Her:

what do you mean when you say you believe in America? What do you think are the common values that Americans share, and should promote and defend?

Me:

As for American values, I’d say liberty, equality, self-government/reliance, democracy, pulling yourself up by your boot straps, tolerance, independence, etc. Certainly America has stumbled many times along the way and a more cynical person may see all the bad things this country has done and stood for over the years, but this is a grand experiment the likes of which has never been attempted before. A people not united by religion, or heritage or anything else but ideals. We are the most diverse nation the world has ever seen, and while it has created tensions over the years, we have handled things far better than anyone else.

Her:

Liberty, equality, self-government/reliance, democracy, pulling yourself up by your boot straps, tolerance, independence, etc.? If only Americans actually did believe in these things… Some do, of course, but enough don’t that everything I ever believed in or liked about America has been damaged or destroyed over the past 8 years. I don’t just blame the president. He is in power because there are a lot of people in this country who actually support this war (it’s not that I’m against all war … I’d love to see us toss out the SPDC in Burma), people who are so anti-choice that they’d deny women in developing countries health-related aid money to keep them from owning their own reproductive health, people who want to rob homosexuals of their human rights. It’s insane. Our liberty and equality and democracy are being taken from us by the Americans who don’t believe in tolerance or independence (at least independence as in our right and ability to choose for ourselves), little by little, and those of us who care feel powerless to stop it.

Okay, that’s probably a little heavy. Sorry about that. I just feel particularly frustrated about this. I want to love America, but have been finding it very difficult lately. I hope I didn’t offend you. It wasn’t my intent.

But I also think it’s interesting what you chose to list as American values. I’m surprised that you can identify them so easily. There are a lot of collective national values that people grow up with, never questioning them, or even realizing that someone might believe in something different. As in the value of independence over interdependence (or individualism over community-based values). Or even equality vs., say, machismo culture. I used to work in study abroad at a university, and we would always talk to our students about this before they left the country. So many of them experienced severe culture shock as a result of clashing ingrained value systems … We just wanted to prepare them, and get them thinking about some assumed values and alternative ways of thinking.

I agree about our handling our diversity much better than anyone else has so far, but I feel like we’re on precarious ground there, too, especially as regards immigration policy. Tancredo actually has an ad out now that intimates that illegal immigrants rape children. Ridiculous.

Me:

Ah, a cynic.

I admit the last few years have been difficult and I wave the flag a little less fervently as I used to, but one needs to step outside of oneself and see the issues and the country and our history with fresh eyes I suppose. First of all, even with the Patriot Act and many other bullshit laws that have been passed recently I believe we live in one of, if not the, freest nation on earth. And I think some of these worst excesses will work themselves out and fade away in time. People are still a little panicked by 9/11. We are starting to come to our senses.

As for gay rights, things honestly aren’t that bad. The gay rights movement accomplished more in 20-30 years than other movements took a century to achieve. The huge change in public tolerance of homosexuality has made huge changes in my lifetime. Change is not easy to accept for anyone. I marvel over how quick it has gone, especially on such a sensitive subject, and how widely gains have been made. With the exception of wacko types like the God Hates Fags guy, even conservative preachers aren’t advocating stripping gays of basic rights like you see internationally. They oppose gay marriage, yes, but come on, look at where African Americans were at 30 years after the Civil War or 30 years after the Niagara Falls Conference. There is no reason but to feel optimistic.

I say this being the leader of a small, emerging youth civil rights movement. I know how deeply held prejudices are hard to just wash away. I know also that people who consider themselves defenders of liberal values and champions of tolerance and acceptance and equality are not immune to prejudice and bigotry. Reexamining our world view is not easy for anyone regardless of their political persuasion. I took a class in college called the Philosophy of Feminism. We were talking about hierarchy, equality, paternalism and all sorts of other advanced, forward thinking notions. I was excited to find people who ’spoke my language’ and pointed out all the similarities between the treatment of women and the treatment of youth, and they turned to me and said “What? Youth? Rights are for adults, not kids, what a ridiculous idea.” (paraphrased of course). Does that make them evil bigots? Are these feminists destroying America with their hate and intolerance? Are they anti-freedom, anti-tolerance or anti-equality? No. They are uninformed and cling to the preconceptions of the present even as they challenge those of the past. This will pass with time.

It is easy to see the world with an us vs. them mentality. You exhaust yourself attacking the bad ideas of ‘them’ and excuse the bad ideas of ‘us’. I can see how it can help you stay sane sometimes, but it isn’t any more coherent than ‘them’. If you don’t mind me challenging you, why is it any more acceptable to invade Burma than it was to invade Iraq? Did Burma attack us? No. They oppress their people, sure, but I bet Saddam was worse. You think we’d go in there as liberators, well that is exactly what Bush thought. But of course Iraq was a bad idea by ‘them’, invading Burma would be a reasonable policy by ‘us’.

This us vs. them mindset justifies much ill, and fosters an ends justifying the means mindset as well. In 1994 Democrats were in office and were terribly corrupt. Republicans told the country, “those Democrats are corrupt, send us to Washington to clean it up” and proceeded to become pretty corrupt pretty quickly themselves all the while telling themselves that they were only cutting this corner and that one to fight ‘them’ and the great problems and corruption the Democrats would create. Of course in their haste to fight ‘them’ they became even worse. Now the Democrats have come back and promise to set things straight. But I have little confidence they will be any different. Different targets, different enemies, a different ‘us’ and a different ‘them’, but the same problems. Trading gays for youth, trading Iraq for Burma, it doesn’t make much difference if core principles and values aren’t upheld.

All that could make me sound like the most cynical person of all. And I have admittedly become more cynical in recent years. But because I”m not in one camp or another and don’t buy into our us vs. them two-party system I see the good that both parties do and I see the bad that both parties do. I see things clearer than most and realize that overall we’re not so bad off. Both sides believe in the same core American values of liberty, equality, justice, etc. They just define them different and apply them in different situations limited by their own preconceptions, biases and blind spots.

The way out though isn’t about fighting ‘them’, it is about improving ‘us’. Recognizing our own hypocrisies and inconsistencies. Recognizing and reexamining our own prejudices. That is the only way forward. Fighting ‘them’ just further blinds us to our own errors. One thing I’ve learned is the people who are the most angry and frustrated are really the ones with the greatest flaws.

Something to think about.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.