[img]139|left|Jessica Gadsden||no_popup[/img]When I come home from vacation, it seems that everyone from the disgruntled customs agent to my friends and acquaintances always ask if I’m glad to be home. The answer is never a resounding yes. Sure I’m glad to be home to see my five geriatric pets. I’m glad that I have more than three pairs of pants and two pairs of shoes to wear and can stop living out of suitcases. Sure I’m glad to bathe in my own shower and have access to a free washer and dryer. But am I glad to be home here in America? Not really.
When I go abroad (a now yearly ritual), I’m free from a lot of American baggage. I can walk about free from the suspicious eyes a lot of American whites cast my way in this country – no doubt expecting me to snatch their bag or bombard them with attitude-laden Ebonics. I also routinely get treated as well as others around me – not ignored (or followed) by shopkeepers or treated with suspicion by gun-wielding police. My (white) husband and I aren’t constantly bombarded with the question, ‘Are you together?’
I’m free from people bumping into me or nearly hitting my car because they are surgically attached to their cell phones (even though more people in Europe own them). I’m free from looking at people who have constant worry in their eyes that their next illness may bankrupt them. I’m free from the world of overpriced and tasteless American food. I can drive down hundreds of miles of highways without encountering potholes or heaving roads. The signs are large and visible.
To watch the shouting heads on cable television, one would believe that I should be happy to be home because America is so exceptional.
Are we exceptionally stupid?
A Wrongheaded Judgment
We’re told we’re the best country in the world despite our lack of healthcare, childcare, any real family leave or nothing more than the flimsiest of social safety nets. We’re told time and again that we’re exceptional because we live in a land of bounty and that our food is cheap and plentiful. Yet we pay hand over fist for cheap ingredients in lots of colorful packages. Not to mention the one in seven Americans in poverty who can’t even afford that. Every election cycle, reporters brag about our peaceful handover of power — despite the fact that our elections look as fraudulent as those in any banana republic. We’re exceptional, it is said, because our currency is strong — despite the fact that we seem to be chasing the Chinese to the bottom — our currency buying less and less in other developed countries, and more and more cheap goods made by the poorest people in the poorest nations.
After a few trips to a few different countries, it’s clear that the only exceptional thing about Americans is our ignorance. The latest theory is, of course, that those other countries are bastions of socialism. With their health care, and unions and living wages and vacations, they’re portrayed as only minutes away from the old Soviet-style communism, with long lines for toilet paper. While we, without any guarantee of the above, should be grateful for all the capitalism that’s been heaped upon us, and our curiously abundant toilet paper.
When did we, as a nation, fall for the idea that the way we live is the best that’s out there? I have derived great pleasures from buying real cheese from local markets in France and freshly butchered meats in Portugal, having locally brewed beers in the Netherlands or freshly caught fish in the U.K. Just a few weeks ago, I watched a French artisan cut a leather belt to custom fit my husband’s waist.
Reaching Out to Arabs
I’m also heartened that in much of Europe there’s an acknowledgement of the brutal past and an effort (though admittedly not always successful) to live a more tolerant present. France’s twenty-four hour news station just started broadcasting in Arabic. I don’t expect that of Fox News any time soon. It was surprising to browse through a museum in the Netherlands that frankly acknowledged their ancestors’ involvement in the slave trade. Similar displays in France and Portugal openly condemn the behavior of their countries in various African colonies along with current policies that make some reparations.
Instead, we live in the country that puts our “Founders” on a pedestal — yet hardly ever mentions that their lofty ideals of liberty and happiness did not extend to their own slaves. We talk about the state of black America without ever acknowledging that there is a clear, concrete reason for the way things are. With our current political climate, reparations, or even forty acres and a mule are mere pipe dreams.
During every election cycle and every domestic crisis, no doubt we hear someone (likely from the left) say or see someone publish the same question. “Why can’t we be more like Europe?” We envy the reasonable work hours of France, the universal healthcare of Great Britain and the food of Italy. Whether the issue is reasonable work hours, real vacation time, comprehensive health insurance, pretty architecture, or access to real food, the question resounds. Admittedly, the question could just as easily be, “Why can’t America be more like Asia?”
The airports in Seoul or Tokyo boggle the mind. Free internet, free massage, a place to sleep, organized transportation. The same can be said of Frankfurt, Amsterdam or London for that matter. When I’ve landed at JFK in New York, or at LAX (as I did last week), I felt like I’d landed in Haiti – with our lack of climate control, antiquated signs, long lines and slow moving baggage carousels.
For years I thought America would grow up and become Europe. We were, I imagined, the wayward child, rebellious but eventually finding our way. Instead, it looks like we’re becoming children, channeling Europe’s infancy with its feudal past by allowing a tiny group of rich Americans to hoard almost all the wealth while the rest of us serfs work hard for the few bits left. I’m not sure how such a schism developed between their societies and ours.
I think the answer may lie in the atrocities of wars fought on their soil. That kind of horror has brought about a certain enlightenment. A part of our American exceptionalism mythos rests on the fact that we fight wars off our own soil. As a consequence, I believe, we haven’t learned the lessons that war has to teach.
The other reason we’ve become the society we have is due to our utter lack of tradition. We’re told we’re exceptional because we accept the teeming masses from around the world, ask them to shed their histories and cultures, and become “American.” Unfortunately, this leads to the substitution of the judgment of government or corporations for thousands of years of historical knowledge.
The hard work for America is just starting. We don’t seem to learn easily. The question is how many years will we have to be ruled by our de facto corporate-controlled aristocracy before we rebel? How sick will our spinach and hamburger meat have to make us before we regulate our food production. How many will have to go bankrupt and die before we have real healthcare? It’s often said addicts have to hit bottom before they can heal. America’s addiction to its exceptionalism myth will come to an end one day. Unfortunately, we’re going to have reach the nadir before we can move on any path to enlightenment. By then, Europe will be even farther ahead.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
