But
even the social aspect of Man alone (our second example of split personality, which is different from the opposition of man
of God versus man of Caesar, raised yesterday in Part I), as
it is expressed within the American society, is schizophrenic. Whereas a “normal”
social morality may be represented as a standard mix of good and bad attitudes
of the majority of citizens, it looks like American society is now being defined
by its fringe minorities, with the majority at a severe handicap, and losing
its defining stamp on the character of the American nation.
Some
artificial categories have now been promoted as definitive categories, while
the traditional categories have been neglected, and outright ignored. But how
is it possible, one may ask, to ignore certain traditional elephants in the
room, such as, say, the opposition of wealth
versus poverty? It is hard to imagine a team of social engineers
suppressing such natural dichotomies as that of the rich and the poor,
which is supposed to trump all artificial ones, and bring national
consciousness, no matter how badly brainwashed, back to social commonsense.
But
no, American society may be too affluent for such normal things to matter, and
to take center stage. It is a fact, no matter how strongly it may be disputed,
that the American poor, even recognized as such by the sociologists, will never
be poor enough to form an effective dichotomy against the American rich. Forget
social revolutions in America: she has enough bread and circuses for everyone
to take care of a real social crisis from below, whereas everything from
above is closely controlled by the social engineers.
And
now we are coming to the basic incongruence of the American Jekyll and Hyde:
his cultivated outward belligerence and extreme inward insecurity, resulting in
an anti-social hands-off-government psychological resignation. At issue here is
a pathological conflict between modern American Superpower chauvinism and its
self-destructive alter ego: the iconoclastic effort to undermine the
foundations of national tradition and basic cultural commandments, leaving the
nation with a lot of gung-ho and a dramatically diminishing substance. It seems
as though the authorities in charge of America are most eager to exploit the morality of the Strong outside the
country, while inside the country they are eager to promote the morality of the Weak, in order to
subdue, rather than to cultivate the native American spirit, which I have been
regularly referring to as “the Spirit of
1776.” This is done domestically, I repeat, by trying to cultivate the notion
of a superiority of the weak over the strong. The colorful gays and lesbians more
powerful than the lackluster straights?.. The handicapped more privileged than
the able-bodied?.. Etc., etc… Don’t get me wrong, please: I am all for protecting
the disadvantaged; but not for empowering them beyond reason; not for turning
them into role models, paragons of society.
To
summarize this, while intent on inflaming the master morality of the nation in
its outward reach, to project America’s superiority over the rest of the world,
the same people in Washington are doing everything to undermine it at home,
substituting it with an implicit presumption of inferiority of the healthy mainstream
majority of the nation vis-à-vis the allegedly underprivileged social
minorities and the physically and mentally handicapped (an ironic twist here:
who is really “handicapped”?), which results in yet another triumph of the
split personality in American society. Violence abroad and submission at
home,--- such is the social prescription for the American twenty-first century.
Tragically, though, the supposedly outward-directed nationalistic violence does
not stay outwardly-directed for long, but comes back home from America’s wars
now inwardly-directed, degrading and further destroying the cohesiveness of the
American nation. A bizarre and disturbing social trend indeed of blending blind
obedience to authority with senseless violence for violence’ sake. The terrifying
atmosphere of deadly domestic violence out of control has now taken hold of the
national American psyche as, literally, an everyday occurrence…
(This
is the end of Part II. Part III will be posted tomorrow.)
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