Visiting America- New York– for a Passover trip, I am reminded of the sheer abundance, the overwhelming profusion of goods and services and lush forests, buildings and bars, people of every color, options of entertainment and amusement and food… in the city it’s even more so, if you have the money you can order literally ANYthing to your apartment at any time of day or night…
Given that so much of human struggles for the last several thousand years have dealt with simply having enough, materially, I don’t want to be too quick to dismiss this land of plenty as empty materialism. There IS something special about the American Dream, in spite of such excess, obesity, and greed as we see today. America and Israel are the only two nation-states on earth specifically founded on an ideal rather than mere accidents of history, ethnicity, or empire. Individual pursuits in almost any field are encouraged, if you have initiative and stubbornness there are genuine opportunities, there is money, even a black man can become president…
The devil’s side of the bargain is a certain disconnect, an alienation from specific identity, from place, from heritage, to join in the game that’s being enacted. As there are so little real consequences to financial irresponsibility– one can declare bankruptcy, start over, even many times– then there really is no reason not to pursue one’s dreams, to feel ‘freedom’ is something tangible, a sense of limitless possibility is still something that shines to the world. And the super rich can lose far more money than us little people and get bailed out by the government, thus reminding all of us that these green pieces of paper are really just part of the game, none of it is real, don’t you want to play?
Yet individual fulfillment is really the ceiling, because the values of the collective culture don’t have space, don’t even have language, for other kinds of purpose. I saw this among native Americans, this disinterest in the game… and then I drank the Zionist kool-aid and moved to Israel. Now I’m an outsider, seeing the American dream with the eyes of someone who has a way OUT.
And more clearly than ever before, I see the danger for Jews to be in America. I don’t think one can be both. Not on the level of loyalty: American Jews certainly have demonstrated that they can place America’s interests over those of Israel’s when they conflict (see Kissinger, Ross, etc.) and even American Israel advocacy organizations are conscious of the need to find common causes and arguments that Israeli and American interests coincide. Not on the level of anti-semitism: America may be the most open and welcome Jewish diaspora home ever, even including the original Babylon. But for a Jew to be alive to being a Jew, then he is merely an individual if he lives in America– sure, with all those possibilities of personal growth and fulfillment, but cut off from the true drama of Jews in the world today, which no matter how you cut it, is manifest and expressed in the holy land.
It’s a trite truism that one’s consciousness changes when one becomes or builds a family– not just in it for yourself anymore, the values change, the responsibilities change. Even or especially with dysfunctional families. Well it’s not so different with tangibly and physically joining the project of the Jewish people attempting to live in the Land of Israel. This is not about justifying the flawed secular modern Israeli nationalism; increasingly Jewish identity in the holy land is a hybrid of ancient and modern ideologies, of religious and tribal and ethnic resonances, which cannot be reduced to any one of those. Many Israelis, and Jews who live in Israel, wouldn’t even know how to start describing the sources or reasons for their sense of purpose in living there. It’s not necessarily coming from a rational or logical place.
Yet right from that alleged irrationality comes the only truly rational, sustainable basis for long-term human life anywhere on earth. Modernity, secularity, is inescapably cosmopolitan and rootless; only by believing one’s great-grandchildren will inhabit and inherit the same land, can one take the kind of responsibility for the earth that is needed. Consumerism will cannibalize all our land, all our resources, unless a corresponding counterweight is found in the committment of a tribe to a homeland. Jews, as the paradigmatic exiled people, as the tribe whose stories of enslavement and dispersion and persecution have been writ large for the world to see, can show the way for all the world’s alienated people to become re-grounded, in their own identities and heritages, and even to rebuild such basic human birthright where all history has been lost.
Tags: abundance, America, American Dream, Babylon, bankruptcy, debt, greed, hedonism, history, idealism, Israel, materialism, money, television, values
April 14, 2009 at 1:37 pm |
America, in my opinion, is still stifled by English tradition. Freedom of mind and spirit as it is championed in the “American Dream” is a rather expensive endeavor. Capitalism strives on consumerism and in a land where green paper is as renewable as the credit line you claim it is (which it is not), idealism is traded like a commodity for the goods and services available. This, of and within itself, is not bad- it is a luxury. The price paid for such goods and services are all part of the financial architecture of American culture (read English culture). The real price paid is a total lack of true American identity. This was the most interesting part of your post. And it is what encouraged me to engage in dialogue. I agree with most of what you say. I only have a different take on the matter…
I am mostly Italian with a little German in me while living in America under English tradition while under the influence of Christian thought and dogma but at the same time live in a uniquely large Jewish population during which I find myself more and more atheist and antiestablishment. So what am I? Who am I?
I am a computer tech and I am a rock and roll drummer. Tradition has served me no purpose and so long as we learn from history, tradition, like religion, serves to temper and mould the spirit and mind. A livelihood void of tradition and religion is like putting a blank canvas before an artist. Therefore, if America is as you say it is and is unique in that it is “founded on an ideal” (which I whole-heartedly believe is true), we as “REAL” Americans ought to justify our being not by the traditions and religions of empires past- but through revolution, let us claim our own essence and be tied not to tradition or religion but bound by our own principles that are free from previous coercion (whether it be political or religious). Americanism is the passion of the artist, of the philosopher, of the musician and of the poet.
So long as the current power structure that extends beyond the political boundaries of America does not interfere with the endeavors of its citizens, America will be a great place to live.
April 14, 2009 at 9:23 pm |
That’s good analysis. I’ll have to think about it awhile. Thanks.
April 14, 2009 at 11:28 pm |
Yes I think American identity IS something real– it is about freedom to be renewed, reinvented, to pursue ‘happiness’ and an infinite number of interests and hobbies and careers, without barriers to entry based on color or ethnicity or religion. The willingness to embrace that constant renewal makes one an American, I think.
But that’s hand in hand, as you say, with revolution, you hit the nail on the head Mike. Some of the founders, especially Jefferson, envisaged revolutions once a generation! That was part of the rationale for the right to bear arms… that in order for the ‘republic’, for citizenship, for American freedom to continue to mean something, it had to literally be re-revolutionized, that everyone should feel the thrill the founding fathers felt when they broke away from the British. The first big event after the constitution was the Whiskey Rebellion!
And even the Civil War amounted to a revolution, by southern conservatives… some say there WOULDA been more revolutions in the 20th century but they got derailed by the World Wars, which made America way more totalitarian (not necessarily evil like fascism and communism, but massively empowered the state.) The 60s also was a near miss, an almost-revolution, and I was around the 1999-2000 protests which amounted to a stillborn revolution. American freedom, without which American identity is hollow, MUST be renewed by radicalism. But you’re right that the current power structure is too strong… as the TAZ points out http://www.hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html our revolutionary acts need to be inventive, new, we can’t attack it head on.
But I don’t have the answers… and I’ve partly removed myself from the game, by moving to another revolutionary polity in Israel…
April 15, 2009 at 5:02 pm |
The best way to revolt here in America is to revolt against the Federal Reserve System- not our politicians unless the spineless leaches hide behind the all mighty dollar- err.. I mean, the almighty lobbyists of the Finance Industry! That bastard birth of a national bank has hijacked American politics and is slowly killing the American spirit among its own citizens. If we all refuse to submit to the demands of the IRS, they can’t send us ALL to jail, can they?
I’m hosting a Tea Party. Who wants to come!?!?!?