A niggling feeling has been tickling me in the back of the brain and I only recently got a finger on it. All the really interesting stuff that I've been reading--all the stories with something to say--aren't written by Americans. Sure, we write some great stuff--our prose is fantastic and our grasp of the language proves we can stand on our own, at least in terms of quality. But there's something absent from the content. Then it hit me. We really don't have anything worth saying.
There's been some great stuff out of Nigeria about decolonization; some great stuff out of England about the growing animosity between Europeans and Muslim immigrants. Some really fantastic stuff from Germany about the growing debt crisis and their disenfranchisement about the euro; and while all of that sounds non-fiction, its couched in clearly fictional terms. A young Muslim man in London just trying to get by; a businessman in Nigeria yearning for the life of a pseudo-aristocrat in Lagos; a German right-wing woman hating just about everybody and the boy she loves. Good stuff. But Americans are obsessed with the domestic. Midwest life, baseball games, and all the drama that revolves around the kitchen table. While these are worthy stories, and reveal a great deal about American private life and private struggle, they really have no point. They illuminate the inner life, but fail to cast light on the what happens beyond the kitchen walls.
Let's face it. We have a lot to write about. We're in the coming era of American imperialism, standing at the precipice of empire in a way we haven't since 1898. But we're doing it covertly, so as not to arouse public suspicion. In 1898 at least we used the word "empire" to describe our acquisition of the Philippines. Now we couch it in terms of global wars against terrorism.
Terrorism is high on our minds. I recently saw "Act of Valor," the 2012 action flick touted as the only film starring active duty special operators, and it got me thinking about how we perceive ourselves in the world. Thomas Jefferson wanted to see the United States encompass the entire continent, spreading outward as an "empire of republicanism." From the very first moment, American exceptionalism was embedded in the American psyche; it was in our rhetoric, politics and mythology. We still see that exceptionalism today, but in a new way. Today, we are the policeman of the world, a monolithic hegemon tasked with enforcing not only laws, but western ideology. That sounds a little high-blown, I know, so I'll explain.
In the late eighteenth-century, the slave trade became unpopular. Then, in the first years of the nineteenth, it was outlawed entirely. It was abolished in Britain, in the United States, and throughout Europe. If you know anything about the African slave-trade, however, you know that the major link in the Atlantic triangle was shipping. Slaves were bought in Africa, shipped across the Atlantic and sold in America. Shipping was the key element of the slave trade. Without a working navy to police its vessels, a state was unable to enforce laws banning the slave trade. Britain, as the single power capable of patrolling such a vast area, and the resources to devote to ideological goals even when it and Europe was embroiled in the Napoleonic wars. Among other things, it stopped, interdicted and seized ships of foreign powers. Think about the implications of that: one of the primary reasons we're told for the War of 1812 was British seizures of American vessels; and yet, to enforce our own laws against the importation of slavery, we needed British hegemony of the seas.
Fast forward to today and "Act of Valor." In that movie, a number of groups are interdicted by American special forces around the world. Set in motion by a terrorist bombing in a Philippine international school where the U.S. ambassador is killed, the movie quickly hops around the planet in pursuit. In Costa Rica, a CIA operative has made a connection between a drug smuggler to Chechen separatists who is planning to smuggle super-suicide bombers into the United States. Call in the SEALs. The movie moves from Costa Rica, to Africa, to the South Pacific, to Mexico, to Mexicali. Somewhere in the middle is narrative, but it's so poorly acted that we're glad when the SEALs just start shooting people again. While the action is fun, what really stands out for me are things the filmmakers probably hadn't intended.
First is the outstanding superiority of American technology. That's really what we've based our war-making capability upon and seeing it highlighted here is outstanding. What makes it all the more interesting, however, is the lack of highlighting that goes on in the movie. Technology is present, but only in a behind-the-scenes kind of way. Drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, spy-planes are the extent of it. If you count optics on the guns and night-vision, that about sums up the level of technology. But it is devastating, nonetheless.
What really stood out, though, was the quickness with which forces could operate around the globe. I'm told the world is a pretty big place, and yet special operators are boots on the ground yesterday. When SEALs infiltrate Costa Rica they are supported and extracted by two gun-boats dropped by helicopter. Infiltrating Africa by mini-sub, and then Mexico by boat, the American domination of the seas through our superior logistical capability clearly stands out.
None of these factors are really highlighted, as I've said, and that says something to me. That we can take our outstanding superiority for granted informs both my take-away of the movie, but larger matters about American storytelling and my earlier statement that Americans really have nothing interesting to say. The final line of the movie goes something like this: War is a matter of will. The side most willing to go the farthest is the side that will win. That is saying something. Certainly, it's an axiomatic statement, but what does it mean? At its core, it's a Manichean statement about good and evil; it's an ideology that permits only a single winner. It's a statement that places everyone who is not for you against you.
This movie, for all its gusto, says something. This wasn't meant to be a subtle movie, but I wonder if Americans have anything else to say about our hegemony, our impending empire, our responsibility to the world, as well as positions that may be as damaging to us as Britain's moral resolve to stamp out slavery while Napoleon beat at their gates was to them.
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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