The American Problem

Because America is such a huge economy and military power, it has influences, positive and negative, virtually everywhere on the earth. The American problem, in fact, the world’s problem, is that as long as Americans continue to act, politically and militarily, as if they are the only people on earth, the future looks rocky indeed—for everyone.

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(CALGARY, Alberta) - On the second day of her confirmation hearings, judge Sonia Sotomayor was asked about the influence of foreign law. She said: “American law does not permit the use of foreign law or international law to interpret the Constitution. That's a given. . . . There is no debate on that question; there's no issue about that question.” She could say nothing else. When other Supreme Court justices in the past (O’Connor and Ginsberg) have mentioned taking wisdom from other jurisdictions, they received death threats. Clarence Thomas said that the Court should never “impose foreign moods, fads or fashions on Americans.” To dismiss the extensive legal traditions of some of the other great nations of the world as “moods, fads or fashions” is nothing short of ignorant. Which reminds me of a joke. A man dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter is showing him around and the man notices a high wall and what sounds like voices on the other side. What’s the wall for, he asks St. Peter. Not so loud, St. Peter replies. Catholics over there. They think they’re the only one up here. This applies to Earth and the human race. To hear many Americans on the topic, they are the only ones on the planet. But to paraphrase Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, "Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organize themselves into [an American citizen]? What's the motive?" But, of course, a majority of Americans, believing as they do in Christian-oriented religions probably wouldn’t even understand that little joke and if they do, would probably be offended.

The Myth of American Exceptionalism

Earlier this year, Roger Cohen in the New York Times, reviewed a book called The Myth of American Exceptionalism by the British writer Godfrey Hodgson and acknowledged American exceptionalism: “The high number of its prison inmates is exceptional. The quality of its health care is exceptionally bad. The degree of its social inequality is exceptionally acute. Public education has gone into exceptional decline. The Americanization of the Holocaust and uncritical support for Israel have demonstrated an exceptional ability to gloss over uncomfortable truths, including broad American indifference to Hitler’s genocide as it happened.” This exposes the foundation of the American Problem—the belief that America and its people and somehow favored by their Christian God. But, says Rush Limbaugh: “America is the solution to the world’s problems. We are not the problem.” au contraire, counters Cohen, “The culture wars saw the rise of a new Christian right intent on defending its conception of American values not only against metrosexual coastal cities but also against a death-penalty-deriding Canada and Europe. The result, Hodgson argues, is an America unique not for its virtue but for its failings and illusions.” Hodgson argues that “what has been essentially a liberating set of beliefs has been corrupted over the past 30 years or so by hubris and self-interest into what is now a dangerous basis for national policy and for the international system.” The corruption began before that. Part of American Exceptionalism is the idea that the magical system called Capitalism has made America great. But, wrote Ferdinand Lundberg in the late 1960s: “Whereas European royalty and nobility played profound integral roles in European history, the latter-day American rich were more like hitchhikers who opportunistically climbed aboard a good thing. They produced neither the technology, the climate, the land, the people nor the political system. Nor did they, like many European groups (as in England) take over the terrain as invading conquerors. Rather did they infiltrate the situation from below, insinuate themselves into opportunely presented economic gaps, subvert various rules and procedures, and, as it were ride a rocket to the moon and beyond, meanwhile through their propagandists presenting themselves, no less, as the creators of machine industrialization which was in fact copied from England and transplanted into a lush terrain.” Capitalism, wrote Lundberg, is a failure system: “In business, under the American system, hundreds of thousands more have failed, generation after generation, than the few who have succeeded. If we are to judge by the preponderance of individual successes over failures or vice versa, then the American system, businesswise, is a record of steady, almost unrelieved failure. It has failure literally built into it. It is indeed a near-miracle, front page news, when anyone really makes it. This judicious observation sounds paradoxical only because it contradicts conventional propaganda.” That was 1968. As Jay Goltz wrote last week in the NYT, “The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship”: “Some 70 percent of businesses fail within seven years, according to the Small Business Administration. In the worst cases, the result is not only business failure but also complete financial failure. What I have learned is that the damage doesn’t stop there. I share this with you as an attempt to bring some reality to the conversation about entrepreneurship. It is not just about passion and innovation and bringing your dog to work. It is also about risk, tenacity and fear. It is also about the repercussions of bad luck, bad decisions and bad economies. I know of four business owners in Chicago who have taken their own lives since the economy turned.” Because America is such a huge economy and military power, it has influences, positive and negative, virtually everywhere on the earth. The American problem, in fact, the world’s problem, is that as long as Americans continue to act, politically and militarily, as if they are the only people on earth, the future looks rocky indeed—for everyone. ========================================================= Daniel Johnson was born near the midpoint of the twentieth century in Calgary, Alberta. In his teens he knew he was going to be a writer, which is why he was one of only a handful of boys in his high school typing class—a skill he knew was going to be necessary. He defines himself as a social reformer, not a left winger, the latter being an ideological label which, he says, is why he is not an ideologue. From 1975 to 1981 he was reporter, photographer, then editor of the weekly Airdrie Echo. For more than ten years after that he worked with Peter C. Newman, Canada’s top business writer (notably a series of books, The Canadian Establishment). Through this period Daniel also did some national radio and TV broadcasting. He gave up journalism in the early 1980s because he had no interest in being a hack writer for the mainstream media and became a software developer and programmer. He retired from computers last year and is now back to doing what he loves—writing and trying to make the world a better place.