Subject: OT: Brian Eno Article on USA
From: Ned Bouhalassa (ned@nedfx.com)
Date: Tue Dec 31 2002 - 14:48:56 EST
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
from Brian Eno.
The American edition of Time will *not* be running the piece, as apparently
they think that even the mildest criticism from our warmest friends will
be too much for a U.S. audience to handle.
Europeans have always looked at America with a mixture of fascination and
puzzlement, and now, increasingly, disbelief. How is it that a country that
prides itself on its economic success could have so many very poor people?
How is it that a country so insistent on the rule of law should seek to
exempt itself from international agreements? And how is it that the world's
beacon of democracy can have elections dominated by wealthy special
interest groups? For me, the question has become: "How can a country that
has produced so much cultural and economic wealth act so dumb?"
I could fill this page with the names of Americans who have influenced,
entertained and educated me. They represent what I admire about America: a
vigorous originality of thought, and a confidence that things can be
changed for the better.
That was the America I lived in and enjoyed from 1978 until 1983. That
America was an act of faith--the faith that "otherness" was not threatening
but nourishing, the faith that there could be a country big enough in
spirit to welcome and nurture all the diversity the world could throw at
it. But that vision is being eclipsed by a suspicious, introverted America,
a country-sized version of that peculiarly American form of ghetto: the
gated community.
A gated community is defensive. Designed to keep the "others" out, it
dissolves the rich web of society into a random clustering of disconnected
individuals. It turns paranoia and isolation into a lifestyle.
Surely this isn't the America that anyone dreamed of; it's a last resort,
nobody's choice. It's especially ironic since so much of the best
newthinking about society, economics, politics and philosophy in the last
century came from America. Unhampered by the snobbery and exclusivity of
much European thought, American thinkers vaulted
forward--courageous,innovative and determined to talk in a public language.
But, unfortunately, over the same period, the mass media vaulted backwards,
thriving on increasingly simple stories and trivializing news into
something indistinguishable from entertainment. As a result, a wealth of
original and subtle thought--America's real wealth--is squandered.
This narrowing of the American mind is exacerbated by the withdrawal
of the left from active politics. Virtually ignored by the media, the
left has further marginalized itself by a retreat into introspective
cultural criticism. It seems content to do yoga and gender studies, leaving
the fundamentalist Christian right and the multinationals to do the politics.
The separation of church and state seems to be breaking down too. Political
discourse is now dominated by moralizing, like George W. Bush's promotion of
American "family values" abroad, and dissent is unpatriotic. "You're either
with us or against us" is the kind of cant you'd expectfrom a zealous
mullah, not an American president.
When Europeans make such criticisms, Americans assume we're envious. "They
want what we've got," the thinking goes, "and if they can't get it, they're
going to stop us from having it." But does everyone want what America has?
Well, we like some of it but could do without the rest: the highest rates
of violent crime, economic inequality, functional illiteracy, incarceration
and drug use in the developed world. President Bush recently declared that
the U.S. was "the single surviving model of human progress".
Maybe some Americans think this self-evident, but the rest of us see it as a
clumsy arrogance born of ignorance.
Europeans tend to regard free national health services, unemployment
benefits, social housing, and so on as pretty good models of human
progress. We think it's important--civilized, in fact--to help people who
fall through society's cracks. This isn't just altruism but an
understanding that having too many losers in society hurts everyone. It's
better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a resentful
underclass bent on wrecking things.
To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the nanny
state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less crime and less povert
and arguably higher quality of life than the U.S., which makes a lot of us
wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got.
Too often, the U.S. presents the "American way" as the only way, insisting
on its kind of free market Darwinism as the only acceptable" model of human
progress." But isn't civilization what happens when people stop behaving as
if they're trapped in a ruthless Darwinian struggle and start thinking
about communities and shared futures? America as a gated community won't
work, because not even the world's sole superpower can build walls high
enough to shield itself from the intertwined realities of the 21st century.
There's a better form of security: reconnect with the rest of the world,
don't shut it out; stop making enemies and start making friends. Perhaps
it's asking a lot to expect America to act differently from all the other
empires in history, but wasn't that the original idea?
Brian Eno is a musician who believes that regime change begins at home.
--------------------------------
Ned Bouhalassa
n e d @ n e d f x . c o m
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