the GWOT to elude critical analysis. For many, questioning the GWOT equates to criticizing United States soldiers, and therefore being unappreciative of the freedoms they theoretically fight for.

Part of the hypocrisy in the “support the troops” movement can be seen in its characterizations of what makes a soldier a hero. In July 2013, Chelsea Manning was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and sentenced to 35 years in Leavenworth. Manning released more than 700,000 classified documents exposing military corruption and war crimes.[vii] She has been labeled a traitor by the political right, despite her actions demonstrating the democratic virtue of free information. The Espionage Act that Manning was convicted under also reveals an example where American wars do not protect freedom, but rather justify infringements to civil rights. The trend of sacrificing freedom for “security” is more powerful than ever since the GWOT. American lawyer and law professor, Erwin Chemerinsky detailed a history of legislation responsible for this, while focusing on contemporary examples, in his article “Post 9/11 Civil Rights: Are Americans Sacrificing Freedom for Security.” A key existing issue that Chemerinsky presents is the success of the Patriot Act. Many of the provision in the Patriot Act were rejected before 9/11 for being too invasive, but were passed soon after without so much as a hearing.[viii] Popular culture in the United States focuses on the abstract idea of American soldiers fighting for freedom while ignoring the freedoms sacrificed for security, and denouncing whistleblowers that represent those freedoms.

Likely influenced by the recent “Eric Sheppard Challenge,” a video has gone viral depicting protests against an attempted flag burning demonstration on LSU’s campus by Ben Haas in 2011. My intention is not to endorse flag burning, but to consider public reaction in the context of post-9/11 patriotism. Ben Haas’s purpose in attempting the demonstration is not important because the response was against his attempted action and not his intention.  For the many who were opposed (and they were very opposed), Haas’s attempt was an offense against the freedoms represented by the flag, and the soldiers who died for those freedoms. His method was admittedly radical, and the reaction was no surprise, but it does demonstrate a strongly perceived connection between soldiers and American liberty in contemporary culture. This type of thinking involves a holistic model of symbols and Manichean dogma, and a reliance on emotions instead of logic. Regardless of the actual outcomes of the GWOT, an uncompromising certainty that soldiers exclusively defend liberty from foreign threats is stronger than ever, and it only inhibits important and rational analyses.

Fountain’s novel illustrates this type of thinking, and demonstrates how, though the intentions are good, it leads to a lack of connection with the true experiences of soldiers. When asked to speak about his friend who died in his arms, Lynn thinks that “silence [is] truer to the experience than the star-spangled spasm, the bittersweet sob, the redeeming hug, or whatever this fucking closure is that everybody is always talking about. They want it to be easy, and it’s just not going to be.”[ix] In a sense, “support the troops” is a selfish attempt to make the plight of the American soldier about oneself. Removing the complex implications of war and simplifying them to convenient patriotism and depthless sympathy does nothing to find solutions.

In his essay McKevitt compares the themes of TV shows, music, and films depicting the GWOT that succeeded and failed in the years since the war started. One film that he analyzes is The Hurt Locker from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal. The film does not “moralize about an unnecessary war and the culpable leaders who started it,” but instead uses fiction to depict the trauma and struggle to survive.[x] The success of this film demonstrates popular culture’s tendency to focus on the courage and sacrifice of soldiers instead of the global social and political consequences of war.

One of the observations that McKevitt identifies is that the films that most notably define popular culture’s understanding of Vietnam “all came years after the war’s end.”[xi] His suggestion that perhaps the United States is not ready for films confronting the Iraq War seems a likely case. However, if popular culture maintains an assertion in linking soldiers and freedom, any popular discourse will continue to conceptualize holistic and abstract ideas of Iraq and the GWOT.

[i] Andrew C. McKevitt, “Watching War Made Us Immune: The Popular Culture of the Wars,” Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (New York: NYU Press, 2015).
[ii] Paul Rieckhoff, “Can You Support the Troops but Not the War? Troops Respond,” Huffington Post, July 31, 2006.
[iii] H. A. Goodman, “41 Republican Senators Voted Against a Landmark Veterans Bill in February, Today They Blame the VA,” Huffington Post, May 27, 2014.
[iv] Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 235.

[v] George W. Bush, President Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress and the nation, September 20, 2001, Washington Post, web. (accessed May 16, 2015).

[vi] Fountain, Billy Lynn, 11.

[vii] Peter Walker, “Bradley Manning Trial: What We Know from the Leaked Wiki Leaks Documents,” Guardian, July 30, 2013.

[viii] Erwin Chemerinsky, “Post 9/11 Civil Rights: Are Americans Sacrificing Freedom for Security,” Denver University Law Review 81, no. 4 (2004): 759-773.

[ix] Fountain, Billy Lynn, 137

[x] McKevitt, “Watching War.” 7.

[xi] Ibid, 6.

The New Deal Gave Birth to the Greatest Generation

When President Obama first ran in the 2008 Presidential campaign, many of his supporters likened his politics to Franklin D. Roosevelt.  This has sparked a continuation of the debate on whether or not the New Deal was successful. Democrats will say the New Deal pulled the United States out of the Depression, while Republicans will claim it was WWII and private enterprise. In his book, A Concise History of the New Deal, Jason Scott Smith gives a fairly detailed description of the initiatives and legislation that made up the New Deal, as well as its lasting impact on the post-WWII United States’ political and economical atmosphere. Scott demonstrates that the New Deal modernized industry in the United States for workers and employers, largely contributing to the rise of the middle-class, the post-war economic boom and wealth compression.

On his TV show airing on The Blaze, Republican talking head Glenn Beck described what he believed to be the defining characteristics and effects of the New Deal. Though he presents his opinion with the authority of a well-read historian, his synthesis of the New Deal comes with falsehoods and misrepresentations. Glenn Beck’s opinions are obviously his own, but they do demonstrate a trend in the political right that demonizes any sort of government regulation in capitalism. In Beck’s story, the Depression was alleviated and the war was won because “government got out of private life and industry.” What he fails to recognize is that the military mobilization of WWII, and ever since, is essentially a large stimulus by the government. “The wide-spread impact of large scale federal investment” is something Smith argues had its foundation in the New Deal. [1]

The men and women who suffered the depression and then contributed to the war effort moved on in the post-war years to become the strongest middle class the Unites States has ever had. This generation is commonly referred to as “The Greatest Generation,” made popular by Tom Brokaw’s book of the same name. Regardless of the effects one perceives the New Deal having on the Depression, it laid the foundation for the post-war economic boom and the prosperity of its generation.  As Smith notes, “the New Deal’s spending spurred dramatic advances in economic productivity, improving the nation’s transportation networks…expanding domestic military bases and facilities, and drawing up the blueprints for a national highway system.”[2] Furthermore, with the Wagner Act, and regulations applied to investments and banking, the New Deal is arguably responsible for the “Great Compression” that followed WWII.

While disputes over whether the New Deal saved the United States from the Great Depression will never be settled, it seems clear that the years that followed would likely not have been as prosperous or economically egalitarian without the legacies of the New Deal. It is sad, but almost comical, that the middle-class of the 50s and 60s that American conservatives love to praise, was largely prosperous because of these legacies.  It seems unfortunate that the New Deal is often singled out to its time, while its strong influence on American economics lasting until the 1980s is removed.

[1]  Smith, 169.

[2] Smith, 177.

Batman, Bateman, and the Bourgeoisie

At the end of the 1970s the United States was marked by the Iran Hostage Crisis, high unemployment and inflation.  Ronald Reagan promised the nation an increase in military strength and laissez-faire economics. The Reagan Era was characterized by increased government spending in defense and more lax government restrictions for wealthier Americans.  Furthermore, with the use of crack cocaine in poor urban environments and the war on drugs, crime became even more evident in the minds of citizens. Beginning in the Reagan Era, the United States experienced a rise in income equality that has remained a trend until even now. Mary Harron’s film American Psycho (2000), based on Bret Ellis’s 1991 novel of the same name, is a social criticism on the lives and consumer culture of Wall Street investors in the 1980s. Frank Miller’s reinvention of Batman in his 1986 graphic novel, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, instead depicts ideas of urban crime and individualism. These texts serve as insights into how Americans since the Reagan Era have understood wealth inequality and urban crime, as well as a belief in capitalism having the ability to “work things out” on its own.  These ideas can especially be seen in the rhetoric of the post 9/11 political right in regards to free-market capitalism, crime, and social unrest.

Mary Harron’s film focuses solely on the lives and interests of Wall Street executives in the 1980s. Though the film was produced in 2000 and the book in 1991, the criticisms of Wall Streeters is a trend that exists today. Harron depicts the greed and corruption of the rich through the life of disturbed serial killer Patrick Bateman. Bateman is a sociopath who is obsessed with controlling and owning everything from his extravagant lifestyle to the way he treats the people around him. Though Bateman is a serial killer, all of the businessmen in the film are frequently confused for one another, suggesting Bateman is really the same as all the others. His actions are motivated by a sentiment that “self-preservation [and] dignity” are crucial, and that it is “impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves.”[1] Bateman’s idea of self-preservation and dignity is never used for defending himself. Instead, it fuels his envy and greed, causing him to inflict harm on others.

The interests of the Wall Street investors in the film depict a greedy and shallow upper-class of men who never actually do any work.  They spend their time wishing to get a table at Dorsia (a high-end exclusive restaurant) and obsessing over the subtle differences of their business cards. Regarding their relation to the rest of the world, they only express insincere interests in abstract foreign problems like terrorism in Sri Lanka. When Bateman sarcastically suggests domestic issues that should be fixed, they only joke and move on.   Ultimately, Harron’s film suggests an upper class that does not produce anything and is antagonistic towards society as a result of their greed.  This illustrates an idea in popular culture that, especially since the 1980s, the majority of the wealth in the United States is controlled by an indifferent class that remains in its own world.

Rather than focusing on the rich, Frank Miller’s Batman depicts a hostile culture of urban poverty and crime. In the 1980s, poor urban environments experienced the introduction of crack cocaine. Being cheap and highly addictive, it is undoubtedly one of the most harmful developments to ever influence poor communities. Ronald Reagan’s aggressiveness towards national defense influenced an individualistic approach toward self-preservation, resulting in a belief in the moral superiority of traditional American culture. This self-righteous sentiment and his strong opposition to drug use resulted in a hostile approach towards solving drug culture and crime. Rather than searching for ways to treat victims of substance abuse, Reagan’s approach consisted of a large scale war on drugs. Reagan outlined what he believed was the effectiveness of his approach in his speech on September 14^th 1986, where he boasts a rise in the arrests of drug related criminals. Reagan’s approach, not surprisingly, coincides with the rise of the private prison industry in the 1980s, and its influences reaches into how the United States has reacted to drug culture ever since. For instance, the amount of people in prison for victimless drug crimes increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997, and today it exceeds 2.3 million.[2]

The individualistic, self-preserving idealism that emerged in the 1980s is central to Miller’s reinvention of the Dark Knight. Some of the most obvious examples of this come from the public’s reactions in the media towards Batman’s crusade against crime in Gotham; Citizens are quoted stating “with stupid laws and social cowardice. He’s only taking back what is ours,” and, “I regard it as a symbolic resurgence of the common man’s will to resists… a rebirth of the American fighting spirit.”[3][4] Furthermore, the members of The Mutants (the gang depicted as the source of crime in Gotham) are illustrated as subhuman, heartless, and bloodthirsty, even though many of them align with batman after he defeats their leader. Miller demonstrates a belief that the only way to combat crime is with aggressive action, while at the same time showing how easily influenced the youths participating in criminal activities are.  Though he demonstrates their impressionability, Miller’s solution remains aggressive.  Despite working outside of authority, Batman protects the class structure of the bourgeoisie instead of searching for a solution to the crime that is merely a side effect of urban poverty and inequality.

In a talk given on March 15^th, 2015, Atlantic columnists Ta-Nehisi Coates described one of the problems he finds with the way the United State’s combats social and economic problems. Part of the problem he finds is the United States’ insistence that it can always alleviate its problems with aggressive behavior. Rather than approaching issues involving persons with substance abuse issues reasonably, drug users are labeled as addicts and criminals. This approach is a result of the aggressive war on drugs that rose significantly in the Reagan Era.

The modern political right seems to be obsessed with what they believe to be the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Despite the most radical conservatives naming their movement for the Boston Tea Party, social unrests such as Occupy Wall Street or the Baltimore Uprising are labeled as un-American, destructive, and criminal. This is a result of the belief that laissez-faire capitalism naturally finds balance, and that police departments consist of morally responsible individuals. Part of the legacy of the Reagan Era is a misplaced trust in some of the post powerful groups in the United States.  Just as the citizens of Gotham believed Batman was morally incorruptible and approached crime effectively, the political right today believes in the dignity of police departments, and ignores the social problems that have resulted in the Baltimore riots. Instead of listening and attempting to fix the issues that black Americans identify, they focus on condemning the rioting that is also a side effect of urban poverty and inequality.

The wealth gap that was greatly increased with supply-side economics resulted in the rise of an economically superior class concerned more with self-preservation than social problems, as well as an economically deprived lower class suffering from a lack of resources, opportunities, and proper education. The aggressive approach towards national and domestic security taken by Ronald Reagan has resulted in a middle-class that praises the principle of self preservation and the advancement of capitalism, while blaming the victims of its rampant misuse.  The Wall Street investors in American Psycho are even more wealthy and hold even more influence in today’s politics and culture, while the members of society that were pushed to the bottom still experience an environment that makes upward mobility nearly impossible. While these texts illustrate the rise of these separate-but-related developments in the 1980s, it is important to recognize that the Reagan Era has a profound impact on today’s political and social environment.

[1] American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron (2000; Lions Gate Films).

[2] Herron Keyon Gaston, “Race, Morality, and Law: The Lingering Effects of the War on Drugs,” The Huffington Post, January 27, 2015, Web. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/herron-keyon-gaston/race-morality-and-law-the_b_6544286.html

[3] My Italics

[4] Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (New York: DC Comics, 1986), 65, 41.

Reactionary Populism: How the Modern Day Tea Party Relates to the Second Ku Klux Klan

In Nancy Maclean’s book Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, she analyzes the characteristics of American society leading into the 1920s that made the second Klan so appealing for many. Though her argument is certainly not sympathetic to the sentiments of the Klan, it more fairly depicts the Klan as a rational response to changing times, rather than an irrational outburst of barbarism. Contrary to the popular narrative, Maclean depicts the Klan as what many would interpret as “the best” Americans.[1] The beginning of the 20^th century was characterized by a change in the social hierarchy in relation to gender roles, class structure, racial structure, and liberalism. The political and social superiority of the white, land-owning male was not as effective, and in a fear-driven attempt to regain relevance, the white middle class resorted to what Maclean defines as “reactionary populism.”[2] Though the environment is different and compromise has been necessary, the fears that inspired the second Ku Klux Klan are directly tied to the way the modern Tea Party movement reacts to the current social climate.

Perhaps the closest similarity between these groups is their roots in religious fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Both the Klan and the Tea Party would argue that the United States was founded on Christian ideals, and “an attack upon one is an attack upon the other.”[3]  They would also argue that the United States was built by hard working middle class whites with traditional family values.  Conveniently placing themselves at the top of their hierarchy, and believing in their own moral and patriotic superiority, both groups exhibit nationalistic tendencies. Furthermore, that these beliefs are rooted in the “authority of the Almighty” makes them both superior and unquestionable.

There is no denying that the founding fathers of the United States almost entirely identified as Christians. Despite this, it is also clear that they intended to build a secular state. The definition of what is secular has changed between the 1920s and today. In either case, religious fundamentalism is used to justify everything that these groups find moral, and to criticize anything they find is not in line with their idea of morality. Without the support of local churches, the Klan would have likely not risen to having so much power. Klan chapters would often find many of their members through churches. For many, the Klan was an organization which dedicated itself to replacing the idea of God back into society. Similarly, the modern Tea Party is a movement supposedly dedicated to the same thing. On Fox News, Ann Coulter described, without any examples, what she and many fox correspondents refer as a “war on Christians.”

Though the Tea Party never uses religion to attack adulterers, divorcees, or “greedy elites,” it used for nearly everything else, including science, birth control, LGBT rights, and even socialism. The Tea Party being a product of post-9/11 America, religion is also used to justify xenophobia. Just like the Klan, the main anxiety of the Tea Party is a loss of power for middle-class whites.  During the 2012 election, Bill O’Reilly claimed that fifty percent of American’s now “want things,” and will vote for Obama. He also goes on to say that the United States is no longer the “traditional America,” and that “the white establishment is now the minority.” The implication of this is a belief that real, white American’s will vote for Romney, but Barak Obama will likely win because lazy blacks, Latinos, and women want free things from the government. I for one am ecstatic that white men have become a minority in the United States. A more diverse democracy will likely produce a more egalitarian society, but I suppose that is precisely what the second Klan feared in the 1920s and what the Tea Party fears today.

[1] Maclean, xii

[2] Maclean, xiii

[3] Maclean, 92

From Benjamin to Rabbit

Nineteen seventies American life was characterized by series of crises, economic decline, changing social structure, distrust, and disheartenment. Jimmy Carter, in what became known as his “malaise speech,” summarized the general mood of the country, with considerable backlash. In what he called a “crisis of confidence,” Carter argued that American consumer culture and individualism had caused “growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.” This sense of malaise attributed the common mood of the United States was especially influential to pop culture in the 1970s. Many of the films produced in this time present themes of dreariness, hopelessness, skepticism, and paranoia. The existential crisis that Carter refers to can be seen in the anxiety-ridden, post-college Benjamin Braddock in Mike Nichols’s 1967 film The Graduate, and in middle aged Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom in John Updike’s 1981 novel Rabbit is Rich. Both of these texts offer perspectives into how American’s related to life in the United States, while also illustrating the changing culture and how it related to the country’s mood.
Though the 1960s are more known for activism that sought political and social egalitarianism, the fight, particularly for women, was still happening the 1970s. The changing social structure caused by second wave feminism, and the more assertive women that came with it, are represented in both texts. In The Graduate, Mrs. Robinson represents a change from the traditional woman’s role as a wife and housekeeper to one more openly sexual and firm. The monotony of suburban life in the 1970s coupled with the trend of self-indulgence influences Mrs. Robinson to look for something more fulfilling, and in 1967 she had the freedom to do so. The film illustrates how feminism was challenging the traditional male role. This is most apparent in Mrs. Robinson’s domineering relationship with Benjamin. Even after he attempts to break things off, Mrs. Robinson continues to try and control the relationship. It is also worth recognizing that although she is unfaithful to her husband, they are able to maintain a relationship. Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine, belongs to the same generation as Benjamin, and must also deal with the new sense of individualism in the United States. At the end of the film Elaine runs out of her wedding to be with Benjamin. In this scene, she disregards the demands of her parents and puts her future in her own hands. If her parents and their demands represent the former generation, Elaine’s elope with Benjamin demonstrates her freedom to make her own choices. In the novel, Rabbit’s midlife crisis is partly caused by a loss of masculinity. His wealth is exists because of the women in his life, and he resents it. Relying on the business owned by his mother-in-law, while living with her and his wife, has made him irrelevant and replaceable. While these themes do not necessarily contribute to the malaise of the 1970s (except for men who were insecure), they are certainly a part of the decade that stood out for people in the United States.
The sense of malaise attributed to the 70s comes largely from the United States’ declining economy, stagflation, and unemployment. While living in the wealthiest country in the world, many people in the United States still felt unsure about their futures. Although Benjamin has just graduated college with honors, he feels a great amount of anxiety towards what his future holds. Benjamin’s anxiety is most obvious in the beginning of the film. While being bombarded with questions about his future from his parents and their friends, he repeatedly says that he does not know what he is going to do. Eventually, his concern turns into apathy as he lies around in the pool doing nothing and “taking it easy.” Even by the end of the film, Benjamin has not decided what his career will be. In Updike’s novel, Rabbit Angstrom is lucky enough to benefit from the energy crisis, but still expresses feelings of an unfulfilled life. He truly felt content when he was a basketball star, but lacks a sense of self-importance as a general manager at a car dealership. He may be middle class, but it was not his own success that achieved it. The lack of determination towards reaching a fulfilling career was widely felt by people in the 1970s. This was in contrast to the 1950s when workers felt accomplished in building the United States’ economy.
When Jimmy Carter gave his “crisis of confidence” speech, the backlash was largely because he accused American’s of worshipping consumerism. The Graduate takes place in the heart of upper-class suburbia, and therefore the heart of consumer capitalism. His parents and their friends are excited for Benjamin’s future and pressure him to immediately begin a successful career. His father boils his own advice down to one word: “plastics.” The communal pressures that insisted on creating the ideal suburban life were largely pressures favoring consumerism. One was expected to get a job producing things so they could buy other things. This is also represented when Benjamin’s parents buy him a sports car (which they boast about with their friends), and the unnecessary scuba suit that they encourage Benjamin to use in the swimming pool. In Updike’s novel, Rabbit is obsessed with consumer culture. As a business manager, he often deals with buying and selling cars, and where to turn a profit. He also shows interests in investing in gold and silver, and he mentions reading Consumer Report. Despite being financially successful, Rabbit reflects the lack of self identity and spiritual fulfillment that many people believed described the United States.
Another point that Jimmy Carter made was the harm caused by individualism. With a lack of faith in national leaders, and a skepticism towards trusting others, people in the United States turned inward in the 1970s. In The Graduate Benjamin shows this in his habit of being an introvert. While the questions roll in from his parents and family friends, he never really expresses how much his anxiousness bothers him. One can see from his behavior, especially in the beginning of the film, how apprehensive he stays. He remains on edge and always replies immediately, but his mind always seems elsewhere.
Between the making of the film (1967) and the timing of the novel (1979-1980) the United States experienced the end of Vietnam, Watergate, Kent State, Ted Bundy, Three Mile Island, the Energy Crisis, the Iran Hostage Crisis, the threat of global terrorism, and increasing tension with Soviet Russia. America was becoming dark, and it was happening quickly. Though it is more difficult to identify the themes and moods that characterize a time while it is happening, it shows through the art that is produced, and the culture that is transformed. For cultural historians, things like films and fictional literature provide ample amounts of information that allow patterns and themes to show. For the history of a decade as recent as the 1970s, where many of the typical resources used by historians are not available, the information presented in pop culture becomes even more important.

The Triangle Fire: How Social Reform was Stolen from the Working Class and Watered Down for Compromise

 The Triangle shirtwaist factory fire  that occurred in March 1911 was the  most lethal workplace disaster in  New York City history until  September 11th.  It is often  portrayed as the catalyst  for  progressive reforms in New York  and as influential to the New Deal.  The memory of that day and the  influences it had have become  somewhat legendary though, and  fail to recognize the struggle by  immigrant working class socialists  and middle class progressives that  were just as responsible for reform.  In his book, David Von Drehle uses  social history to not only detail the  truth of that day in March, but to understand the political environment preceding the fire, the trial after the fire, and its true consequences. In understanding the Triangle fire in its full context, Drehle demonstrates how, though it certainly had influence, progressive liberalism was largely a success for progressives and democracy in general.

History for the average person is most easily written the same way any popular story is: protagonists fighting and overcoming antagonists. In the case of progressive liberalism this would be the working class verses evil corporate leaders. What Drehle presents is a more complex system. This involves the demands of socialists immigrants being watered down by middle class progressives who did not need everything the socialists demanded. Rather than fulfilling the wants of socialists, it was easier (and eventually necessary) to meet the demands of progressives. Furthermore, though corporate leaders played their role hiring strikebreakers, influencing police, and maintaining improper facilities and conditions for the purpose of profit, much of the responsibility rested with the political machine. What becomes apparently important in the rise of progressive liberalism is not the shock induced by the Triangle fire, but the pressures Tammany Hall faced resulting from middle-class citizens supporting the labor movement.

As Drehle notes in an interview on NPR, Tammany Hall was the epitome of corrupt government, and could even be considered “organized crime.” Though business owners may have slowed the fight for progressive liberalism, overcoming Tammany Hall was the true success, and is a perfect example of democracy overcoming money. Drehle addresses that the best estimate is that over one hundred people died every day in workplace related accidents during the rise of American industrialization. The Triangle shirtwaist fire stands out now because it stood out for New Yorkers in 1911. For them it was a sign that what working class immigrants had been striking for may actually be a problem. Without the political enviroment created by socialists and progressives, the fire would have just been another disaster. What it did accomplish though, was a dramatic turn in popular support towards labor reform. For Tammany Hall this meant compromise or lose votes. The labor movement that had sprouted and was growing dramatically in New York’s Lower East Side was well on its way to influencing reform.  What would have likely risen as a third party was diluted and appropriated into the democratic party, making it the party of progressive reform. This move, which preserved the democratic party for decades was a result of the Triangle fire.

The Expectations of a Soldier

The last time the United States officially declared war was December 11^th 1941. The Cold War that followed prompted a rebranding of American military conflicts for the sake of containment. The most devastating and farcical example of this is the United States’ attempt to defeat communism in North Vietnam.  The United States involvement in Vietnam is still part of its very recent past, and inspired a great deal of interests within popular culture. For historians, the perspective that popular culture contributes is a valuable source for understanding how the conflict was perceived by much of the United States’ population. Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket examines how military training and combat shape a human being into a weapon, while subtly questioning the United States’ lack of progress in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried published in 1990 presents similar notions, while also elaborating on the emotions felt before and after conflict. These texts serve as expositions on the effects war, and all of the baggage that comes with it, can have on an individual’s development, as well as the roles played by United States’ citizens and military leaders.

While many American films that depict war start in the middle of combat and present a hero who either dies or is the last one alive, Kubrick’s film focuses more on the psyche of regular boys who are turned into men able to kill. It begins with an honest depiction of boot camp for individuals volunteering or drafted into the Marine Corps. This opening sequence presents a great deal of evidence for how Marines were trained and what was expected of them. Despite the fact that the many soldiers in Vietnam were fresh out of high school, boot camp intended to transform each individual into a “minister of death praying for war,” because as regular kids they were “the lowest form of life on Earth.” [1] Obviously, a person only being told they are a killing machine does not make them one. Kubrick, however, presents this entire first sequence in constantly changing scenes depicting humiliation, brutally forced conformity, and outright brainwashing. Furthermore, the drill instructor Gunnery Sargent Hartman, uses Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald as examples of what “one motivated Marine and his rifle can do.” [2]

The effects of this type of conditioning are apparent in the actions of Private Pyle, as well as certain characters later in the film. Boot camp is designed to create killing machines and to prepare individuals for a new sense of morality. The murder-suicide committed by Private Pyle was the result of harsh conditioning to his simplemindedness. He was taught not to solve his problems by rational means like a normal person, but to destroy the enemy with his weapon. Later in the film, Private Joker encounters a door gunner in a helicopter firing at civilians running for their lives. Like other soldiers in Vietnam, he demonstrates a lack of empathy for the Vietnamese, stating “Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!” [3] Furthermore, when Private Joker asks him how he kills women and children, he exclaims “Easy! Ya just don’t lead ’em so much! Ain’t war hell?” [4] The door gunner is a prime example of what boot camp was meant to create.

Kubrick also uses the film to depict how leaders attempted to portray the Vietnam War. Even before the Tet Offensive which greatly demoralized popular support for the War, Private Joker’s newspaper editor demonstrates what the War’s leaders attempted to depict. He tells Private Joker to “only report combat action that results in a kill,” and that it is their job to “report the news that the why-are-we-here reporters ignore.” [5] Additionally, he directs orders from his superiors that “search and destroy” will be replaced with “sweep and clear.” [6]

Like Kubrick, O’Brien examines the process of changing boys into soldiers, but he goes further to show their immaturity before the War, and their psychological burden after the War. O’Brien’s attempt, which he is explicitly clear about, is not to depict the events that characterized Vietnam, but to recreate the emotions felt and the memories that last from those events. While not expressing any particular attitude towards the events, O’Brien better examines the grey areas of morality soldiers were subjected to as well as the expectations of what a soldier should be versus the reality of War.

O’Brien presents contrasts between what life was like state side and what it was like in Vietnam. This demonstrates the isolation and foreignness of what soldiers experienced. This is best illustrated in the love interests that take place with Dobbins as well as Mary Anne and Fossie. Dobbins wears the stocking of his girlfriend back home for good luck, and continues to wear it even after she has left him. If he were home, he would experience intimacy and companionship, but in Vietnam his relationship is only possible through superstition. Though Mary Anne and Fossie become engaged, Mary Anne is captured by the native culture and their relationship fails. Fossie had hoped to experience love and marriage, but normal social traditions and behaviors are impossible while he is at war in a foreign country. Another aspect of life that was different for soldiers was the subjugation of moral ambiguity. When Azar jokes about the girl dancing after her village and family are burned, Dobbins threatens to throw him in a well, even though Dobbins took part in the destruction of the village. The idea that one should respect the people negatively affected by one’s actions may be noble in some sense, but it is a contradiction that illustrates the hard choices some were expected to make while attempting to hold on to their own morality.

When O’Brien tells the story of the man he killed, he focuses on what may have been the man’s life, rather than his death. He gives the man’s life many of the same characteristics he has, and in doing so, suggests that it could have been him that died. This suggests how senseless combat was, considering many soldiers on each side did not really know what they were fighting for. O’Brien gives much credit to soldiers participating because of expectations at home. When he contemplates leaving for Canada, he only decides to fight the war out of guilt rather than patriotic duty. He describes feeling hate for their “blind, thoughtless, automatic acquiescence…simpleminded patriotism, their prideful ignorance,” and how they wanted him to fight a war “they didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand.” [7] This same predicament is illustrated in Bowker’s relationship with his father. While Bowker was in Vietnam his father constantly pressured him to earn medals. After he returns home with medals his father is pleased, but doesn’t understand the realities of war. For Bowker, the medals mean nothing. He only carries guilt, hardship, and the memory of Kiowa’s death. The expectations of communities and family members at home influenced the actions of soldiers in Vietnam. Though Curt Lemon is so innocent he faints in the dentist’s office, the expectation for him to be fearless inspires him to pull a perfectly good tooth just to prove his courageousness. The reality, as O’Brien illustrates is that the stereotypes of American Soldiers mean nothing in a real war. Despite proving his bravery, Lemon dies while playing catch with his friend.

Since the United States began entering in senseless combat, a culture of blind patriotism has steadily defined what American’s assume of their soldiers, and expect of their peers. This idea is a dangerous concept because it ostracizes rational thought. If a person is so concerned with the lives of American Soldier’s perhaps the most reasonable expectation would be to not send them off to be arbitrarily killed, maimed, or subjected to all-around horrifying experiences. Both Kubrick and O’Brien brilliantly depict the burden of expectation, moral ambiguity, isolation, and guilt carried by each soldier. The expectation is important because it demonstrates what role certain parts of American society played then, and gives a sense of where today’s concept of blind patriotism came from.

1. Full Metal Jacket, directed by Stanly Kubrick (1987; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. Tim O’Brien,The Things They Carried (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), 45.

The Bush Administration’s War for Freedom

George W. Bush obtained the presidency with the expectation that he would have the opportunity to reform education and strengthen the economy. Instead, the events on September 11^th thrust him into a presidency primarily dealing with foreign affairs.  Unlike his father, who was director of the CIA prior to being president, Bush 43 had no experience dealing with American diplomacy. The spike of nationalism that transpired in American culture following the attacks created a nearly universal sense that something must be done about Islamic radicalism. The nationalism that propelled the United States into a global war on terror was a side effect of the concept of American exceptionalism that many citizens hold to be true. This is evident in the rhetoric that Bush and other leaders, as well as the media, used in the post 9/11 era. Though many of the decisions Bush made in office are now seen as tragic, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum erases the farces of his presidency, while focusing on the idea of American exceptionalism to justify those decisions.

 

When observing the financial situation that is necessary to create a presidential museum, it is not difficult to understand why George Bush is painted in such a flattering way. A small portion of the funds come from taxes, but the majority of the money is given by people who believe Bush was a great president. These are people who, like Bush, have a strong belief in the notion of American exceptionalism. Rather than the subjective picture of his presidency being intentionally disingenuous, it is likely that it is the way Bush and his supporters actually see his presidency and the global war on terror.  To any person willing to be critical of the decisions that propelled the United States into a single-handed decades-long war against an ideology, the museum comes off as misleading and a denial of the true nature of the United States’ global war on terror, especially the Iraq War.

 

Before presenting visitors with the United States’ war on terror, the museum cleverly evokes empathy for Bush as a person and leader. The hallway that introduces the exhibit portrays Bush’s upcoming as both modest and inspirational to his character as leader. It describes the love he has for his family and the conservative values of hard work, patriotism, and neighborly love attributed to any white suburban family in the 40s and 50s. Next is Bush’s No Child Left Behind legislation. Though controversial, it is portrayed as one of Bush’s most prominent successes. It also effectively places visitors in a position of compassion for children and their importance in the future of the United States.

 

When one turns around after viewing this shrine to America’s children, complete with a cute miniature school bus for kids to sit in, they are confronted with an ominous circular room with low lighting. In the center are two beams, twisted and mangled, pulled directly from ground zero. They serve as a morbid center piece, with most of the lighting focusing on them. Along the walls of the room are four televisions embedded in the wall, covering each tower, the pentagon, and United Airlines flight 93. They depict the impact of each plane, the urgency and anxiety that filled every news organization’s coverage, and the tearful reactions of New Yorkers watching it unfold. Even as a person critical of the justifications 9/11 gave to irrational and impulsive diplomatic decisions, this section of the exhibit effectively recreates the mood felt during 9/11 and the days that followed. I was filled with combined feelings of anxiousness, sadness, resentment, and even a desire for retribution. Of course these feelings are justified for any American experiencing a recreation of that day’s events. However, the sensational depiction of them serves the same purpose in the museum as it did in the post 9/11 Bush presidency.

 

Following this section is a timeline of Bush’s actions in the following days, ending with a quote by Bush in 2006 invoking Alexis de Tocqueville “[who] saw that the secret to America’s success was… our willingness to serve a cause greater than self.”[1] This idea is much more apparent today than in the 1830s. When applying it to the United States’ actions in the war on terror, it becomes almost comical considering much of the results achieved have been self-serving. Next is an enormous global map labeled “Fighting the Global War.” The map illustrates Afghanistan and Iraq in red, “state sponsors of terrorism” in orange, labels nuclear threats, terrorist attacks, and prevented terrorist attacks. The problem is that it depicts terrorism as a unified movement rather than a complex, disorganized, and scattered culmination of extreme ideologies. Littering an entire section of the globe with red and orange caution signs places blame on millions of people who instead of participating in the violent response to westernism and globalization, live normal lives. Most are not wearing masks and carrying AK-47s. They are going to work every day to support their families, participating in their communities, and cooking supper while their children play with their friends. All of this while dealing with the minority of extremists that plague their states with disorder and violence.

 

Once reaching the map, the left side of the hallway opens up into the rest of the exhibit. In this section, one is allowed to move freely and observe the individual displays in whichever order they please. At this point the museum has effectively built the visitors empathy, disheartened them, pin-pointed the enemy, and created the justification for a global war on terror. This section, which outlines the war during Bush’s presidency, attributes his administration with spreading democracy, and especially “the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq.” One wall in particular portrays an assortment of justifications, as well as exaltations of freedom, peace, free trade, and democracy. Several quotes from Bush appear on the wall including “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world,” and “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” These summarize Bush’s attitude throughout the war; a common belief most clearly traced back to Wilson’s “make the world safe for democracy” speech. [2] They believed that the spread of democracy and free trade equates to prosperity and liberty in America.

 

In a statement of denial or pure naivety, a panel expresses one part of Bush’s freedom agenda as the attempt to “Expand Free Trade to bring people out of poverty and to undercut the despair that fuels extremism.” However, the United States’ attempt at globalizing a free trade market is precisely what led to extremist backlash, and continues to do so, not “poverty and despair.” This is apparent in Bin Laden’s 1996 fatwā entitled “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” [3] His initial reason to declare Jihad was the United States’ occupation in the Islamic world —which existed for the purposes of protecting free trade­. Post 9/11 extremists are motivated by what, to them, is a forceful and violent attempt at spreading Western values that are at odds with their ideological conservatism. For years the United States has fought to keep the world open for free trade. The result is often the exploitation of citizens and resources, all for the economic interests of United States’ businesses. But when it comes to American interests in the Middle East, the resistance is religious and ideological. This creates opposition far more meaningful to those fighting to resist. The Bush administration’s belief that introducing more of what caused the problem in the first place is the solution serves as a testament to why Iraq was such a farce.

 

An interactive globe presented in the exhibit highlights the democratic states of the world over a period of fifty-eight years. For 2008 it lists 121 democratic nations (including Iraq and Afghanistan). Defining democratic states however, is more complicated than drawing a line. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of  Democracy 2008 illustrates this by ordering democratic nations in a particular order based on categories that that characterize democracies. [4] Additionally, it places proposed democratic nations into four types of regimes: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes. In this more realistic definition Afghanistan ranks at 138, and Iraq at 116. This positions Iraq in the last state considered a hybrid regime, and Afghanistan as an authoritarian regime. Furthermore, though the Bush Museum categorizes Iraq at the end of Bush’s presidency as “able to govern, defend, and to sustain itself,” the EIU’s index gives Iraq a .07 out of 10 on “Functioning of government,” far behind every other nation listed. The effort to illustrate the Bush administration as effectively spreading democratic values to the nations where it concentrated all of its efforts is a reflection of its notion of American exceptionalism. If America is exceptional because it is willing to spread democracy, liberty, and prosperity, as well as challenge anything that opposes those standards, than the global war on terror ­­— which was justified on this effort and the United States’ obligation to fulfill it — must have resulted in the triumph of the United States’ determination.

 

Observing the Bush Museum from a more critical perspective exposes the denial of the United States’ true characteristics in the global war on terror. Considering the same disingenuous justifications present during the Bush administration are also present throughout the exhibit, perhaps the museum is a more accurate depiction of Bush’s term than regularly considered. Bush used the United States’ notion of American exceptionalism — which was stronger than ever post 9/11 — to propel the country into two wars. Involving the United States in decades of combat, the disruption of an already tumultuous region of the world, wasting trillions of dollars, and causing the deaths of nearly 7,000 American soldiers, somehow only strengthens the cause for some. For them, it is the United States’ obligation to spread its ideals that make it exceptional. Though it undermines true American values, (actually established in the Bill of Rights) the Bush administration detaining and torturing prisoners without trial was even justified by the same people that cry for preserving the constitution. For others, like me, justifying the means of war on the United States so-called obligation to spread its values, when the attempted spread of those values is the primary reason conflict exists in the first place, comes off as absurd. If anything is exceptional about the United States it is its ability to sometimes perceive its actions exactly opposite of what they truly are. When the liberation of other states fails, but the economic interests succeeds, the action is not seen as a farce, but an ongoing struggle to free the world of structures that oppose everything that makes the United States exceptional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. From the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas. All quotations were observed on November 1, 2014.
2. From speech given by Woodrow Wilson on April 2, 1917. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4943/
3. Bin Laden, Osama, “Declaration of War against American Occupying the Two Holy Places,” August 1996, PBS News Hour, retrieved 10 November 2014. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/

The Denial of an Empire

William Appleman Williams’s book, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, serves as an indictment of the United States’ guilt of being an informal empire. His revisionist perspective of American diplomacy became a standard for understanding United States’ foreign policy. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman argues the contrary. In her book, American Umpire, Hoffman argues that the United States has played the role of an “umpire,” rather than an empire, and that its “willingness to enforce new global norms” is what makes it exceptional.[1] However, Hoffman makes a poor argument and struggles to characterize the United States’ use of power.

The origins of the United States’ “informal empire” can be traced to frontier expansion, or “manifest destiny.”[2] Early American’s saw milk and honey in the West, and pushed — fighting wars and killing Native Americans to get there.  Hoffman argues that forcing “Indian nations at gunpoint to relinquish their lands” was an act of nationalism rather than imperialism.[3] Her distinction between these two forces is that an imperialist nation would treat indigenous peoples as subjects, where a nationalist nation would incorporate them as citizens, with an eventual relief in resistance. Her presumption of how American Indians were treated resembles a 16^th century colonist more than a contemporary scholar. Alan Gallay, in his book The Indian Slave Trade estimates that 30,000 to 50,000 American Indians were sold as slaves to the British out of Carolina between 1670 and 1715.[4] Furthermore, citizenship was not granted to all Native Americans until 1924. If the United States’ relations with Native Americans was characterized by Hoffman’s definition of nationalism, it takes a nationalist nation 400 years to incorporate indigenous populations. The exploitation and subjugation of Native Americans during this time are clear features of imperialism.

Hoffman asserts that the thriving economy of the United States prior to 1898 (before its “supposed worldwide reign”) somehow disputes the claim that it is an empire, arguing that, if a state is an empire, imperialism “is required to produce wealth.”[5] This misunderstanding can be resolved in Williams’s explanation of Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis. One must understand that frontier expansion and slave labor — both characteristics of an empire — were necessary in the United States’ success as a world economic power. Hoffman’s mistake is misrepresenting frontier expansionism as anything but an act of imperialism.

Both Williams and Hoffman argue that early American attitudes served as foundations for the policies they each assert. Williams’s expansionism argument asserts that Americans felt they needed to continue expanding to spread democracy and prosperity. Hoffman argues that the founding of a federal government set the tone for the United States umpire. She draws comparisons between the federal government acting as moderator for the state governments, and the United States’ role as moderator on a global scale. She asserts that “avoiding physical violence between nation-states created the need for an umpire precisely because there was no empire,” a statement she makes which seems to never be fully developed into an argument.

Although Hoffman directly challenges Williams’s revisionist interpretation of history, claiming he “viewed history through the wrong end of the telescope,” her thesis falls short of the consistency his holds. Williams would argue that frontier expansionism set the tone for Open Door Policy, characterizing the United States’ diplomatic history as procedure dictated by economic opportunities. The trouble Williams finds is that foreign states do not always want what America has to offer. Hoffman’s argument acknowledges the former to some degree, but rejects the latter, assuming that everyone wishes to be westernized.

Her notion is based off the assertion that the Western values Williams has accused the United States of imposing on typically averse states are in fact ideas evolving from the drifts of global responsiveness. This assumes that westernization —what she calls “the constant striving… of billions of people to improve life” — is fundamentally better than other systems, though she disclaims that as her understanding. It also assumes that it was an organic movement conceived globally, rather than a system originally developed by white entrepreneurial businessmen.  The United States, she believes, was the “pivot of this worldwide transformation.”[6] The successes of these “global trends,” according to Hoffman, are the practices of “access to opportunity, arbitration of disputes, and transparency in government and business.”[7]

Hoffman’s idea of access is political, economic, and social equality. Williams demonstrates in Tragedy that the United States fights for access to the markets of foreign nations, but simultaneously restricts their access to control their own markets, and therefore their own governmental policies. This is evident in the numerous rebellions against governments where the United States’ intervenes economically. On the subject of arbitration, Hoffman argues that it has replaced a need for war, though she admits “force remains a potent tool to which nations still resort.”[8] Somehow “sanctioned framework and collective security” give some justification to forceful world policing.[9] The reality is that the United States has been in perpetual conflict protecting economic interests in the name of spreading “access.”  The third practice of democratic capitalism that Hoffman argues is no stronger an argument for the benefits of American diplomacy. Despite transparency becoming increasingly scarcer every year in American politics, she asserts that it is somehow a result of democracy, but fails to argue precisely how American democratic capitalism is responsible for transparency in other nations.

As for the domestic implications of these three practices, Williams’s theory of economic interests as a motivator demonstrates the failure of attributing them to the United States.  The truth is that corporate and elite interests, as the result of capitalism, have muddled all of these ideas. With the money that goes into modern politics, access to political power for the individual is limited. Arbitration of dispute is irrelevant whenever keeping the world’s market open is at risk. And finally, where is the transparency when the most powerful players in American politics are not required to disclose political spending? If these are the virtues of democratic capitalism, what does the United States’ inability to maintain them say about its global influence?

Contrary to the idea of American exceptionalism, Hoffman argues that comparing American diplomacy with other nations is essential for context. She uses this in an attempt to disprove the United States’ classification as an empire, first, by comparing per capita income and life expectancy. How is it possible for the United States to not rank number one in these, she asks, “if it ruled the world and set the terms of transaction?”[10] Hoffman is incorrect in assuming the classification of an empire requires ruling the world, and only weakens her position. Because foreign policy is often motivated by economic prosperity, it is the elite that dictate the policy, as well as make the profits. The majority of Americans not ranking top in income or health does not dismiss the point that certain industries profit from empire-like behavior, under the protection of the United States’ government. She again oversimplifies her definition of an empire when she asserts that foreign countries (allies) welcome the United States’ military. Her assumption seems to be that those who consider the United States an empire imagine the country itself ruling the world with an iron fist. Having a military presence does not make the United States an empire, using that presence — sometimes with force — to protect the market for American businesses does.

United States’ diplomacy has imposed western ideas of globalization on both willing and unwilling states. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman argues that these ideals are naturally appealing to societies on a global scale, especially because of the success of American democratic capitalism. Hoffman’s notions however, remain too optimistic, require dismissing important details, and fall short of arguing Williams’s influential theory.   The argument against her umpire thesis is best summed up in her own statement: “What made the American role controversial was that it was also a player, and therefore never completely above the game.”[11] The United States’ ability to dictate the rules for smaller players while dominating the game is precisely what makes it a form of empire.

1. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, American Umpire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 18.
2. William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1959, 1962, 1972), 47.
3. Hoffman, American Umpire,
4. Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 299.
5. Hoffman, American Umpire, 14
6. Ibid, 3
7. Ibid, 6
8. Ibid, 8
9. Ibid, 8
10. Ibid, 14
11. Ibid, 17

The Limits of Capitalism

In 1959, William Appleman Williams published The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, revising what were then the contemporary notions of American foreign policy. Williams argued that American diplomacy has been largely influenced by economic interests, resulting in the United States’ classification as an informal empire. Andrew Bacevich, in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, attributes American foreign policy to the self-interests of the elite, but also examines the influence of the characteristics he attributes to United States’ citizens. Bacevich argues that these characteristics, being encouraged by governmental policy, have had an outstanding impact on the Unites States’ lavish spending, political bureaucracy, and militarism. In his judgment, the negative implications of the Unites States’ incessant need for “more” is the manifestation of American exceptionalism. [1]

In American Umpire, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman details American foreign policy as an expression of the unique ideals American citizens have formed in creating their own “united states” governed by a central power. Williams attributes it to the American idea that liberty and prosperity are directly connected to expansionism. Bacevich’s argument follows closely behind Williams’s in some respects. In every case, American diplomacy is argued as being closely related to the things that make the United States exceptional. For Bacevich, America’s consumer culture, dependency on foreign goods and oil, and its inability to be financially responsible are the features that make it exceptional.

According to Bacevich, the collapse of the Soviet Union offered an opportunity for globalization (which he describes as “a euphemism for… informal empire”), and the creation of “something akin to a Pax America.” [2] He argues that the United States’ intervention in the “Greater Middle East” was the culmination of the domestic culture of self-indulgence. [3] American’s gave him a basis for this argument in their response to Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech. Bacevich writes, “In American political discourse, fundamental threats are by definition external… that the actions of everyday Americans might pose a comparable threat amounted to rank heresy.” [4] Carter requested that citizens live responsibly within their means and to conserve fuel in an effort to get rid of foreign dependency on oil. The United States’ response was to elect Ronald Reagan, who, as Bacevich writes, “gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption.” [5] Though Carter feared the effect self-indulgence had on American values in an almost spiritual sense, the practical implications on bureaucracy and militarism were negative as well.

In the case of politics, the United States’ consumer culture has concentrated power in national security, and thus the executive branch. Furthermore, if what America wants is to have the freedom to self-indulge, officials running for anything other than the support of that freedom stand no chance obtaining office. This has led politicians to base foreign policy on sustaining the availability cheap goods. The argument that Bacevich puts forward here has a familiar ring to Williams’s arguments in Tragedy. Diplomacy is influenced by keeping world markets open not only to ensure that the financial elite have places to make money, but to ensure the majority of citizens are able to feel free in their ability to consume. Because, for Americans, freedom is essentially synonymous with self-indulgence, the effects on politics have also made easy the designating of enemies as “other.” As Bacevich writes, “treating Nazism, communism, and Islamism as essentially interchangeable, while ignoring their fundamental and irreconcilable differences” is used “when selling policy.” [6] This is especially apparent in the Bush Doctrine following 9/11. Although the United States’ conflict with Islamist had decades of somewhat complex history, the consensus of many citizens was the extremist hated American liberty, capitalism, and democracy. This places them in the position of “other” that must be eliminated in order to further Bush’s “freedom agenda.” [7] Bacevich argues that the underlying plan in Iraq, after an easy win, was to make way for opportunities to gain power and shape American interests. [8] The Bush Doctrine, he argues, “provided a self-validating authorization for the administration to pursue whatever next steps it chose to take.” [9]

Bacevich goes on to examine the effects his idea of American exceptionalism has had on the United States’ military. He argues that the Cold War and 9/11 have given Americans a false sense of what their military is capable of; assuming not only that its power is unparalleled, but that it is capable of making any changes to any nation entirely on its own.  One could guess, with a basic understanding of economics, that enacting tax cuts while entering two wars is not financially ideal. Bush entered two wars in the name of protecting freedom and democracy while encouraging citizens to continue in self-indulgence rather than conserve.  Bacevich argues that although George Bush failed extensively, he only “unmask[ed] as never before [the] defects and utter perversity” of the ideology of national security. [10]

The notion of American exceptionalism that Bacevich holds is perhaps even more negative that William Appleman Williams’s. Bacevich essentially summarizes all of the United States’ troubles as the result of Americans’ “pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism.” The result of this is dependence on imported goods, oil, and on credit. Because “nothing should disrupt their access to those goods” Americans are fierce towards anything that poses a threat.  Bacevich acknowledges the source of what he finds exceptional as “the accumulated detritus of freedom, the by-products of our frantic pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” [11] I would argue that, while that is true, it can be understood as just the nature of capitalism. Williams argued that foreign policy was influenced by the economic interests of the producers. However, capitalism’s ability to mass produce goods cheaply is what created a consumer capitalism United States. It is the combination of producers and consumers’ need for more that Bacevich argues is detrimental to the United States. Because it can never be satiated, the incessant need for consumption and production will not reach a compromise from the parties that suffer. Instead they will be forced some other way to reconsider their routines more modestly.

1. Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2008), 16.
2. Ibid, 2.
3. Ibid, 60.
4. Ibid, 32.
5. Ibid, 36.
6. Ibid, 77.
7. Ibid, 60.
8. Ibid, 120.
9. Ibid, 120.
10. Ibid, 74.
11. Ibid, 5.