A thought...
Sep. 14th, 2001 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupThinking a lot last night about patriotism and people putting the flag out. As corny as it is, I wanted to have a flag out on Tuesday a lot. You can't really think much else about what happened except that if you were an American that day you were a target. No one else in the world will be able to react to this stuff the way Americans do. That's just a simple fact of the world. You are a target to some people because of who you are.
But the language of patriotism has been ruined for thinking people of my age. Flag-waving is associated with partisanship. I remember that once I reached the age of discernment in politics my father putting out the flag on the 4th of July induced a cringe in me. I remember coming back from college to a friend's high school reunion and feeling sick at everyone saying the pledge of allegiance. There was a mawkish and manipulative abuse of the symbols of this country in the service of a narrow-minded kill-them-all mentality, or a schlocky sentimentalism like the yellow ribbons in the Gulf War.
Of course we all now are getting in touch with the part of us that knows what it is, viscerally, to be attacked. Which brings me back again to my father and his generation. My parents are the children of Jewish immigrants, and they reflexively look at this country in a certain way. It's very simple: if this country didn't exist, they would have died in Hitler's ovens. For them it is beyond question that this is the greatest country that has ever existed. Although I don't think about this too often, in some part of me too I take that feeling for granted. There are a lot of people descended from immigrant families from parts of the world where the American legacy has been much, much worse. My intellect knows this, but it is still hard for me to really absorb emotionally.
Another way to think about it. One time my mother-in-law, studiously apathetic about politics or world affairs, is visiting us during the Kosovo thing. She says something on the order of, "ah, they've all killed each other for hundreds of years." I become inexpressably angry. It's actually Mrs. Sanpaku who says what I'm thinking better than I can: "What if we could stop another Holocaust?" I know that the sense of self-righteousness that comes with being an American has given license for some terrible actions in the past. But at some base level, this is the only country-- I think in the history of the world-- where at least a few people would consider it their national duty to stop evil. I am a historian. I know very well where this kind of impulse has led in the 20th century. But at base that same impulse is capable of good, and I can't be entirely jaded about it. This country had to be dragged kicking and screaming to fight Hitler, but it did succeed in the end in destroying the greatest evil that the world has ever known. That means something to me.
A few years ago I went to see the historian George Mosse give a speech in Washington. Mosse was a brilliant man who studied the rise of nazism in Germany and racism in general. Somehow-- I don't recall how-- he was talking about patriotism and nationalism, and someone asked if his work hadn't shown that these things are intrinsically evil. Surprisingly to me at the time, he said no. He said that in 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon, the nationalistic outpouring in Germany brought all Germans together, Jews and Christians, to the nearest church and synagogue, together. One can't skim over the fact that the sentiment born then would give rise to something else in the next hundred or so years, but his point was that these sentiments are what we make them.
I am not a pacifist and I believe that there are just wars. I think that the fear that some indiscriminate action will make people hate the US more is reasonable, but it has to be balanced against the fact that doing nothing will not make people hate the US any less, and something has to be done. But people have very little sense of what this will entail, how it will unfold, what its consequences are. Very, very few people, even thinking people, have spent any time at all thinking about this part of the world.
At the core, we can let patriotism be the last refuge of a scoundrel, or we can make it stand for something else. I suppose what I want to say is that I don't want to give up on the thought of it just because it gets abused and commercialized. But already you can see what is going to happen. They have some woman on cable TV saying, "We as a country have kicked God out of our schools and our lives, and the absence of God is now felt by everyone," a statement that made me really feel like killing her. Politicians are already talking about people needing to expect fewer rights; I think that getting on a plane is one thing, but you can already tell that there's something else meant in that. There are a whole lot of blank checks being written today that will be cashed for years and years to come. That is how things always play out in this country. We all have a thought in our lives that is in its essence truly noble-- that, without hyperbole, civilization itself has been damaged. And now that feeling will be exploited in short order. You can see it happening already.
But the language of patriotism has been ruined for thinking people of my age. Flag-waving is associated with partisanship. I remember that once I reached the age of discernment in politics my father putting out the flag on the 4th of July induced a cringe in me. I remember coming back from college to a friend's high school reunion and feeling sick at everyone saying the pledge of allegiance. There was a mawkish and manipulative abuse of the symbols of this country in the service of a narrow-minded kill-them-all mentality, or a schlocky sentimentalism like the yellow ribbons in the Gulf War.
Of course we all now are getting in touch with the part of us that knows what it is, viscerally, to be attacked. Which brings me back again to my father and his generation. My parents are the children of Jewish immigrants, and they reflexively look at this country in a certain way. It's very simple: if this country didn't exist, they would have died in Hitler's ovens. For them it is beyond question that this is the greatest country that has ever existed. Although I don't think about this too often, in some part of me too I take that feeling for granted. There are a lot of people descended from immigrant families from parts of the world where the American legacy has been much, much worse. My intellect knows this, but it is still hard for me to really absorb emotionally.
Another way to think about it. One time my mother-in-law, studiously apathetic about politics or world affairs, is visiting us during the Kosovo thing. She says something on the order of, "ah, they've all killed each other for hundreds of years." I become inexpressably angry. It's actually Mrs. Sanpaku who says what I'm thinking better than I can: "What if we could stop another Holocaust?" I know that the sense of self-righteousness that comes with being an American has given license for some terrible actions in the past. But at some base level, this is the only country-- I think in the history of the world-- where at least a few people would consider it their national duty to stop evil. I am a historian. I know very well where this kind of impulse has led in the 20th century. But at base that same impulse is capable of good, and I can't be entirely jaded about it. This country had to be dragged kicking and screaming to fight Hitler, but it did succeed in the end in destroying the greatest evil that the world has ever known. That means something to me.
A few years ago I went to see the historian George Mosse give a speech in Washington. Mosse was a brilliant man who studied the rise of nazism in Germany and racism in general. Somehow-- I don't recall how-- he was talking about patriotism and nationalism, and someone asked if his work hadn't shown that these things are intrinsically evil. Surprisingly to me at the time, he said no. He said that in 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon, the nationalistic outpouring in Germany brought all Germans together, Jews and Christians, to the nearest church and synagogue, together. One can't skim over the fact that the sentiment born then would give rise to something else in the next hundred or so years, but his point was that these sentiments are what we make them.
I am not a pacifist and I believe that there are just wars. I think that the fear that some indiscriminate action will make people hate the US more is reasonable, but it has to be balanced against the fact that doing nothing will not make people hate the US any less, and something has to be done. But people have very little sense of what this will entail, how it will unfold, what its consequences are. Very, very few people, even thinking people, have spent any time at all thinking about this part of the world.
At the core, we can let patriotism be the last refuge of a scoundrel, or we can make it stand for something else. I suppose what I want to say is that I don't want to give up on the thought of it just because it gets abused and commercialized. But already you can see what is going to happen. They have some woman on cable TV saying, "We as a country have kicked God out of our schools and our lives, and the absence of God is now felt by everyone," a statement that made me really feel like killing her. Politicians are already talking about people needing to expect fewer rights; I think that getting on a plane is one thing, but you can already tell that there's something else meant in that. There are a whole lot of blank checks being written today that will be cashed for years and years to come. That is how things always play out in this country. We all have a thought in our lives that is in its essence truly noble-- that, without hyperbole, civilization itself has been damaged. And now that feeling will be exploited in short order. You can see it happening already.
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no subject
Date: 2001-09-14 10:41 am (UTC)Also: I was going to write to you about this earlier in the week, but when I was in P-Burgh over the weekend I found my 1989 LOG. You wrote the nicest damn things in there. It made me feel like a good person just to read it. Thanks.
Re:
Date: 2001-09-14 02:02 pm (UTC)Thanks for the kind thought-- good that I could make you happy even all this time later.
amazing
Date: 2001-09-14 01:43 pm (UTC)thank you for that.
ps: but don't hate me cuz i'm still a pacifist, k? :)
Re: amazing
Date: 2001-09-14 01:58 pm (UTC)I would never disparage people for being pacifists. I respect people who think things out, however it comes out.
this land was made for you and me...
Date: 2001-09-18 12:19 pm (UTC)http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/18/flag/index.html
Re: this land was made for you and me...
Date: 2001-09-19 06:09 pm (UTC)Why can I not recall the name of my high school homeroom teacher? Anyway, when I think of patriotism, I think of that guy reaching out and grabbing this kid in my homeroom by his collar and literally wrenching him up by his shirt because the kid hadn't stood up for the pledge of allegiance. Scary moment.
Dangit, why can't I remember that guy's name?
Re: this land was made for you and me...
Date: 2001-09-20 06:28 am (UTC)Once senior year, when I was doing morning announcements, Rick Ponzio didn't show up and so I had to read the pledge. When I went back into homeroom, the whole class burst into spontaneous, sarcastic applause. They fucking hated me.
Re: Salon, send them stuff. They aren't paying very well right now (they offered J. about $300 for a piece a few months ago but he sold it elsewhere) but a pub is a pub, and TONS of people read Salon. Hold on, I'll get you an editor's name from J pronto.
-'brarygirl
Re: this land was made for you and me...
Date: 2001-09-20 08:01 am (UTC)The thing about the applause, well, I kind of remember them doing the same in my homeroom when I had read the pledge or a particular announcement. Not like anyone gave a damn about politics or anything, though the girl who sat in front of me always called me a communist because I walked around with a book on communism in 10th grade.
See, now I wish I had the LOG with me, so I could remember my homeroom teacher's name. Math teacher, dark hair, about 60 years old, crusty as hell... I know "Frank" would remember because he actually had him for math. In fact, for some reason, he liked "Frank" a lot. But I don't think Frank is reading LJ any more...
mtl math teachers discuss the "grecian formula"
Date: 2001-09-20 08:31 am (UTC)I used to get called a communist regularly, I think because that's what mtl jock kids called anyone who didn't go to football games and looked vaguely "alternative." It was the 80's. Editing the literary magazine somehow added to the whole picture.
So, here's the scoop-- J talked to Laura Miller, salon's ny editorial director. Sounds like her advice is the same as what they post on the site here:
http://www.salon.com/about/index.html
Read the "how to submit articles" link. Find the right editor from either the Salon's staff link.
I'll offer my services. I'm a good editor. (Everyone says so.) Even if I do look like a big dork today.