It’s not popular or well received, but I take the position that the problems in this country are our fault.
The United States is the freest country in the world. We have unparalleled access to information and unparalleled freedom to express and articulate that information. We vote in free elections (despite the protestations of some) and we gave the people in Congress those jobs.
If we are unhappy with the folks in Congress or the job they are doing, well, who’s to blame?
The people of North Korea have impediments they can point to; they live in a giant totalitarian cult where dissent is not tolerated. We do not have secret police here who will disappear you in some dungeon for lack of fealty to the leadership.
What impediments can we point to? Who is going to arrest you for voicing disapproval in a blog, on a podcast, or in a newspaper you started? Nobody. You can say whatever you want about the president. Knock yourself out.
So, why do we tolerate such bad governance? Why do we not have universal healthcare? (Seriously, why?) Why does Congress not represent what we want? We know very well what Americans want. The data on this is in serious abundance, one need only look. “But can we trust those numbers?” The Fortune 500 trusts them. The government trusts them. If power is okay with that data, I too am okay with it. The results are stable and consistent over now generations. Yes, numbers can be fudged, but not that much. There is too much consistency.
And why would you distrust data that reflects what you likely want? The data synchs with what the majority prefers on just about all major political issues. Why on earth would this arouse suspicion?
This responsibility extends to social maladies like racism and sexism. These two problems did not fall from the sky. And sexism is not just construction workers whistling at women, and racism is not just skinheads and Klan members. I am talking about what I call the “carbon monoxide” variety of these things. The racism that is virtually silent, doesn’t feature hard, explicit language, and is not visible. Racism is like a poisonous fog that we’re all in and all breathing. It affects everyone. How could it not? We’re all immersed in it. And if your reflex is to say, “I’m not a racist!” you’re definitely part of the problem.
The same goes for sexism. We are all at fault (though not equally). Some of the most vicious things I have ever heard said about other women’s bodies have come from women. Women have internalized the ideology and therefore participate in it. The same can be said of the terrible racism (and sexism) that exists in the Black community. Many, many Black students have reported from the front lines and have told me the cruel things Black men say to Black women. So yes, both racist and sexist nastiness can be found in minority groups.
If we want this country to be a better place, we will have to be better. All of us. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics and his Politics, makes this abundantly clear: in order for the city-state to be virtuous, its citizenry has to also be virtuous.
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) had much to say about people’s fear of freedom. We Americans love to carry on about how free we are. But we really want nothing to do with it because of the responsibility that comes with it. The two are directly proportional; as freedom accrues, so does responsibility. The freer you are, the greater the responsibility brought to bear. We are superlatively free and therefore superlatively responsible for the condition our country is in—much more so than the people of North Korea. But, we prefer to act like we live in North Korea: “Taking a stand is hard. What if I get cancelled? The culture frowns upon the outspoken.” A very sad story.
What else is sad is the freest people in the world acting like the least free. I guess we’re free to do that. It depends on how we wish to spend our freedom.
Meanwhile ...
