ALEXANDER HAMILTON WOULD RECOGNIZE US, WOULD LAFAYETTE RECOGNIZE FRANCE?:

America's identity crisis (Toni Momiroski, 10/15/04, Asia Times)

Anthropological instruments are useful for putting order where there is said to be disorder. Particularly useful is the theory of Fredrik 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-cries 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. But the United States is a young nation, and these traditional instruments have never really taken deep root within the psyche of its people.

Instead, the modern equivalent of 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, McDonald's and others.

The modern method of boundary maintenance by the United States has all too often been deficient in shaping identity. Thus it has been necessary to create situations of crisis in order to supplement, correct and maintain the system. After World War 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, reinterpret and portray an image of "self-identity" as well as to confirm this difference to others observing the spectacle.

This is stupid on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. Perhaps it is enough to point out that this essay apparently proceeds from the assumption that America manufactured the Soviet Union and al Qaeda, though its important to also note that we probably have the most cohesive society in the West at this point,. precisely because of our almost universally shared religious and political values, or "myths" as Mr. Momiroski insists on calling them. That would be why, contrary to his assertion, America is probably the oldest society in the world today, its political, economic and social structures more similar to what they were in the late 18th century than anyone elses.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 15, 2004 6:23 PM