Out of Thin Air

Nations, particularly victorious ones, have never yet guided their conduct on the ultimate good of mankind. Well-intentioned American writers dwell on the "transgressions" of the American state illustrating our long history of "global brutality" perhaps hoping that by doing so readers will become enlightened to its crimes and at the very least, stop being so ignorant of them. (America’s March Madness, by Mickey Z.).

With respect to the spirit of nationalism and arrogant patriotism none of the "Great Powers" ever demonstrated a clean bill of health. All have been inflicted by it which is the primary cause of hatred and suspicion leading to atrocious forms of military actions which are all fundamentally idiotic.

Yet if one studies the history of Europe where states were bordered and surrounded by other states all suspicious of one another which caused them to form treaties, alliances, double and triple alliances, ententes, double ententes, triple ententes and then breaking or double-crossing each other out of fear or power grabbing one can see their close proximity to each other as a reason if not the cause for their constant wars in previous centuries. Enemies were perceived rightly or wrongly to be hovering next door.

America, de Toqueville pointed out, enjoyed the unique position of being bordered by two "weak" countries who wished it no harm and the vast Atlantic ocean. As far as he concerned America was set on a course of its own making unhampered by foreign enemies. He’s probably turning in his grave. America, without enemies, has had to invent them out of thin air. In this way it is unique. While it shares with other "great" nations of the past self-aggrandizement and arrogance making it "not much different" than "other nations with power," it literally has never had a real enemy to overcome.

Seneca, the old Roman known for his brevity of words, said that "ferocity is weakness." I am not sure why I am saying that at this point but as I write maybe I’ll find out.

Simply, America never had to fight a single one of its wars, it was never attacked, it was never threatened. It invented all the threats or maneuvered the "enemy" into firing the first shot. Joseph Schumpeter has described "popular imperialism." A people who invade a land for new conquest and territory will "naturally" exert an imperialism, they take the land from somebody else and then settle down once they have got it and don’t embark on foreign imperial conquests after that. He wrote of many such instances in the history of the world. So we could say that the Europeans after they genocided the native people in America could have rested content. But then what happened?

Lincoln kills seven hundred thousand of his own people in a stupid meaningless war that had nothing to do with slavery and every thing to do with centralizing the State. After that, the Union, once again united was "purified" from its "great sin." Redeemed for all mankind, it could shine as an example to all the world and spread its message of redemption whether other countries wanted to be redeemed or not. The supreme arrogance that stems from the Puritan ethic of becoming cleansed of our sins formed a body of rhetoric after the Civil War ended. The mythos of the Great Emancipator extended to the entire nation.

It only got worse from there. After Americans stopped killing each other they began killing people in other countries. I am not sure why I wrote the quote from Seneca. But I’ll leave it anyway. What inherent weakness makes America so ferocious? That everything about it is a lie?

Christian Mohn can be reached at cmohnc@comcast.net