The New ‘New World’
Michael Brenner is a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh
What happens when reality hits delusion? U.S. mythology and fantasy will remain resilient. Denial, doubling-down, scapegoating, recrimination and more audacious adventures are the instinctive responses, writes Michael Brenner.
"A diagrammatic depiction of the United States today must give central place to four interwoven facets of contemporary American society. They are: plutocracy; the growing neo-Fascist movement; the erosion of fidelity to core Constitutional values, accompanied by a timidity in taking action to defend them. This is evident in each of three branches of government, at state and local levels, and even among the galaxy of our famed civic institutions that populate the social landscape; and a pervasive self-centeredness that is at once an effective and reinforced cause of the nihilism that is a hallmark of our times — sapping the lifeblood out of the body politic while encouraging all manner of erratic behavior. ...
Americans are struggling to draw into focus their exalted image of themselves and reality. They are not doing a very good job of it. The gap is wide and growing. Fading prowess is one of the most difficult things for humans to cope with — whether it be an individual or a nation. By nature, we prize our strength and competence; we dread decline and its intimations of extinction. This is especially so in the United States where for many the individual and the collective persona are inseparable. No other country tries so relentlessly to live its legend as does the U.S. Today, events are occurring that contradict the American narrative of a nation with a unique destiny. That creates cognitive dissonance.
Americanism acts as a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality. A drive to revalidate on presumed virtue and singularly now impels what America does in the world. Hence, the calculated stress placed on slogans like “democracy vs autocracy.” That is a neat metaphor for the uneasy position in which Uncle Sam finds himself these days.
The U.S. proudly pronounces its enduring greatness from every lectern and altar in the land, pledges to hold its standing as global No. 1 forever and ever; yet, it constantly bumps its head against an unaccommodating reality. Instead of downsizing the monumental juggernaut or applying itself to a delicate raising of the arch, the U.S. makes repeated attempts to fit through in a vain effort to bend the world to fit its mythology. Evocation of the Concussion Protocol is in order — but nobody wants to admit that sobering truth."
Etc. Must read!