SPEAKING
FREELY America's identity
crisis By Toni Momiroski
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The idea of "perpetual
wars" is not a new concept. Finding justifications for
such acts, however, is a complex matter, and it differs
from one society to the next.
When addressing
the issue of warmongering by states recently, the media
have focused on the question: Why did the United States
invade Iraq? In their answers they have dwelt at length
on apportioning blame to others such as Iraq,
Afghanistan and even individual personalities. If it's
not Saddam Hussein, then they have argued it might be
Osama bin Laden. And if not these two, then it was Ahmad
Chalabi and company who lied America into situations of
conflict. Some have used the justification blanket term
"terrorism" to explain all recent conflicts. Others have
postulated a Zionist conspiracy with US Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as its ringleader. The issue
of oil has not been left wanting either.
The
whitewash of recent US actions turns on the belief that
the West, the United States in particular, can do no
wrong, that their actions are deemed "just" because
history and God are on their side. That all acts have a
cause-and-effect cycle. That this cycle was forced upon
them and can explain how things are. There is, however,
an alternative view, because there is never just one
truth, but many.
The alternative is to argue
that the United States today is undergoing a social
identity crisis of vast proportions because the glue
that holds the population together is spread so thin.
Its intellectuals and policymakers appear to be devoid
of ideas as to how to steer the population in the right
direction to make this great nation what its founders
originally conceived.
War seems to be the only
answer that has received currency of late. It remains
possible that war has always been the driving force that
shaped American self-identification. War for the US has
become an important tool for holding this group of
people together who find themselves with very few things
in common in today's busy "corporate warfare-state".
Anthropological instruments are useful for
putting order where there is said to be disorder.
Particularly useful is the theory of Fredrik Barth
(1969), whose views about social interactions can be
modified to take in America as we know it today.
Briefly, he argues that we know who we are
because we know who we are not. We demonstrate our
difference in everyday pragmatic life by making use of
"easily noticeable diacritica" to advertise identity.
For America, traditional icons and catch-cries such as,
"land of the free" and "land of the brave" have played
an important role for American self-identification and
as advertisements to others of this difference.
In old societies, instruments such as folk
songs, dress, humor, and in particular language and
religion have served as glue that held those societies
together. But the United States is a young nation, and
these traditional instruments have never really taken
deep root within the psyche of its people.
Instead, the modern equivalent of boundary
maintenance for Americans have been the myths of free
enterprise, democracy, capitalism, Christian morality
and beliefs, and folk legends such as MTV, IBM, MS, KFC,
Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's and others.
The
modern method of boundary maintenance by the United
States has all too often been deficient in shaping
identity. Thus it has been necessary to create
situations of crisis in order to supplement, correct and
maintain the system. After World War II it was the Cold
War and Vietnam that served this function. Today it is
the threat of terrorism.
All of these conflicts
have played important functions to interpret,
reinterpret and portray an image of "self-identity" as
well as to confirm this difference to others observing
the spectacle.
However, this method of
meaning-making that utilizes war as the chief variable
for self-identity only serves the short-term purpose of
nationalism and self-identity in the face of threat. In
the long term, it is quickly exposed as one-eyed and
ill-conceived in a time of peace. It is for this reason
that administrators and policymakers have had to seek
new frontiers and adventures to keep the population
diverted from the harder issues of self-identification.
It is not the economy, then, that attention is diverted
from, but the bigger question of: Who is American? What
is America? and, Why?
Another social theorist,
George Ford (1983), can help to fill in the gaps in the
present argument about the role of war in American
self-identification. He argues that the ritual content
that "results from purposive interaction between
individuals determined by their interpretations of the
ritual's interactive situation" is very important for
self-identity. In the former, war functions as a vehicle
to highlight differences of national or ethnic
consciousness, while in the latter the ritual of real or
perceived threat provides a "means of social boundary
maintenance".
Ritual behavior results from
purposive interactions between individuals that is a
part of a strategy of maintenance. War and all public
displays of war, in the same way that religious worship
functions, are forums where interactions are crucial to
identity. Here, "identities are confirmed and
interpersonal commitments are established that are
essential to continuing membership in the community from
which support and assistance can be mobilized".
Confirmation has the effect of maintaining, reproducing
and transmitting a sense of "group well-being" and
solidarity for those within the group, and as a
spectacle to portray this view to those outside it.
The United States is healthy because Americans
believe it to be and have rallied behind a cause deemed
worth fighting for, while others accept this as fact
unquestionably because difference highlights what they
are not - American. The idea of "perpetual wars",
whether real, imaginary, or manufactured, has come to
serve a social function for young and modern
nation-states.
Unmasking this function of war is
important for understanding how world events have
unfolded recently. Just observing, detailing and
reporting these events by the media, as well as noting
the various similarities between them, the various
personalities and threats is not an ingenious and
creative way to deal with conflict in societies. All
societies throughout history have confronted conflict in
their own way. The US is no stranger to conflict. But
what does it mean? There is always another way of
seeing. It is time we took another look at events. After
all, it's not seeing with the "eyes" that leads us to
truth, but exploring all of the various possibilities of
current dilemmas toward solution that really leads to a
way out and a way forward.
It is apt to end this
article with the words of Dr Teresa Whitehurst in her
piece As I lay crying: On
feeling what no patriotic American is supposed to
feel. She easily locates the pragmatic
function that war has in the American psyche in daily
life today. The "inclusive" and "excluding" nature is
quickly unclothed. In her moment of weakness she has
feelings she ought not have: "I know that I have not
been 'all that I can be' as an American. Even as a
Christian, I am aware that I am a disappointment to
those who have adjusted Christianity's less popular
elements to fit the doctrine of eternal war - war
conducted by the people and for the people, killings
that are done only by accident and for the very best of
reasons."
She further fills in the dynamics of
meaning-making in daily life in a nation where the
preoccupation with war has skewed everyday realities.
And it must - because it is a necessary function of well
being: "I read it on a blog, so I know it's true. The US
would never kill innocent people intentionally. It isn't
killing when you don't target the civilians - it's just
a part of war. Photos of babies and children supposedly
killed by allied forces should not be believed. Or, if
one does believe the pictures, one must understand that
somebody else killed them because the US would never do
that. And if it did do that, it wasn't intentional. It
was an accident. It was war. Just a part of war. We have
to understand that. Nobody's to blame. I read it on a
blog ..."
Dr Whitehurst rightly locates the
theoretical framework I speak of here. In one act she
cleanses her own sin and provides a framework for
understanding a complex society at work. It is a bizarre
world where everything is upside down. In this world,
denial leads to redemption. Redemption offers renewed
membership to the group. Inclusion to the group is a
function of "patriotism". Patriotism ensures that the
nation is healthy again. Reality has been reformulated
(transformed and reproduced). At the end of the day each
citizen exclaims: "I know who I am, because I am not
like you." Society has undergone its periodic
maintenance. America and Americans are well, and
everyone lives happy ever after.
References: Barth, F, Ethnic
Groups and Boundaries (Little, Brown Co, 1969,
Boston). Ford, G (1983), "Za Dusha: An Interpretation
of Funeral Practices" in Macedonia Symbolic
Interaction Volume 6, 1-2 Spring pp 19-34 (Jai
Press, Inc) at (Ford, 1983:22). Whitehurst, T, "As I
lay crying: On feeling what no patriotic American is
supposed to feel", October 1, antiwar.com.
Toni
Momiroski is associate professor at Jiaotong
University specializing in social theory and English.
The university does not endorse the above views. These
are the opinions and views of the writer.
(Copyright 2004 Toni Momiroski.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Pleaseclick
hereif you are interested in
contributing.
