Welcome to (a)ME(r)I(ca)

As I write this blog entry, local police are searching for the driver of a hit-and-run vehicle that struck down two bicyclists and left one dead along the roadside—a horrifying incident that has many residents wondering what sort of person could flee from such a grisly scene. It would be easy enough to dismiss the perpetrator as a monster and wish for their speedy arrest and lengthy incarceration.

To be sure, the latter is also my wish, but an arrest merely begs the question of how such behavior is possible in the first place. Alas, the answer lies deeper in the national soul. An act of such grotesque immorality is only conceivable in a society that elevates individuals over community with the cavalier disregard of modern America. It’s as if we live in a postmodern nightmare in which all meaning, value judgment, and moral choice is reduced to interpretation and perspective—a nation in which we jettison all the letters of America except the “me” and the “I.”

Let us revisit recent social debates. Universal health care? I’ve heard that deemed “socialist,” as if that was ipso facto a bad thing guaranteed to lead to Stalinist gulags. (Funny how the Brits, Canadians, and Scandinavians have avoided those.) Any appeal for taxes—even if it’s to fund local schools or keep the parks open—is greeted by howling mobs screaming that the “government”—a term of derision second only to “terrorists”—is trying to loot worker paychecks. The common refrain--“Why shouldn’t I get to keep my money?”—greets every mention of the word “tax.” Do the tax rebels ever ask how they would earn that money outside of communities whose very infrastructure (communications, roads, schools, parks, fire departments, police, municipal government, etc.) depend upon taxes? It’s not really a matter of “my” money; capital has social dimensions as well as an economic ones. That truth is conveniently dismissed when CEOs of failed financial institutions pocket their bonuses and try to tell us that without these “top talent” would flee. (Adios! See ‘ya!)

And it’s not just the big issues where we see individualism run amok. It shows up in the jerks who talk during a movie, the person who thinks everyone on the bus is interested in her cell phone call, and the drivers who think that right turn on red after stopping (and if the way is clear) is a mere suggestion directed at those whose time is less valuable than their own. It’s the retail clerk who can’t be bothered to interrupt a personal conversation to wait on you; it’s the repair person who doesn’t return your call, the delivery person who doesn’t show up, the insurance agent who’s too smug to use common English, and the doctor who will tell you to your face that he left you waiting for an hour because he is a busy professional (as if you aren’t). And, yes, it’s the Internet bloggers who try to tell you that the Founding Fathers were budding libertarians who envisioned a nation based entirely on individual freedom. Not exactly. The Founders also wanted a United States, fretted about community, and enumerated those freedoms deemed important in promoting the “general welfare.” They worried about things such as despotism—associated with individual abuses of power—and the tyranny of the majority. The latter is often cited as “proof” of the Founders’ intent to enshrine radical individualism when, in fact, they feared that demagogues might lead a gullible public astray in ways that damaged the collected body politic. (They established safeguards that minimized both possibilities.)

How can a human being leave one of his fellows bloodied along the roadside? It’s not that hard when it’s all about “me” and never about “we.” This small-scale tragedy is a symptom of a deeper social ill.--LV