The story of America we were told in school painted a pretty picture. Unfortunately, it was not truthful, as current events make abundantly clear.
There were always contradictions within the story of America: Equality under the law accompanied by its opposite; the message of welcome on the Statue of Liberty masking deep resentment of immigrants and others; economic opportunity, ostensibly based on merit, instead reflecting economic and class status. But historically, such contradictions were accompanied by deep conviction that the institutional norms of America – three independent branches of government, a system of checks and balances, rule of law – formed a solid bedrock of our nation. The past year has put the lie to all that.
The White House is giving the finger to Congress, and Congress appears incapable of exerting any authority. The Supreme Court is now a fully partisan body. So much for the system of checks and balances.
Now we’re witnessing extrajudicial assassinations, kidnapping of foreign leaders, threatening historical allies, using the army to police American cities, and designating particular media and ideas as enemies of the people. Our institutions, it turns out are not made of stone, but papier-mâché.
Perhaps it’s good that we’re being forced to wake up from this delusional fever dream of American exceptionalism. Anyone paying attention is hard pressed to believe our American fantasy. What’s remarkable is for how long the fantasy has been accepted.
Making up stories and telling fantasies, of course, is what we human beings do, both individually and collectively. It’s all we’ve ever done; we seem to be wired that way. It’s not all that difficult to explain.
People live not only in an objectively physical space of wind, water, rocks, and wood, but also a subjective imaginary space. Our imaginary space of ideas and internal images are akin to a waking dream and seem real, but unlike dreams of sleep which are easily forgotten, our waking dreams persist, and we act upon them in the physical world. The structures we create, both imaginary and actual, are then incorporated into what we designate as objective reality.
As imperfect beings, our fantasies are also imperfect; they reflect human psychology and pathology, including our fears, hopes, and desires. As we gather ‘round our fantasies, diverse emotions are triggered which can generate extreme behaviors of all kinds. So it is we murder out of imagined jealousy, steal from others out of greed, and covet what we don’t have. You know the list. Our fantasies have driven us mad. We’re lost in imaginary space.
Such insights provide cold comfort. Caught as we are in our imagined reality we have little choice but to react. Thus the current madness of American politics and the revelation that our cherished national story is a lie is deeply upsetting. Many of our made up stories, however, are deeply upsetting. Reflections of our battered psyches, we’re unable to keep up with our imperfectly invented reality but nonetheless have to cope with what we’ve created. It’s always been this way and gratefully, Mother Nature has been very forgiving.
We’ve made it this far, but the level of risk has never been higher. At the press of a button all life on earth can quickly come to an end. Luckily, we only control the destiny of this tiny blue dot of a planet. Whatever happens here, the universe will go on, at least that’s my fantasy.
