Can We Wake Up Now?
It's a presidential campaign: Can't we talk about Iraq, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan...? About global warming, energy, education or healthcare? Economics -- housing, unemployment, banking, regulation, etc.? Isn't the US international standing diminished enough without the entire press corps fixating on "lipstick on the pig" and Jane Swift's "truth squad" and rote coverage of Obama's perfunctory swift-boat charges?
There's a faux seriousness and tension to all this, like in "Dancing With the Stars". Episodes full of inane commentary and winking gravitas that communicates to the audience: "none of this really matters you know, its just a game."
But it does matter. As Letterman joked, "A vice president who likes guns? Well, what could go wrong there?" There's so much more. A vice presidential candidate who believes that dinosaurs, Adam and Eve roamed the earth a few thousand years ago; who appears to fundamentally misunderstand current events such as the recent government nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; who's been in politics a shorter time than your average school board member; who jokes about her lack of international experience, and who treats the VP position like it were the challenge of bagging a moose. Ms. "I'm Ready". What could go wrong there? Think the Bush administration, I suppose, then pick some exponent to multiply the disaster by.
But lets not go overboard in histrionics. On one hand you just want Palin-drone to stop. Can't the show move on to any more substantive issue? On the other hand we might as well throw our arms up in the air and surrender to the inanity. So what if the US turns out bands of nincompoops who elect leaders with the gall to convince citizens that they'll prosper by praying for oil, promoting ignorance, and making their primary democratic focus advocating for teens' rights to pregnancy? Does anyone really lose when candidates pander to the lowest common denominator? So what if the US ends up with all the international clout and resources of a Trashcanistan?
In the Lands of Olive Trees and Insouciance
Other countries have successfully expanded their cultural offerings and so achieved acclaim, proving that perhaps it's not the worst fate. Are Greece, Italy and England deprived by their eviscerated international clout? In order to make the post almost-empire transition, perhaps the US should invest in culture. This will certainly appeal to some middle school teachers as well as to people like Wendell Berry who suggest art as the antidote to all the problems science and technology can't solve. 1
Sure, Greece had its dark moments during and after the Empire. But it ditched the drachma, joined the Euro, and now things look brighter. Greece shores up its economy by cementing every inch of every island, and serves up nothing more serious than feta, freshish fish and ouzo.
Maybe the US is a "nation of whiners". But I'm sure Americans would relax if the whole country took a daily nap between fourteen hundred and twenty-two hundred hours.
Then there's Italy. As tourists gawk at the splendor that was once Rome, Italians sniff in scorn. Americans would turn their noses up too if we could satisfy the yearnings of international tourists clamoring for our "culture" by serving them no more than a sneer and limp pasta or Tuscan pizza, costing excessive Euros. Perhaps if the country simply invested more in sculptors and painters the US could run a sham of a military while chiding other nations for their military blunders.
Britain hasn't fared as well as Italy and Greece in developing an enviable cuisine, but I believe in time, like the rest of the continent, they'll develop their culinary offerings to the point that no one will pay attention to their diminished importance on the world stage. You can imagine that eventually the UK will serve dishes that augment those kidney pies, chips, and Yorkshire puddings (the most deceptively named of their flour and water specialties).
They haven't had enough time in Britain, with surviving generations still alive and attached to the legacy of the former Empire and collectively a bit too up-tight for the post-megapower club of nonchalant arrogance. They cling to the pound drink to excess on the continent and when vacationing in India sniff crossly about the train system being the only sign of civilization.
But you can see cracks in the stiff-upper lip resignation. At home they'll joyfully tuck into Indian curries rather than wash down one more dried out baking powder biscuit ("scone", they euphemise). As they delightedly slosh back their Rogan Josh you can imagine that eventually they'll lose the polo helmet and the clipped speech and take cues from their laid back Mediterranean brethren. They'll spice their food and enjoy long afternoon siestas. Sooner of later the UK will be so laid back they'll be exporting the Channel Diet.
The Post Never-Quite-An-Empire Adjustment
To successfully follow in these footsteps the US will have to lose aspirations to empire and adjust to the relaxed life. Americans will have to settle on some national cuisine. I'm not sure Freedom Fries will cut it, but perhaps some local, fresh California diet will suffice. If they adopted some of the Mediterranean cooking guidelines that might help with the adjustment to not thinking your hot stuff, as well as heart disease.
The US tourist industry is already booming, with Europeans shopping in New York, whirling through to peek at the Washington Monument, at Hollywood, and at Golden Gate Bridge. I've recently met several tourists renting RVs and touring the National Parks, a trend which will give the country continued rational to build large vehicles and continue the wars for oil.
Does the US really need to worry about the strength of the Chinese economy, about terrorists in Pakistan, about that grand "way of life"? Maybe the nation should ditch its hegemonic inclinations, make movies, brew beer, invest in artists and edifices, build some fences, kick-back under olive trees, stop arming the rest of the world and just mock it. If worse comes to worse they could temper certain inclinations to meet the Copenhagen Criteria, then appeal to the European Union for membership. This whole McCain, Palin thing just doesn't matter.
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1 In Harper's, "Faustian economics: Hell hath no limits", May 2008, Berry proposes somewhat circuitously and alarmingly:
"To deal with the problems, which after all are inescapable, of living with limited intelligence in a limited world, I suggest that we may have to remove some of the emphasis we have lately placed on science and technology and have a new look at the arts. For an art does not propose to enlarge itself by limitless extension but rather to enrich itself within bounds that are accepted prior to the work."
