The Place of Alienation in the American Political Consciousness
December 19, 2011 § 4 Comments
I seem to be looking for meaning everywhere I turn. But meaning I cannot find today.
Looking for meaning ought to point to something, a thing that corresponds to it. It’s a temptation to try to find some object that we might call “the meaning.” But there is no such object. This temptation — to find the meaning – needs to be cured.
Baffled, I look and wonder about our state of affairs — why we are the way we are, today’s American — and find not a single hint of an answer anywhere. Nothing is predictable. Nothing is obvious. Perhaps, as mathematicians might suggest, the deterministic nature of our system — capitalism flag waving as democracy — does not allow for predictability.
The world is perpetually in flux, yet Americans operate as if it’s static. We speak boldly about Morality and Utility, but these extract demands from our propensity for pleasure — oral, visual, sexual (not so much sensual, which would then move us towards aesthetics and a re-engagement with philosophies concerning Beauty, which would be too much to think about, too complex).
We are very much alone and plugged in — iPads, iPhones, computers, social networks. We are solitary — the self in perpetual solitude. Our experiences, like no other time in history, are profoundly solitary. In solitude we have intense experiences and can, for a short time, transcend the very real flux, the natural course of Being, existence.
Americans are then always in contradictions — solitary experiences that momentarily transcend the flux that is always present. Ironic — we are in a constant state of Irony. The prodigal child of irony is Alienation, a ongoing theme, for instance, in our American Literature that begins with Emerson to Hawthorne and Melville to Henry James and William Faulkner and Wallace Stevens to Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy. Alienation gives us a form of rooted rootlessness, security in insecurity, an sense of alienation that has been historically a confirmation of community.
Alienation, rather then any ideology, is the construct of politics in America today. Alienation presupposes the always ongoing struggle to find the meaning that alludes us. There is no meaning — it’s the temptation we follow.
The rhetoric of politicians, keenly orchestrated to appeal to media, exploits the temptation to find the object that will give us the meaning. No one is telling the truth, though. The only truth is that our masquerading democracy seeks exploitation to survive, using Divine Providence — the false notion that we are the Chosen — to embellish our tendency for denial of what we see — or don’t see.
We signed up and followed Obama’s Change Rhetoric, only to find out that change meant more of the same: a rounding up of the Bush-era foreign and domestic policies and greater intimacy with Wall Street, passed down to us by Reagan. We’ve been lead, with our acceptance, down the wrong path. And the alternative, the crazy, Ahab-like Newt of destruction and the indifferent and the callous and blindly ambitious Romney, who made his fortune on destruction, promise a profound exploitation of resources.
In The Ship chapter of Moby-Dick, Melville tells us that, “For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.” What we chase is profoundly irrelevant, says Melville.
We long for men that promise the meaning; we chase after their ambition, as poor Ishmael did when he stepped onto the Pequod and said, “this ship is for us.” But the Pequod is not a democracy; in its appeal to be considered the meaning, what we find, as a microcosm of American culture, in 1851 and 2011, is a totalitarian regime disguised as a democracy fully grounded in self-reliance. And nothing could be further form the truth, which is where we find ourselves today in America — far from any sense of truth.
In the end, now, as did Ishmael, we are orphaned, floating in a sea, only the sharks do not have “padlocks on their mouths.”
Pushing Afghans Away: A Misguided American Policy
January 9, 2009 § 2 Comments
for the Afghans of Middlebury and Simons, the Afghan Writers (in Afghanistan), and friends of Afghanistan in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and in Kabul
I received a text message a few weeks back from one of my Middlebury students. She is an Afghan and she texted me from Pakistan where she had entered illegally. She and her two sisters, one younger and one older, snuck across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to obtain American visas from the US Embassy in Islamabad. Many Afghans–our allies–risk their lives to obtain visas to the US. It’s a way of life so far from our own.
Police in Islamabad held them. No documentation. They talked themselves out of the mess without even paying a bribe, she told me with a “ha ha ha” and a “;-)”, her texting forms for a special–and delightful–grin she has that always says, “I can get out of this,” something in her special DNA that has evolved from confrontations with war and aggression, the reality that someone is always looking, especially if you’re a woman; someone is always coming after you.
They hid in Islamabad for three days waiting for their visas. This is American diplomacy in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, two of the three young women did not receive visas. They applied as “tourists.” Now they must re-enter this process, only this time with their I-20′s in hand, the only conceivable way to begin their dreams of being vital citizens contributing to the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
Let’s not forget that we’re speaking about women, here, who are routinely deprived of basic rights and necessities. (See also: the Plight of Women in Afghanistan and (very disturbing) Images of Women in Afghanistan). We know from studies done by the United Nations that when women are educated, the quality of life increases.
Why do we advocate for women’s rights on the pulpit but act in contradiction when called to action?
It’s always innocence that suffers most in times of war and violence. The main function of war is to suppress, even destroy the organic process–and promise–of change brought about by the basic human rights of education and knowledge. War turns allies away, the opposite approach we need in Afghanistan.
This past summer I received an email from the same student, this time she was guiding an Afghan-Middlebury freshman into Pakistan–same thing, visas (before the US Embassy began issuing visas in Kabul). Anything can happen on this treacherous border crossing. “We saw the Taliban waiting in Pakistan,” she said. The young women scurried, eyes down and heads covered, and got as close as they could to a family, making believe that they were all one group. The Taliban let them through.
Then comes the very dangerous job of choosing a driver to take them into Islamabad. “You never know where you’ll end up,” she wrote.“They ask for money. They can hold you hostage.”
An American Embassy exists in Kabul and this past summer began issuing single entry visas to Afghans coming to the U.S. to study. Students from all over the world obtain multiple entry visas. Not Afghans. When I wrote to my representatives in Vermont about this—Leahy, Sanders and Welch—I received a long letter from the US State Department saying that the reason for not issuing multiple entry visas to Afghans is security but that they were doing their best.
Presumably, a terrorist can enter the US from any point of entry, no? Terrorist cells can exist anywhere, yes, that’s the definition? Three years ago when I was in Buenos Aires Argentina doing some work with Middlebury students at the AMIA, bombed in 1994 by Iranian terrorists, it is now known, I learned about the triangle, a lawless tri-border region in Northern Argentina, Iguazu Falls , a hot bed of potential terrorist threat, where Islamic fundamentalist groups–Hezbollah profiting from the drug trade–exist in the jungles of Paraguay just a short walk across the water where it’s knee high in spots. It was believed then that at least one 9/11 terrorist crossed that border. I stood and stared, almost touching Brazil and Paraguay beyond the dense subtropical foliage, the wild sounds of exotic birds high in the trees.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban train in Pakistan—9/11’s evil seed was grown here and in Afghanistan but we turned to Iraq instead and left causalities behind. (see also: Pakistan Loosing Fight and Pakistan Surrenders — the paper trail on this issue is extensive). Pakistan’s government and military are rife with rogue elements. We’ve turned a blind eye and we’re living with the consequences, deceit and confusion–and corruption in Afghanistan (see also, “Winning the Battle, Losing the Faith“).
We need to collaborate with the Afghans; we need to work closely with them at the village level, helping with governance and infrastructure, education and healthcare, otherwise we’re not going anywhere. Afghans need to come here, too, this way honing skills and gaining knowledge that will serve their society–and on their terms, not ours, such as we’ve learned from Greg Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea (see, for instance, “Military Finds an Unlikely Adviser in School-Building Humanitarian | by Yochi J. Dreazen“.)
In “The Other Front,” Sarah Chayes, the former NPR correspondent, author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban and living and working in Kandahar where, in collaboration with locals, she has created a cooperative, Arghand, as a means to fight back the poppy business, wrote for the Washington Post that, “The solution is to call to account the officials we installed here beginning in 2001 — to reach beyond the power brokers to ordinary Afghan citizens and give their grievances a fair hearing.”
Not being able to enter the United States with multi-entry visas is a grievance–as is the humiliation experienced at the hands of Homeland Security, particularly by women.
Our policy has been to force Afghans into the hands of the Taliban. (We did this 50 years ago when we drove Fidel Castro into the hands of the Russians.) “More and more are severing contact with the Karzai regime and all it stands for, rejecting even development assistance,” says Chayes. “When Taliban thugs come to their mosques demanding money or food, they pay up. Many actively collaborate, as a means of protest.”
The solution, says Chayes, is to bring perpetrators who want to carve up Afghanistan to the table.
But in order to do this we Americans must take responsibility for the way we treat our friends, the Afghan people. We cannot want protection from illegal immigrants in our country while then creating illegal immigrants in other parts of the world. The consequences of war are exile, differenchisement and the creation of helpless nomads looking for subsistence–all fodder for extremism. “Existence today,” says Homi Bhabha in The Location of Culture, “is marked by a tenebrous sense of survival, living on the borderlines of the present…” This is our method, to make survival dark and the world wide and foreboding.
The way we treat Afghan students that come here to learn so as to be better equipped to lead Afghanistan’s rebuilding efforts is nothing short of immoral. Three weeks ago, I accompanied yet another Afghan student to the airport and witnessed a Homeland Security officer look at her passport, then ask if her last name was Islamabad, written on a line that reads, “Country of Origin”! This was followed by a humiliating and extensive search–everything, all personal items strewn for all to see, her arms spread wide. I stood on the other side of the glass nearly in tears. “This is a person I care for,” I was screaming through the glass. “A Muslim woman, for God’s sake!” No one heard. A woman walked past, noticed me, looked at the student and shook her head in shame as if to say, “No. No, this can’t be. “
In our zealousness and fear we corrupt ourselves and others. Slavery worked this way; colonialization works this way, too. “The ‘middle passage’ of contemporary culture, as with slavery itself,” says Bhabha, “is a process of displacement and disjunction that does not totalize experience.” We therefore guarantee that those that come to us from Afghanistan–or try to–are disenfranchised because we deny them their “totalize(d) experience(s),” which requires that we acknowledge our role in their lives.
In the “Fate” chapter of The Conduct of Life (1860), Emerson’s most prodigious work–and most difficult–the sage asks, “How shall I live?” And then exerts the challenge, “We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevaling ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity.” That is, our limitations. Once we accept our limitations, the only recourse is to reach for the heart, which is where we live, what matters most. Our hearts.
We have to first grapple with our own demons, ask ourselves why we make the most vulnerable and good hearted suffer, and then change our ways. “We are sure, that, though we know not how,” says Emerson, “necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with the spirit of the times.” I trust he’s right. And hope we can come to this in time for all my Afghan students to return to classes this spring–one more remains in Afghanistan still. I’m holding my breath for him. And he’ll arrive, Inshallah.
America’s Future After an Obama Victory: Hope Hangs by a Thread
September 15, 2008 § 1 Comment
Disorder and uncertainty are the guiding principles of our world today, made more so by violent storms and the unpredictability of the environment, the mortgage crises and the constriction of world finances, and always war and the threat of more war and violence in different parts of the world. Instability reigns supreme.
The voting citizenry, almost too late, last minute, gives Obama a healthy victory.
What happened?
Some of the very wealthy–not all, the golf course set mostly–in the top 1 to 2% of the population, fearing a capital gains tax and estate taxes, vote for McCain believing that our national debt and growing financial uncertainty can be solved by reducing taxes, the myth of Republican Fiscal Conservatism. The golf course set turns its back on the history telling us that this has never worked.
The next socioeconomic rung (we begin to understand that we live in a class-based, racist society; see also the July/August The Atlantic) finally realizes that under every Republican presidency since Ronald Reagan, taxes have increased, the debt has mushroomed, defense spending has increased (so have loans to support defense/war), and the size of government–the business of government delving into the privacy of citizens–has grown to an uncontrollable size (and weight).
The working class is divided into two camps, one for McCain and one for Obama. The right wing extremists, the religious fundamentalist who reject science, civil liberties and the unity of knowledge known as consilience, which all thinking persons are beginning to understand as the way to bridge culture and science–and who likewise could never vote for a Black president (somehow this is appropriate for Christians)–vote for McCain (see election 2008, from Salon for interesting insights). (see also how the Republicans want to control the 21st Century, as reported to Terry Gross, Fresh Air)
Convincingly, though, Black America and the working class behind Hillary Clinton, better educated on the relationships between science, technology, evolution and the future that depends on our cooperation and collaboration, vote for Obama.
And finally, students and those commonly referred to as the “educational elite,” as opposed to the “political elite” and the “media elite,” but who also cross these rather bogus lines of demarcation made popular by the lackluster press insistent on reporting only the surface structure of things, vote overwhelmingly for Obama.
The citizenry thus awakens to the fact that from Henry Kissinger on, all those who are advising and working closely with the “Maverick” McCain are lobbyist of the strongest sort; all support and advocate special interests, which in reality has been the hallmark of the McCain campaign, made obvious by the selection of Sarah Palin, a puppet, we finally realize, propped up to excite the extremists that near the end of the campaign are worked up to a frenzy about abortion and (gay) marriage as if nothing else mattered.
The citizenry wakes up to the fact that the first presidential decision made by John McCain, the selection of Palin, puts the country at risk. As Bob Herbert, writing for The New York Times, said, “For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on ‘American Idol’.” We therefore realize that another 4 or 8 years of a continuation of a “Bush doctrine” and Republican control, which is unenlightened and uncreative, would put the country into a tail spin from which we might never recover.
Can we afford electing another half-wit from the bottom of his graduating class? Or should we try something different?
American Culture After an Obama Victory:
Many in America are worried. A Democratic intellectual, the first Black President, is elected. What will this mean?
The first challenge is cultural, societal.
We have to address the notion that we are divided–we are a divided country. For far too long many people have been kept from the seats of power; too many Americans lacking education and healthcare are disenfranchised. Now we are nervous that we are being asked to trust in a process of change without a light at the end of the tunnel–just trust. Trust the rhetoric. Trust the will of this new leader. Trust the judgment.
Where are we headed?
It is a nebulous time. People are scared and immediately following the election, the extreme right wing begins a relentless media attack against Obama, his policies and his ideas. It’s what the citizenry is used to–media instead of substance. The hopeful remain so, but hanging by a thread. The Clintons, and Al Gore, rally around Obama and Biden.
Wall Street is more optimistic, and since they’ve backed Obama all along, continue to their support.
But within the first 100 days, it’s the citizenry that awakens. Some, the older voters who supported Obama come to realize that they’ve heard this before, echoes of the JFK era (this doctrine was never finished; it never even got off the ground), and thus begin to take leadership positions in communities across the country pushing the notion that this election was NOT about Obama or McCain, but rather about what kind of country we want to work for. This becomes the rallying cry and Americans, slowly, some reluctantly, begin to understand that the bigger, faster, stuffed America of the past is not the way and that we must look elsewhere to find solutions.
We in fact have to look at ourselves for the solutions. Obama provides ideas and methods, processes and procedures, but we, the citizens, have to put our shoulders to the wheel–in America and across the world. Innovation is the only solution to change.
Imagination, will and determination, collaboration and cooperation, consilience, and humanity–these are the new words after the election which help us look at energy solutions, education and healthcare, and the wars. The shift in the American perspective begins within 100 days of Obama’s election–but not without war cries from the opposition entrenched in old models.
Energy Policy:
Moments after his inaugural address, Obama is pressed hard to drill for oil in Alaska. But he weathers the storm–some people, and oil companies (the Russians and the Venezuelans, too) get angry. It’s the intelligent thing to do, though. As Thomas Friedman says about drilling for oil, writing for The New York Times, “I’ll tell you what they would have been doing: the Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats, exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in the hall — “Yes! Yes! Drill, America, drill!” — because an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it.”
What most people hadn’t realized is that Obama has surrounded himself, not with lobbyists (only one of his team members even resembles a lobbyist), but with experts in different areas–the environment, education and healthcare, defense, technology and so on. The drilling for oil controversy raises the curtain on how Obama is working to move the culture towards what we know–consilience–making this the beginning of an era that will rely on knowledge and information, rather than the gloss given by media and its pundits, usually advocating for one special interest group or another.
Linking energy to defense and the economy, Obama, with the help of Al Gore and his followers, begins to make it easier to invest in green technologies.
Eric Janszen for instance, “an angel investor and founder of the contrarian market website iTulip.com, which The New York Times credited with ‘accurately predicting that the [internet] bubble would pop.’ Now Janszen believes the American economy needs a fundamental restructuring away from its foundations in finance, insurance and real estate. His prescription: a new bubble based on green technologies.” (Also see Harpers, “The Next Bubble…”)
Literally, all sectors of the economy need to comply–the auto industry, oil and gas, building and construction, local governments, and so on. This calls for mass restructuring but it begins by engaging citizens about what is important. We reach out to other countries, such as the Netherlands, that have far outpaced our evolution into green technologies, and begin collaborative projects.
This is a slow, contentious process but it sends a message to the world that we are indeed operating quite differently than we have in the past. The price of oil stabilizes, though still high because of Chinese demand and because of environmental factors.
Education and Healthcare:
Education: This is a difficult area because the K-12 educational system has mushroomed into an unhealthy and unmanageable nightmare, particularly following the Bush era No Child Left Behind.
First off, Obama places an emphasis on early child care; then on strengthening the next rung. But it gets tricky after: The size of schools and teacher unions make it hard to change or modify existing–and complacent–practices. Obama encourages “innovation” in education, but it’s unclear what this means (I will write on this at another time, in The Uncanny, laying out the challenges and solutions for America’s disastrous educational system, which is, after all, all about class).
On a positive note–since this is going to be even slower then healthcare reform–Obama is calling forth for all citizens to be involved in the education of our children. This coincides with our citizen-roles post the Obama election; however, no sound plan has yet emerged, not in the first 100 days. Vouchers, magnate schools, private vs public, merit pay and accountability, innovation vs the status quo–all these points of contention remain and are the areas of specialization the Obama White House will have to address.
It is a truism that education reform, which is extremely necessary, will be the most painful domestic undertaking in the next 10 years, more painful than healthcare reform. Education is where we can gauge how the rest of the culture is working–another truism.
Healthcare: Healthcare and Education run side-by-side. The way of healthcare is the way of education. This is always true.
But Obama has promised that all Americans will have insurance comparable to that held by government employees. Obama and Biden begin by addressing disparities in healthcare coverage for Americans. This addresses their first theme, “Quality, Affordable and Portable Coverage for All.” A good idea, but insurance companies and pharmaceuticals push back–too much money to be made off illness.
Likewise lowering the costs by modernizing the U.S. Healthcare system–reducing costs of catastrophic illnesses, helping patients in numerous ways, ensuring providers deliver quality care across the board–is important and valuable, but other sectors of the economy have to grow and become healthier since this is an extraordinary expensive venture. And again, given the high cost of providing healthcare in this country, the profits enjoyed by pharmaceuticals and the salaries commanded by some doctors who fear making less and having to change lifestyles, there is significant push back. Obama considers Hillary Clinton’s role in this and she becomes a major policy contributor.
But perhaps the single most important, long term possibility exists in Obama’s plan to fight for new initiatives. Not unlike the environment–and what’s necessary in education and still missing–new advances in science and technologies, advances in biomedical research, as well as continued and renewed support for the fight against AIDS worldwide create an approach to healthcare based on a delicate balance between prevention, intervention and treatment–and this includes mental health care.
Foreign Policy:
To say that Obama and Biden inherit a nightmare is an understatement. The first item on the agenda is to move away from a Machiavellian approach to foreign policy, but which will reinstate the United States as a strong and competent ally.
Though Obama was accused of lacking experience during the campaign, his foreign policy approach calls for a bipartisan, consensus building journey of renewal. The problem has been that the carrot and stick approach has not worked, so we must find new or different ways. Obama calls for more dialog, even with “enemies,” thus enabling us to have better grasp of the challenges ahead–something totally alien to the Bush Administration, which would have been the policy followed by McCain.
The key to Obama’s plan is bipartisanship and an open approach, this way we can all contribute to the complex world we all live in. Diplomacy must be used first and foremost, and it’s the only way to continue a relationship with, say, Iraq, since within 11 or so months after taking office, troops leave and only a small group remains for consulting and training.
But the biggest mess is Afghanistan, particularly following the increase in violence and attacks into Pakistan–and Iran–perpetuated by the Bush Administration between September and the end of December of 2008. Pakistan has become hostile to the US for the attacks; likewise, the country has become increasingly unstable.
While bringing troops out of Iraq, Obama and Biden must stabilize rising insurgency in Afghanistan, as well as the instability in Pakistan. This is the new front. It has of course always been there, but the Bush Administration–which McCain supports–kept it off the front burner until moments before the presidential election.
Summary:
Thi is a citizen’s election–our electin; it is about how we feel about our country and in what direction we want to go. Nothing more, nothing less. It is clear that an Obama victory brings challenges. This is because he, unlike McCain, is asking that we participate, that we involve ourselves in our domestic as well as global problems. We can’t do this any other way.
McCain, on the other hand, is a salesman doing the two-step around a faulty model–we’ve been here. It’s true, during the last 8 years we’ve allowed a failed student, a failed businessman, and a rather unsuccessful governor rule our country. Bush boasts about his place at Yale, a place that was held for him not because he earned it, but because his family gave it to him. The same holds true for McCain. He graduated 5th from the bottom at the US Naval Academy, a place guaranteed him by his father. McCain went on to destroy 5 aircraft. At one point killing over 100 people on an aircraft carrier; his flight fitness report described him as “less than average.” But he went on to be given the honor of being a flight instructor. How does that happen? Daddy, family, the business as usual of privilege. Yes, he suffered greatly and he acted with great honor in Vietnam. Unfortunately, these are not qualifiers for the presidency. McCain is no maverick, this is obvious; he has been a part of the privileged mainstream, which awards blood not merit.
Isn’t it time we tried something else, please, for our sake this time?
