Barack Obama has so far won the debates and is surging ahead in the polls—which is why he has more to fear from his opponents than than ever before, writes Susan Jacoby. For the past eight years, anti-rationalism of every sort been the defining strategy of right-wing American politics, so we can expect to hear a lot about how there’s something sinister and “un-American” about Obama’s education, reason, and logic in the weeks to come.
Meanwhile, Paul Collier looks at the impact that Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president-assumed, might have on the future of African democracy and prosperity. With the spike in global demand for commodities, the continent as a whole has an unprecedented opportunity to lift itself out of poverty—but will bad politics get in the way?
Also, Anshuman Mondal defends his call for a “Muslim middle way” against criticism from the Quilliam Foundation’s Ed Husain. Husain, Mondal argues, seems to think that all Islamists eventually become terrorists. But why single them out? What about racists, left wing sympathisers, or even people who care about animals and the environment?
And Max Nathan of the IPPR takes aim at Prospect editor David Goodhart’s famous “diversity versus solidarity” thesis. A new IPPR study suggests that migration and diversity is benefitting Britain economically—with little sign that the country will suffer US-style racial divisions.
Not that I would ever take Prospect Magazine’s propaganda seriously anyhow, but if the ridiculous errors which are strewn throughout this article were caught by the editorial team, if not the writer, at least it would, then, pass as polished propaganda.
9 October 2008
Incontrovertible
Proof That Citizens of the
DisUnited States of Northamerica
Are So Sorrowfully,
So Sanctimoniously Stupid
In 1994, when my DisUnited States of Northamerica’s passport expired, I prepared plans to renounce my citizenship. Months later, I traipsed into the DUS’s consulate in Firenze, Italia and signed three documents realizing my political preferences. I felt relieved and pleased. I had acted to be free. I believed that, as any ex-drug addict might, a monkey had been taken off my back. My decision had been long thought out and logical. I had left the DUS on 31 December 1975; and, I have never returned to it since. My self-imposed exile has saddled me with numerous physical and emotional frustrations which I must admit have dowered me with neither crippling obsessions nor hopeless wretchedness. I am frequently asked if I possess any degree of nostalgia for “home,” and to such questioning I respond with an emphatic “no.” Curiosity does niggle me, but what I construe from news reports in the print and electronic media and others from my satellite dish, I am persuaded to think that my decision to leave the DUS for good was a judicious one. In fact, I understand the DUS much better than I ever did when I lived in it. Glimpsing at the almost eight years I sojourned in Venezuela and the now more than twenty five that I have put away in Italy, I am wont to pat myself on the back for following that adage of David Hume (Knowledge is the assurance arising from the comparison of ideas) which has enthused me unremittingly in my search to find The Truth not only about the DUS, but other enigmas I hap to come across. I have had ups and downs similar to everyone else’s, but I am convinced that my highs and lows have been very much more exciting, and disheartening, than those of the majority of other individuals with whom I tarry and have tarried. More direct observations are to come. I am generally optimistic about myself and my future although less so about most others. I am happy I am not happy. Such is my Life.
What qualifies me to label my ex-cohabitants with such crotchety wording? I want to help them! I want to provoke these imbeciles who call themselves “Americans.” I want to abet others to understand them the more. Of course, this hold out is compromised by many acrimonious sensations long ago sublimated into the lower pits of my psyche. The handling of these distant sentiments, luckily, have encouraged me to be steadfast yet not stone-like. I feel exceptionally self-assured about my assessments which have been calculated for many years, with many analyses and even more dissimilarities of ideas. I am grateful for the countless opportunities offered me to compare my own first impressions with those of other peoples and nations not my own but my own. It all has been my doing.
What I will relate in this brief essay, sucked out of the accumulated cognitive contents of more than thirty years, must be short but not sweet. My thoughts will evolve from an enormous emotional need, some categorical imperative, that will suggest to me some relief and, hopefully, will spur others to be subjected to some of the same. I have collected oodles of thoughts and notes which could fill volumes. I have referred to the annals of philosophy, economics, philology, psychology, psychoanalysis, poetry, history, sociology and, above all, politics—probably the least exact of all these “disciplines.” I am not an expert in any one of these fields. I simply always went to them to corroborate my own intuitions and, frequently, to find solace with characters with whom I could obtain sympathy. I belong to no school. My “philosophy” is a mosaic of the many viewpoints upon which I have contemplated. I am a writer, a poet. No one knows better than me that I may fail at this endeavour. Nevertheless, I must try.
1. Throughout the world, hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people—perhaps billions—think “Americans” are stupid. I could rest my case alone on this single philosophical tenet: the argument of common consent. But, I will not.
2. “Americans” behave stupidly because they are stupid. As a being is, so it acts.
3. “Americans” are stupid because they are exaggeratedly overconfident—especially so when they interrelate with others. The DUS is a hodgepodge of competing ethnicities that emigrated from horrible states of war, famine, economic tragedy, religious persecution and other sufferings too terrible to bear. For these downtrodden individuals, the DUS functioned as a panacea, a wonderful source of hope. While the émigrés assumed the mantle of “Americanism,” whatever that might mean, they also lugged with them the customs and thinking—even philosophical and religious—of their now very distant homelands. Whether they are German-“American,” Irish-“American,” English-“American,” African-“American,” or Italian-“American,” these racial groups, and the so many others like them, constitute a minestrone of mores that cannot be, any one of them, the dominant national faction in the DUS. There is not a German, Irish person, English subject, African or Italian who will dare deny that his line’s contribution to the development and even prosperity of the DUS was genuinely significant and indispensable. But, none of these conglomerations of human beings, except in folkloric manifestations, would have the cheek to seize the helm which would steer their own nationality’s way on behalf of the DUS. These personalities, callow and irresolute, are “Americans,” and before others they must not only speculate about that indistinct reality which is themselves, they must authenticate their very beings in the guise of a quasi-nation unfulfilled, pugnacious and “virginal” in order to affirm their substantiality and physical existence. Haughtiness, at the ready, is a handy expedient for them—just ask any Department of State foreign affairs’ officer! The ancestors of these individuals are in via d’estinzione in Europe, and in the DUS they, too, according to the United States’ Census Bureau, are losing the population domination they once maintained and enjoyed.
4. “Americans” are stupid because they are pretending, ever so tenaciously, to be that what they are not. All over the world there are representations of some economic, political and/or military sway corresponding to the DUS. For the most part, the properties of “American” holdings are closely guarded, bullet- and bomb-proofed, and “Americans” dwelling in them are often in fear for their lives. With the verve of missionaries, these overseas personnel grin and bear it with a stoicism that saps their vitality. They refuse to accept the fact that more and more recurrently they are thought of as unwanted guests if not intruders. Wherever they go, they strive to make squares out of circles—sometimes with success! But now the winds are blowing from another direction. Still, “Americans” just do not want to go away! They have unrelenting, often rabid, faith in the notion that theirs is the best of all possibilities. Ever so obstinate, they seek to attract, persuade and constrict others to abide by their imperatives. The criterion, the “bottom line,” almost without exception, the one alluded to to interpret the success or failure of the DUS’s policy to extend its rule over foreign nations, is a happily-adverted-to pecuniary achievement which time and again practically always neither considers the living standards and traditions of other peoples nor enquires about establishing binding relationships which might foster respect and admiration for the DisUnited States of Northamerica.
It has been a veritable simple exercise to demonstrate the stupidity of the “Americans.” It would be unfeasible for anyone to contradict my premises. Yet, I must come clean that explaining “The Why” “Americans” are so stupid remains, at least for me, a greater quandary. I beg you, my dear reader, to relieve me of this encumbrance and put light on “The Why” “Americans” are preposterously stupid.
Let us go back in History—to start. Who did the most to cultivate the contemptible trait of stupidity so prominent in the DUS’s DNA? Was it the Neanderthal Man? The Egyptians? The Hittites? Spartans? Babylonians? Romans? Alexander the Great? The Visigoths? Attila? Charlemagne? The Normans? The Mongols ? The Turks? Cromwell? Bonaparte? Bismarck? General Grant? General Lee? Who, may I ask?
Or was it rich Chianti wine? German Rhine wine? Dark Irish beer? Pale Dutch beer? French champagne? Russian vodka? Portuguese port? English gin? Scotch whiskey? Canadian whisky? Marijuana? Heroin? Cocaine from Southamerica? Greasy fast food? Medicines from Swiss drug-pushing pharmaceutical companies?
I implore you! I beseech you!! I plead with you!!! Please enlighten me. Make my day and tell me why “Americans” are so fabulously stupid.
Thank you.
Anthony St. John
7 October 2008
Calenzano, Italia
* * *
Anthony Saint-John, apparently an ex-“American”, has given us Prospect readers a strange response (and an even stranger homework assignment) to an article about old and persistent irrational factors in American political life and how they may yet have an impact on the outcome of the pending presidential election. Evidently he did not wish to comment on Susan Jacoby’s perfectly sensible piece but rather to use it as a springboard for a massive assault, the slings and arrows of which he has been shaping and honing for some time now. One wonders about his self-identification these days – “Italian”? “European”? “World Citizen”? It would seem from his intellectual peregrinations (where he happed to tarry with many a man’s and woman’s intellectual fancy, a perilous yet profitable minuet, no doubt, but enough of that, I’m no poet) that perhaps, in the manner of a Walt Whitman avatar, he is something like “Heir to the Wisdom of the Ages” with a dash of “Everyman” thrown in. We are fortunate that he stopped there, for he might have included mammalian, avian, and even reptilian consciousness into the heady mix that constitutes his cerebrations. Anyway, let’s get back to earth, as confining as that seems to some. Americans are not preposterously stupid, just normally so and opportunistically so, like most of the rest of mankind throughout its sorry history. Its not clear why they — hey, I’m one of them, so I have to say “we” and take it like a man - need role models to sustain these perfectly natural habits of thought and deed. But it is clear that Mr. Saint-John would like them – sorry, us — to have some kind of illustrious lineage of world-class imbecility. Otherwise his fabulous (in the old-fashioned sense of legendary) smugness about the certitude of his ideas might be ruptured by a lack of historical seamlessness.
If one gives Saint John the benefit of the doubt there is a tenuous connection between his gorgeous fugue on American Stupidity and Jacoby’s subject matter (anti-intellectualism posing as anti-elitism in American public life, to the detriment of the quality of political and journalistic discourse about the country’s considerable problems – and defects – at the present time). But he didn’t need Jacoby’s article to inspire him, since he has obviously been gnawing on a very peculiar bone (or self-inflicted psychic wound) for several decades. He gave up his American citizenship (not a big deal, and not really grounds for praise or blame), but somehow he can’t let the whole business go, so he is in need of constant – and rhetorically overwhelming — reassurances that he did the right thing. Answering his rhetorical question (why are Americans so stupid?) will, in the best of Saint-John worlds, supply him with a chorus of approval and testimonials as to the correctness of his judgment and will validate his obsession. I’ll try to answer his question in the fashion that Being-A-Stupid-American requires, with a shrug of my shoulders and a slap of my hand against my forehead, “Gee, Anthony, I don’t know — why are Americans so stupid?” I await his doubtlessly concise answer with considerable anxiety, but, although plagued by fear and self-loathing, I still can’t stop myself from smiling in anticipation.
Jacoby is a Quack.
If a brilliant mind such as that of Paul Collier can conclude that because of what happened in Zimbabwe then “African presidents have learned how to get re-elected without the need for good governance” we still have a long way to go before such generalizations and the erroneous notion that Africa is one country can truly be put to rest.
The other concern is the continuing double standards. When the ANC, the predominant political party in South Africa wins an election with an overwhelming majority, that is fine. But when an equally predominant party in Angola, MPLA, stands to win in next year’s presidential elections then, in Paul Collier’s words “we can expect the opposition to be allowed to gain around 40 per cent of the vote for the sake of good appearances,” (emphasis is mine). Please! If anything, do not prejudge the conduct of an election that is still months away, unless you actually believe that nothing good ever comes out of Africa.
Finally, “African solutions to African problems” is not a self-serving slogan. It is the only sustainable way to deal with African issues. It is about ownership and leadership. Those “courageous Africans” Paul Collier talks of will indeed need, and deserve, external support; but it has to be support to evolve and implement African solutions, not those imposed from outside. This is the 21st Century, for Goodness sake!
A good set of articles. The last one on immigration interested me most because I have been irritated by Goodhart’s line in the past. I find Max Nathan’s approach almost identical to mine. The congregation of immigrants in large cities (with the exception of transient fruit and veg pickers) is a very marked phenomenon: here in West Wales one sees very few non-EU immigrants (plenty of Poles and Slovaks in various towns around Carmarthen and Aberystwyth) but generally speaking the countryside appears little changed although Carmarthen general hospital contains a high proportion of doctors from the Indian sub-continent. This I find something that might need to be looked at by those more qualified than me: will, for instance, this exacerbate the town/country split that already exists (and hardened by Labour policies)? I would hope not and maybe those from ethnic minorities will get on trains and buses (preferably not cars) and visit the wildernesses of this country and learn how much more there is than can be offered by the streets alone.
I also found Susan Jacoby’s article perceptive and added to by Anthony St John’s coda. Can one call a whole nation stupid? In a democracy one can measure that by looking at those who vote for a certain person for particular reasons (as looked at from outside) and so one could say that at least 50.1% of Americans are stupid, which is a pity when one considers how wonderful the remaining 49.9% are. For me it all boils down to oil and how that has underpinned what is casually called the ‘American dream’. From WWII on, Americans have become used to a form of capitalism that molly-coddles them and allows them to use a phenomenal amount of the earth’s resources without understanding what that entails globally: that is the big fault, the inability to see outside the borders and empathize with other cultures. The UK is quite a long way down that road already, unfortunately.
John Ellis offers a reasonable answer to A. St. John’s flamboyantly expressed rhetorical question. It’s a traditional (but not, therefore, uninformative) answer — success made us stupid. In a materialistic world success would be defined as a powerful economy harnessed to a miltary capability that puts the U.S. at the top of the global Great Power heap, for the time being. For success is not only illusory, but also temporary. The optical flaw that Mr. Ellis remarks upon (the inability to see outside one’s borders and empathize, etc.) is one that is commonplace to cultures and/or states when they are suffering from the fever of nationalism; as such, it’s commonplace, and the wretched of the earth have little more empathy for their fellow men than their exploiters do in this regard. On the other hand the virtue of the political system now in place in the U.S. is that it does hold out the hope for rationally guided changes that might improve the situation, and the system itself.
Dear Anshman
It was an immense pleasure to read your short comment to ED Hussain’s lame reply to your excellent article;” A Muslim Middle Way”.
Apart from reading his generalising themess about Islamism and the inherent danger, it poses to democratic societies in the West, I had the misfortune of meeting and listening to him in Copenhagen few months back.
Honestly speaking, his argument at the meeting that Hiz-ut-Tahrir posed the greatest threat to the stability of Europe reminded me of the current extreme right wing propaganda against Islam. When I asked him, if he was aware of the wide spread hate crime, violence and even murders against ethnic and religious minorities in Europe, he refused to answer. When I again asked why he was giving a small poweless organisation like Hiz too much importance and not condemning racism and anti-Islam discourse at the same time, he refused to answer.
I found him very ignorant of the situation of minorities in Europe and frankly speaking, he has his own agenda. Name, fame and money.
Unfortunately, he does not realise that in the present day discussions in Europe and in USA, ordinary public is not able to distinguish between Islamism, Islam and Muslims. Arguments against Islamism coming from Ed Hussain, Hirshi Ali and the likes, are swallowed raw and are used against all those who has a Muslim background.
In my political work, I on daily basis experience that not only mainstream political parties but more and more parties on the left use the same terminology and views as extremist movements and people like Ed Hussain.
The other day, the Chairman of the Socialist Party in Denmark in connection with Hiz, said in his speech; If you do not believe in democracy, Go to hell.
When I asked him in a chance meeting in front of the Danish Parliament if he was aware that many young white Danes are also critical of the democratic double standards in the West. Would he use the same kind of stern language against them too. And why a citizen can not have doubts about a certain form of government.His response; Either one obeys democracy or go home.
So you can see the similarities in argumentation and the arrogance displayed by people in power.
The fact is that it is not Islamism ( By the way, as you very well know, this term has never existed in Quran, Islam or Islamic litterature) or extremism, the West and people like Ed Hussain has a problem with. It is the religion of Islam which is a thorn in their eyes. This hidden agenda stops them for having a sober debate and find a mutually beneficial solution.
Kind regards
Bashy Quraishy
Chair - ENAR Advisory Council-Brussels
Chair - Jewish Muslim Platform-Brussels
Mobile. 0045 40154771.
Tel&Fax. 0045 38881977
http://www.bashy.dk
Postmoderism is a perfect example of “articulate” liberal nonsense, so yes, it’s entirely possible to be both articulate and stupid.
This financial meltdown was predicted back in 2000, by ordinary real estate brokers but naturally no one paid any attention.
This energy crisis was predicted back in 1970 by T.Boone Pickens but naturally no one paid any attention.
This resource depletion was predicted back in 1700 by a Norweigen named Johannes something or other, but naturally no one paid any attention.
Humans are too stupid to live.
Katie - don’t get me going on energy!! But the US would transform its standing in the world overnight if it was serious in tackling its dependence on oil and in moving to renewables: it is not as though it is short of sunlight for example.
I would suggest that Bashy Quraishy read ‘Future Jihad’ by Walid Phares and ‘Al Qaeda in Europe’by Lorenzo Vidino.
Islamism is the biggest threat to liberal/progressive democracy since Nazism and should be fought as such.
Regards
SD
Islamist operatives worldwide are trying to marginalize progressive Muslims and claim that they (Islamists) are the representatives of Muslim masses. Absolutely not. We’ve seen how in Algeria during the 1990s the progressive were slaughtered by the Salafists, including a Rock Star. We’ve seen how Iranian students, women and leftwing intellectuals are being oppressed by the Mullahs. Short story: Muslim democrats are the real response to the Jihadists.
Why doesn’t Barack Obama admit to be raised in the ways of Islam when he was growing up with his mom and step-father in Indonesia?
What is up with his campaign symbol? Was it foretold in the Quran?
“When the sun rises in the West everyone will believe”.
More nagging questions like these can be found on my space.
Jedi Master Roshi
Dear Dave/Jedi Master Whatever,
Your alter ego, adopted from one our grand nation’s most puerile moneymakers, tells the wary reader all she or he has to know. It’s not healthy for a grown man to identify too strongly with a character from a boy’s adventure tale, but it certainly fits in with the eternal adolescence of our blessed land. May the growth hormone be with you and accelerate your passage through this trying time in your life. Quranic prophecy is another non-starter.
In reality when the sun rises in the Wesr everyone will obviously be drunk and disoriented, a condition not unlike religious intoxication.