The US becomes 'situated'
Nov. 8th, 2004 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusIt seems like the US has finally found a postmodern identity for itself.
A postmodern national identity happens when you see yourself as The Other. Before it saw itself as The Other, the US saw itself as The Universal. The Universal is invisible, the Other is visible. The Universal claims to be impartial, the Other admits its self-interest. The Universal is adult, the Other is childish. The Universal is level-headed, the Other impetuous, prone to tantrums and whining.
Liberalism sees itself as a benign, progressive, universalist, un-self-interested philosophy. It asserts, for instance, the universality of human rights. Russia and China sighed with relief when Bush was re-elected because they both abuse human rights at home, and President Kerry would have been onto them about that. But Bush will just continue to turn a blind eye. Because for conservatives, it's all about the narrowest self-interest. Universal values be damned, let's pursue what helps us.
The US has become 'the us'. Us as in 'us versus them', because never before has the US been so aware that other people hate it. Us as in 'our little group of cronies'. And never has that group been so small and so rich. The more exclusionary, corrupt and privileged 'we' become, the more we're aware that we're a little clique of evil fucks. But we can't help it, and it all goes so smoothly, and those suckers the poor vote for us. Meanwhile, we do nothing about climate change, global instability, growing inequality, growing resentment...
In the US this transition to seeing itself as The Other (and, I think, as something 'Evil', in a petty Beavis and Butthead sort of way) happened because of Bin Laden's spectacular intervention on 9/11, but also because of identity politics and globalism. What happens in identity politics is that group by group, people split off from the mainstream and pursue their own interests. Gays, women, blacks... eventually the 'mainstream' starts to feel like a minority. And so you get angry white men claiming to be discriminated against, you get 'Iron John' attempting to do for masculinity what Andrea Dworkin did for feminity, and so on.
This happens on a national level too -- first Wales and Scotland get their own identities and their own assemblies, then England starts saying, well, why can't we have that too? What looked like an Oedipal struggle to get free of The Father turns strange when The Father too suddenly wants to split off. I think the US has now reached this 'second adolescence', which is in fact a sort of midlife crisis. Instead of being the big boss state, the universalist state, the daddy, the US now wants to be an irresponsible teenager, be who it really is.
I call this 'moronic authenticity', because after decades or centuries attempting to embody mature, universal values (what else is the US constitution than a document of the liberal enlightenment, an attempt to assert universal human rights?) the US has decided to become a pastiche of something very local, limited and specific. And so cowboys and capitalists and every-man-for-himself gets paraded. But it's 'fake folk', and it's moronic. Bush can't even remember what people in Texas are supposed to say. When he reaches for a proverb, he peters out half way through. His American authenticity is as fake as a theme restaurant out on the highway.
Globalism has added a couple of darker costumes to Bush's fancy dress wardrobe, gothy, Marilyn Manson 'I-am-sooooo-evil'-type outfits. Because global opinion is that the US brings death, there's a skeleton bodysuit in there. It comes out when the Pentagon briefs about 'Shock and Awe'. It comes out when 'surgical strikes' obliterate a civilian wedding. And maybe it comes out at Halloween, just for laughs. It's as if Bin Laden had been called in as an image consultant. When you're adolescent and insecure, you care a lot what your enemies say about you, and you find yourself almost wanting to live up to the hateful image. 'Do you really think I'm that bad? Do you want to find out? Come on, then, make me mad! Then you'll find out!'
It may seem strange to think of the current Republican Party as a product of the postmodern identity politics of the 60s and 70s -- the struggle for recognition by radical identity-based communities like blacks, women and gays. It makes more sense, though, when you see identity politics as a sort of narcissism, a way of seeing oneself as The Other in order not to think, any longer, of one's responsibility to others. Like a radicalised housewife taking off her apron and refusing to cook the family meal, the Bush administration made its first acts back in 2000 symbolic gestures of defiance. It signalled its contempt of international treaties on emissions trading and small arms, of the UN and of the International Criminal Court. The pompous liberalism of 'we are the world' was replaced by brittle self-interest: 'I'm just l'il ole me, but I ain't going to put up with any shit'.
Being 'The Other' is great for tourism. Ah, exotic America, so American! As a tourist destination, you can be as folksy as you like and as fake as you like, and families come back next year to the theme park. But being The Other is rotten for imperialism. When you run an empire you have to pose as a benign universal and paternalistic force, otherwise everybody will fight you and tell you to go home. You will have no legitimacy. This is what we're seeing now in Iraq. The Americans really thought they would have legitimacy in Iraq. They don't. As a result everything is going pear-shaped. It's not military force that allows empires to be maintained, it's legitimacy -- people's sense that you might really have their best interests at heart, and that your civilisation is an exportable model for everyone. The US used to seem like that, but it no longer does. Moronic authenticity and fake folk may be a great basis for tourism, but they're useless when it comes to running an empire.
The thing is, the US had a chance last week to do a fantastic switcheroonie. They could have grabbed Iraq as The Other, then switched presidents and ruled it with a return to the old mode of The Universal. It would have been a cynical trick, but it might have worked, and they might have been able to consolidate their military gains and regain some legitimacy. They didn't do that, though. They didn't vote with the imperialistic pretensions of empire builders. They voted according to what David Simpson calls 'situatedness'. The 'situated' have homes, but they don't have empires.
A postmodern national identity happens when you see yourself as The Other. Before it saw itself as The Other, the US saw itself as The Universal. The Universal is invisible, the Other is visible. The Universal claims to be impartial, the Other admits its self-interest. The Universal is adult, the Other is childish. The Universal is level-headed, the Other impetuous, prone to tantrums and whining.
Liberalism sees itself as a benign, progressive, universalist, un-self-interested philosophy. It asserts, for instance, the universality of human rights. Russia and China sighed with relief when Bush was re-elected because they both abuse human rights at home, and President Kerry would have been onto them about that. But Bush will just continue to turn a blind eye. Because for conservatives, it's all about the narrowest self-interest. Universal values be damned, let's pursue what helps us.
The US has become 'the us'. Us as in 'us versus them', because never before has the US been so aware that other people hate it. Us as in 'our little group of cronies'. And never has that group been so small and so rich. The more exclusionary, corrupt and privileged 'we' become, the more we're aware that we're a little clique of evil fucks. But we can't help it, and it all goes so smoothly, and those suckers the poor vote for us. Meanwhile, we do nothing about climate change, global instability, growing inequality, growing resentment...
In the US this transition to seeing itself as The Other (and, I think, as something 'Evil', in a petty Beavis and Butthead sort of way) happened because of Bin Laden's spectacular intervention on 9/11, but also because of identity politics and globalism. What happens in identity politics is that group by group, people split off from the mainstream and pursue their own interests. Gays, women, blacks... eventually the 'mainstream' starts to feel like a minority. And so you get angry white men claiming to be discriminated against, you get 'Iron John' attempting to do for masculinity what Andrea Dworkin did for feminity, and so on.
This happens on a national level too -- first Wales and Scotland get their own identities and their own assemblies, then England starts saying, well, why can't we have that too? What looked like an Oedipal struggle to get free of The Father turns strange when The Father too suddenly wants to split off. I think the US has now reached this 'second adolescence', which is in fact a sort of midlife crisis. Instead of being the big boss state, the universalist state, the daddy, the US now wants to be an irresponsible teenager, be who it really is.
I call this 'moronic authenticity', because after decades or centuries attempting to embody mature, universal values (what else is the US constitution than a document of the liberal enlightenment, an attempt to assert universal human rights?) the US has decided to become a pastiche of something very local, limited and specific. And so cowboys and capitalists and every-man-for-himself gets paraded. But it's 'fake folk', and it's moronic. Bush can't even remember what people in Texas are supposed to say. When he reaches for a proverb, he peters out half way through. His American authenticity is as fake as a theme restaurant out on the highway.
Globalism has added a couple of darker costumes to Bush's fancy dress wardrobe, gothy, Marilyn Manson 'I-am-sooooo-evil'-type outfits. Because global opinion is that the US brings death, there's a skeleton bodysuit in there. It comes out when the Pentagon briefs about 'Shock and Awe'. It comes out when 'surgical strikes' obliterate a civilian wedding. And maybe it comes out at Halloween, just for laughs. It's as if Bin Laden had been called in as an image consultant. When you're adolescent and insecure, you care a lot what your enemies say about you, and you find yourself almost wanting to live up to the hateful image. 'Do you really think I'm that bad? Do you want to find out? Come on, then, make me mad! Then you'll find out!'
It may seem strange to think of the current Republican Party as a product of the postmodern identity politics of the 60s and 70s -- the struggle for recognition by radical identity-based communities like blacks, women and gays. It makes more sense, though, when you see identity politics as a sort of narcissism, a way of seeing oneself as The Other in order not to think, any longer, of one's responsibility to others. Like a radicalised housewife taking off her apron and refusing to cook the family meal, the Bush administration made its first acts back in 2000 symbolic gestures of defiance. It signalled its contempt of international treaties on emissions trading and small arms, of the UN and of the International Criminal Court. The pompous liberalism of 'we are the world' was replaced by brittle self-interest: 'I'm just l'il ole me, but I ain't going to put up with any shit'.
Being 'The Other' is great for tourism. Ah, exotic America, so American! As a tourist destination, you can be as folksy as you like and as fake as you like, and families come back next year to the theme park. But being The Other is rotten for imperialism. When you run an empire you have to pose as a benign universal and paternalistic force, otherwise everybody will fight you and tell you to go home. You will have no legitimacy. This is what we're seeing now in Iraq. The Americans really thought they would have legitimacy in Iraq. They don't. As a result everything is going pear-shaped. It's not military force that allows empires to be maintained, it's legitimacy -- people's sense that you might really have their best interests at heart, and that your civilisation is an exportable model for everyone. The US used to seem like that, but it no longer does. Moronic authenticity and fake folk may be a great basis for tourism, but they're useless when it comes to running an empire.
The thing is, the US had a chance last week to do a fantastic switcheroonie. They could have grabbed Iraq as The Other, then switched presidents and ruled it with a return to the old mode of The Universal. It would have been a cynical trick, but it might have worked, and they might have been able to consolidate their military gains and regain some legitimacy. They didn't do that, though. They didn't vote with the imperialistic pretensions of empire builders. They voted according to what David Simpson calls 'situatedness'. The 'situated' have homes, but they don't have empires.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-08 10:11 pm (UTC)I'm babbling on a bit here, but just wanted to put that out there and wondered if you were familiar with the publication and/or Thomas Frank.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 06:56 am (UTC)Martha E. Giminez, in her essay 'Some Reflections on the Politics of Identity in the US' (http://eserver.org/clogic/1-2/gimenez.html), puts it this way: 'Among [post-Marxist] aporias, the contradiction between the universal and the particular is perhaps one of the most striking. One of its manifestations is the contradiction between the rejection of metanarratives for the sake of enshrining localized "voices"/"identities," and the submission to the universalizing effects of the dominant "voice" inherent in the very process of attempting to escape it through the construction of difference.'
I talk more about this in today's entry.