Manufacturing the Enemy: American Identity Crisis

The idea of “Perpetual Wars” is not a new concept. Finding justifications for such acts however, is a complex matter and it differs from one society to the next.

When addressing the issue of warmongering by states recently, the media has focused on the question: Why did the United States invade Iraq? In their answers they have dwelt at length on apportioning blame to others such as Iraq, Afghanistan and even individual personalities. If it’s not Saddam, then they have argued it might be Osama. And if not these two, then it was Chalibi and company who lied America into situations of conflict. Some have used the justification blanket-term "terrorism" to explain all recent conflicts. While others still, have postulated a Zionist conspiracy with the Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as its ring-leader. The issue of oil too, has not been left wanting either.

The whitewash of recent American actions turn on the belief that the west, America in particular, can do no wrong. That their actions are deemed "just" because history and God are on their side. That all acts have a cause and effect cycle. That this cycle was forced upon them and can explain how things are. There is however, an alternative view because there is never just one truth, but many.

The alternative is to argue that America today is undergoing a social identity crisis of vast proportions because the glue that holds the population together is spread so thin. The intellectuals and policymakers appear to be devoid of ideas as to how to steer the population in the right direction to make this great nation what its founders originally conceived. War seems to be the only answer that has received currency of late.

It remains possible that war has always been the driving force that shaped American self-identification. War for America has become an important tool for holding this group of people together who find themselves with very few things in common in today’s busy "corporate warfare-state."

Anthropological instruments are useful for putting order where there is said to be disorder (Momiroski T., 1993, 2003, 2004). Particularly useful is the theory of Barth (1969) whose views about social interactions can be modified to take in America as we know it today.

Briefly, he argues that we know who we are because we know who we are not. We demonstrate our difference in everyday pragmatic life by making use of “easily noticeable diacritica" to advertise identity. For America, traditional icons and catch-cry’s such as, “land of the free” and “land of the brave” have played an important role for American self-identification and as advertisements to others of this difference.

In old societies, instruments such as folk songs, dress, humor, and in particular language and religion have served as glue that held those societies together. America is a young nation; these traditional instruments have never really taken deep root within the psyche of the people.

Instead, the modern equivalent for boundary maintenance for Americans have been the myths of: free enterprise, democracy, capitalism, Christian morality and beliefs, and folk legends such as MTV, IBM, MS, KFC, Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds and others.

The modern method of boundary maintenance by America has all too often been deficient in shaping identity, so that it has been necessary to create situations of crisis in order to supplement, correct and maintain the system. Following WW II it was the Cold War and Vietnam that served this function. Today it is the threat of Terrorism.

All of these conflicts have played important functions to interpret, re-interpret and portray an image of “self-identity” both to themselves of who they are as well as to confirm this difference to others observing the spectacle.

However, this method of meaning-making which utilizes war as the chief variable for self-identity only serves the short-term purpose of Nationalism and self-identity in the face of threat. In the long term, it is quickly exposed as one-eyed and ill-conceived in time of peace. It is for this reason that administrators and policy makers have had to seek new frontiers and adventures to keep the population diverted from the harder issues of self-identification. It is not the economy then, that attention is diverted from, but the bigger question of: Who is American? What is America? and, Why?

Another social theorist, Ford (1983), can help to fill in the gaps in the present argument about the role of war in American self-identification. He argues that the ritual content which “results from purposive interaction between individuals determined by their interpretations of the ritual’s interactive situation” is very important for self-identity. In the former, war functions as a vehicle to highlight differences of national or ethnic consciousness, while in the latter the ritual of real or perceived threat provides a “means of social boundary maintenance."

Ritual behavior results from purposive interactions between individuals which is a part of a strategy of maintenance. War and all public displays of war, in the same way that religious worship does, are forums where interactions are crucial to identity. Here, "identities are confirmed and interpersonal commitments are established that are essential to continuing membership in the community from which support and assistance can be mobilized.” Confirmation has the effect of maintaining, reproducing and transmitting a sense of “group well being” and solidarity for those within the group, and as a spectacle to portray this view to those outside it. America is healthy, because Americans believe it to be and have rallied behind a cause deemed worth fighting for, while others accept this as fact unquestionably because difference highlights what they are not – American.

Successive American governments are not alone in manufacturing the essence of the American character utilizing war mythology. In partnership with Hollywood they have sawn and legitimized a whole new American "quilt" – where the average American of whatever persuasion or belief system melts naturally into his army uniform. Differences in this conceptualization of what it means to be American are skimmed over or dismissed as un-American. David Robb makes this point abundantly clear in his interview with Jeff Fleischer titled "How the Pentagon bullies movie producers into showing the U.S. military in the best possible light" (September 20, 2004):

“They're being saturated with military propaganda in their mainstream movies and TV shows, and they don't even know. But I think there's a very good argument that can be made that over the past 50 years, this chronic sanitization of the military and what war is has affected the American character; that we're now a more warlike people than we were 50 years ago. Clearly, there are also other reasons, but I think when the world's most powerful medium colludes with the world's most powerful military to put propaganda in mainstream films and television shows, that has to have an effect on the American psyche."

The idea of “Perpetual Wars” then, whether real, imaginary, or manufactured have come to serve a social function for young and modern nation states. Unmasking this function of war is important for understanding how world events have unfolded recently. Just observing, detailing and reporting these events by the media, as well as noting the various similarities between them, the various personalities and threats is not an ingenious and creative way to deal with conflict in societies.

All societies throughout history have confronted conflict in their own way. America is no stranger to conflict. But what does it mean? There is always another way of seeing. It is time we took another look at events. After all, it's not seeing with the "eyes" that leads us to truth, but to explore all of the various possibilities to current dilemmas towards solution that really leads to a way out and a way forward.

And it’s apt to end this column with the words of Dr. Teresa Whitehurst in her piece "As I Lay Crying: On feeling what no patriotic American is supposed to feel." She easily locates the pragmatic function that war has in the American psyche in daily life today. The "inclusive" and "excluding" nature is quickly unclothed. In her moment of weakness she has feelings she ought not have:

“I know that I have not been “all that I can be” as an American. Even as a Christian, I am aware that I am a disappointment to those who have adjusted Christianity’s less popular elements to fit the doctrine of eternal war – war conducted by the people and for the people, killings that are done only by accident and for the very best of reasons."

And further fills in the dynamics of meaning-making in daily life in a nation where the preoccupation with war has skewed everyday realities. And it must – because it is a necessary function of well being:

"….I read it on a blog, so I know it’s true. The U.S. would never kill innocent people intentionally. It isn’t killing when you don’t target the civilians – it’s just a part of war. Photos of babies and children supposedly killed by allied forces should not be believed. Or, if one does believe the pictures, one must understand that somebody else killed them because the U.S. would never do that. And if it did do that, it wasn’t intentional. It was an accident. It was war. Just a part of war. We have to understand that. Nobody’s to blame. I read it on a blog….”

Dr.Whitehurst rightly locates the theoretical framework I speak of here. In one act she cleanses her own sin and provides a framework for understanding a complex society at work. It is a bizaro world where everything is upside down. In this world, denial leads to redemption. Redemtion offers renewed membership to the group. Inclusion to the group is a function of "patriotism." Patriotism ensures that the nation is healthy again. Reality has been reformulated (transformed and reproduced). At the end of the day each citizen exclaims: “I know who I am, because I am not like you”? Society has undergone its periodic maintenance. America and Americans are well, and everyone lives happy ever after.

References:

Barth F., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Little, Brown Co., 1969, Boston.

Ford, G. (1983) Za Dusha: An Interpretation of Funeral Practices in Macedonia, Symbolic Interaction Volume 6, 1-2 Spring pp.19–34. (Jai Press, Inc.) at (Ford,1983:22).

Momiroski, T. “Nasite Granici: Macedonian Group Boundaries 1900 to 1945.” J Intercultural Studies (Melbourne Australia) 14 (1993): 35–52.

Momiroski,T. “The Jewish Group: Highlighting the Culture Problem in Nation-States.” The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution, 5.1 (2003).

Momiroski, T. “The Jewish Group: Highlighting the Culture Problem in Nation-States.” Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) 5, 1 (03/04/2004): 1–16.

David, R. Interviewed By Jeff Fleischer, "How the Pentagon bullies movie producers into showing the U.S. military in the best possible light." 20th September, 2004.

Whitehurst, T. "As I Lay Crying: On feeling what no patriotic American is supposed to feel" 1st, October, 2004.

October 11, 2004