June 4, 2007

America 2007: Looks Right, Doesn’t Feel Right

 

In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter went on television and told the American people that he perceived a state of national malaise. He was widely ridiculed for that statement. The voters decided that if malaise was indeed affecting our great nation, it was largely caused by him. The result? The feel-good years of Ronald Reagan. Americans don’t like to be told that things aren’t as rosy as they’d like them to be, and less that there isn’t much they can do about it.

 

I’ve been experiencing a gnawing discomfort lately about our national state of mind – beyond any specific problem or policy. There is something that just doesn’t seem right. I’m trying to name it, and wondering what the impact of this pervasive state will be on our immediate and longer-term future.

 

The many contradictions in our national reality perhaps make naming it even more difficult than for President Carter way back then. Many American corporations and individuals are experiencing unprecedented economic well-being, while increasing numbers find themselves in intractable poverty. The stock market is repeatedly setting new records, and the number of millionaires expanding exponentially, while many lose their jobs, and even homes, to globalization.

 

We are bogged down in a no-win and apparently no-exit war in Iraq, and another going that way in Afghanistan. We are expending blood and treasure fighting terrorism, yet there seem to be more terrorists. We give away millions of dollars to poor countries, and still no one seems to like us much. People don’t seem to understand, or perhaps remember, the greatness of our country.

 

Aside from feelings of disgust and powerlessness from daily reports of death and destruction, the wars don’t affect our lives very much. We’re told that our national survival is at stake, but who really believes we must fight “them” in Iraq, to keep from having to fight “them” in California? Most of us aren’t sure who the “them” even are. Record numbers of Americans are flying around the world with a relative sense of safety, though attacks elsewhere and intelligence remind us the enemy does really exist.

 

We haven’t had another attack on our country since 9/11, so someone must be doing something right. But we don’t fully believe that our own government’s actions and reports aren’t motivated by politics or some commercial agenda. Of course, the information about the foiled plots at JFK Airport and Fort Dix must certainly be above politics. It comes directly from our Justice Department and certainly it wouldn’t do anything for political reasons.

 

There is growing suffering in our country and the world and it is increasingly convenient to keep our attention on our own day-to-day consumerist melodramas. The press focuses on its daily story, often not adding much to our awareness. One of today’s headlines on CNN was about the fiancée of the now famous TB carrier still being willing to marry him. That’s certainly a must-know. There are Internet reports of more than 1,000 injuries among demonstrators in Germany at the G-8 Summit - not a headliner on U.S. news.

 

Most of the people I know are doing well, if not doing a lot of good. Yet there is this feeling that something is just a bit “rotten in the state of Denmark”, and perhaps with ourselves. I believe this feeling is shared by people of a wide range of experiences and perspectives, albeit in different ways.

 

This kind of angst accompanies situations that at some level seem they shouldn’t be what they are – contradiction between the reality we see and the one we feel. There is a joke about the wife in a 20-year marriage coming home unexpectedly to find her husband in bed with another woman. The wife stands there stunned - trying to make some sense of the situation. Her unfaithful husband looks up from under the covers and asks, “What are you going to believe, 20 years of marital bliss or your lyin’ eyes?”

 

Many of us are experiencing such a cognitive dissonance these days, sometimes creating a discomfort that burrows deep into our national and personal psyche. Something vital is missing and hasn’t yet been replaced. We long for that object of faith, of trust, of confidence in our country and ourselves. For me it is a pregnant emptiness. I hope it sparks the kind of doubt among all of us that will create the space for a new kind of national consciousness.