Two Kinds of Americans, Part II: From "Us versus Them" to "We the People"

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Two Kinds of Americans, Part II: From "Us versus Them" to "We the People"
By Sara Robinson

April 8th, 2008 - 11:59pm ET


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In last week's essay, I noted that our ability to function effectively as a nation has been deeply compromised by the conservative movement's reflexive reliance on Us-versus-Them politics. Allowing a winners-and-losers worldview to dominate our country is a dangerous self-indulgence, I argued. History is littered with the corpses of great empires and economies that were toppled when their people got distracted from their shared identity and goals, and gave in to internal culture wars that weakened their countries to the point of eventual collapse or conquest. And it's all too clear now, looking back on what 40 years of wanton right-wing civil war has wrought, that America cannot hope to be history's first exception.

When the conservatives declared their "culture war" and effectively seceded from America in the early 1970s, they recklessly (and, on at least some fronts, knowingly) doomed us. When we reckon the toll -- the loss of a broad middle class and the educational, financial, social, and physical infrastructure that produced it; the criminal abuse of military and police power; the squandering of the intangible capital of our economic and diplomatic prestige in the world; and now the complete structural inability to address the most important issues we face -- we can no longer deny that the conservatives' inbred compulsion to create and fight external demons has weakened us militarily, economically, environmentally, and culturally.

Our survival depends on finding an alternative. Fortunately, there is one.

Several commenters on last week's piece fretted that I might be winding up to the suggestion that we get all kum-by-yah and fuzzy with the conservatives, admit they were right, and find a way to build bridges to them. Fret not. I grew up with these people, and have written extensively on how and why the hard core authoritarians among them -- the intransigent 12-15% -- can never be reasoned with. They have always been among us; and they always will be. But -- and here's the point of this week's essay -- we have not always allowed their paranoia to run the show. For much of America's history, we chose another path. And it's a path we can get back to, if we choose, with progressives showing the way.

Two Kinds of Americans, Revisited
The legendary historian Arnold Toynbee postulated that all cultures throughout history have run under one of three basic cultural operating systems (or, more often, a hybrid of two or all three in which one was usually dominant). These essential storylines appear in all cultures; and every culture has unique variations on these archetypes at play. Most importantly: each of the three has its own internal logic; and that logic deeply influences the way we view the future, interpret reality, and assess events.

The first of these cultural archetypes is Us versus Them (or Winners and Losers), which is all too familiar to anyone who's spent the past 30 years in America. In this view, the world is seen in polarities: black/white, right/wrong, male/female, either/or. Humans are driven by competition and conflict; life is a zero-sum game in which survival depends on your ability to seize control over a piece of a finite pie. Winners (who are assumed to be high-prestige males) matter, and deserve to dominate. Losers deserve whatever happens to them; and winners cannot be bothered to care. Evil is caused by the deliberate workings of the enemy, and its existence is proof that that enemy must be defeated at all costs.

Us versus Them exists because it's a useful and adaptive worldview in a few limited circumstances. It's the natural logic of war and revolution -- and also of political elections, class and race conflicts, and fundamentalist religion and holy warriors. Business often operates in this mode (though not always). So do certain professions, most notably law enforcement. But, as we've seen, this winners-and-losers logic can corrode the foundations of a civilization if we allow it to dominate every aspect of our lives, or stay stuck in it too long. It's useful in short doses, but extremely toxic in the long run. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/two-kinds-americans-part-ii-us-versus-them-we-people

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Thank you!

I forgot to check yesterday for part II. :)

edit: awesome. I heard Al Gore say something very similar on video yesterday...

(from the article)
"Half the battle is simply being aware that we have a choice -- and then making the true nature of that choice clear to everyone involved. We can listen to the blamers and take the counsel of our fears -- and produce cramped, narrow solutions that usually benefit a few a at the expense of the many, and will in time doom the nation. Or we can remind our fellow citizens -- over and over, for as long as it takes -- that Americans have always done best when they've taken on big problems with implacable courage, extravagant generosity, and incandescent ingenuity. Moreover: they've often enriched the entire culture in the process. Which way to go? It's a choice we get to make all over again with every fresh problem we face."

Al said...
"We ought to approach this challenge with a sense of profound joy and gratitude that we are the generation about which 1000 years from now orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying: they were the ones that found within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future. Let's do that."