What's So Great About America (18 page)

The Islamic view of Western immorality is supported by the observations of many critics within America and Europe. Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic, recently termed the West “the first atheistic civilization in the history of humankind.”
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In 1978, in his famous Harvard address, the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn charged that in the West freedom has become another word for licentiousness, and “man's sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer.”
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Many American conservatives and evangelical Christians share these concerns. Shortly after the September 11 terrorist attack, the editor of the evangelical weekly
World
described the World Trade Center as a modern Tower of Babel dedicated to the “false deities” of materialism, secularism, and relativism.
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On the Right, figures such as Robert Bork, Bill Bennett, and Gary Bauer have warned that
American culture has deteriorated to the point that, in Bork's expression, the U.S. is “slouching towards Gomorrah.”
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Some Americans will find this portrait of their country to be exaggerated and unduly harsh. They will point out, correctly, that many Americans are deeply religious, and that of all First World countries, America has the highest percentage of people who believe in God and go to church.
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While recognizing that America exhibits a good deal of religious and moral diversity, these people note that this is the natural consequence of a society whose people come from different backgrounds and practice different faiths. They argue, too, that Hollywood movies and TV shows are entertainment—they should not be seen as representative of how people really live. The weirdos that we see on daytime talk shows, for instance, are the modern equivalent of circus freaks. Finally, we should note that in recent years crime and illegitimacy rates have declined, so that American culture is healthier in these respects.

While these are valid points, the criticisms of Qutb, Solzhenitsyn, Havel, Bork, and others cannot be so easily dismissed. True, Americans are probably more religious and socially conservative than Europeans, but that is not saying much, considering how decadent the Europeans are. Not withstanding all the picturesque churches that dot the American landscape, religion seems to have little or no public authority over society. And the “death of God” appears to have resulted, just as Nietzsche said it would, in the collapse of traditional morality and the rise of moral relativism. Even people who live upright, good lives have difficulty justifying their choices or regarding them as normative for others. Meanwhile, every depraved pervert—such as Rushdie's American character, who wants to have sex with a goat—can deflect criticism
by invoking the relativist doctrine, “Who are you to impose your values on me?”

The disastrous consequences of this moral upheaval have been compiled by Bill Bennett in his
Index of Leading Cultural Indicators
.
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But they are evident for all to see. America is a country where the traditional family seems to have irretrievably broken down: the typical marriage ends in divorce, and illegitimacy is now common across racial and socioeconomic lines. Behavior that is considered wrong and deviant in many cultures—such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and the use of pornography—is tolerated, if not accepted, in the United States. Newcomers are often shocked by the vulgarity and shamelessness of American popular culture that, even as entertainment, shapes the general tone of society. Perhaps one should not be surprised at the barbarism and weirdness of many American teenagers—their role models are people like Howard Stern, Dennis Rodman, Madonna, and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

Perhaps these anxieties about moral and cultural breakdown are mainly felt by conservatives, who tend to define morality narrowly in terms of what it is good to do (or, more precisely, not to do). But morality as classically understood also includes what it is good to be, and what it is good to love. This broader view of morality gives rise to a set of problems that is widely acknowledged throughout the culture. Thoughtful observers have noticed that Americans are extremely unsure of who they really are, what their highest priorities should be, and whether they are truly happy. Many people—not just young people but middle-aged guys like Newt Gingrich and Al Gore—go through identity crises in which they have to “find themselves.” Life in the United States is characterized
by a peculiar restlessness and angst, even in the midst of prosperity. Many Americans seek a higher sense of meaning or significance in their lives, yet it remains elusive, just over the horizon. Despite the gregariousness and affability of Americans, friendship and community appear to be scarce commodities in the United States. People are constantly in pursuit of love “relationships,” yet few of these prove to be lasting. In most countries married life comes easily—its success is taken for granted—but in America married life is a struggle, and even happy marriages are haunted by the shadow of divorce.

All of this adds up to a powerful critique, which states that in America freedom has established itself as the highest value and has fatally undermined other cherished values. In other words, the triumph of freedom comes at the expense of decency, community, and virtue. Freedom in America means choice, and from the perspective of the critics, choice has been deified without regard to the content of choice. Consequently morality withers, and even choice itself ceases to matter because there is no significance to what one chooses. Good choices, bad choices: no one really cares. The result, in this view, is a debauched, demoralized, unhappy society. What is so great about American freedom if it leads to such deplorable results?

I
n this chapter I will argue that the critics who denounce the culture in this way are missing something vitally important about America. But we cannot deny that the problems they describe are real. What, then, is their cause? One answer, given
by many Islamic writers and some people in the U.S. as well, is that the American system of technological capitalism is to blame. Early in the twentieth century the economist Joseph Schumpeter predicted that technological capitalism would produce massive social upheaval. In Schumpeter's view, technological capitalism unleashes a “gale of creative destruction” that undermines traditional institutions and traditional values.
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Clearly there is some truth to Schumpeter's analysis. Consider the one thing that has done more to undermine morality in America than the combined influence of Darwin, Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche. I speak, of course, of the automobile. Before the era of the automobile most Americans lived on farms or in small towns. Their virtue and chastity were sustained by the moral supervision of the local community. A man looks out of his window. “Isn't that Art Buckner's son? What's he up to? Hey! Stop that! Get out of there!” What destroyed this comprehensive moral ecosystem was the car. By providing universal access to the city, the car helped to bring about the end of a whole way of life in America. The point of this example is not to oppose cars, or to advocate that they be outlawed, but to show that the apparatus of modern technology makes inevitable some degree of moral change.

Technology has also helped to change women's roles and thus to destabilize traditional “family values.” Here the great catalyst of social transformation was the mass movement of women into the workplace. Feminists fought for women's right to have careers, but their success was made possible by the pill, the vacuum cleaner, and the forklift. Think about this: only a few decades ago, housework was a full-time occupation—cooking and cleaning took up virtually the whole day. The vacuum cleaner and other domestic
appliances changed that. Until recently, work outside the home was harsh and physically demanding. Forklifts and other machines have reduced the need for human muscle. Finally, before the invention of the pill, women could not effectively control their reproduction, and therefore, for most women, the question of having a full-time career simply did not arise.

Like technology, capitalism has had a transforming effect on mores. Capitalism produces mass affluence, and mass affluence extends to ordinary people the same avenues of fulfillment—and of debauchery—previously available only to the upper class. Capitalism also produces a dynamic, mobile society in which people rarely end up living where they were born. Indeed, the average American moves a dozen times over the course of his life.
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Only the “nuclear family” holds together; the extended family is scattered. Mobility also makes it difficult for Americans to form lasting friendships or to develop an enduring sense of community. Most relationships under capitalism are based on contract and mutual convenience. The commercial and social motto of America is: “Have a nice day.” The pursuit of success under capitalism is also very time consuming and tends to shut out other demands on one's time. In Third World countries, if someone comes a long distance to see you, a month-long visit is considered insultingly short; in America, even relatives are expected to leave within a few days. While Americans treat others with respect and courtesy, they are not, in general, known for their hospitality.

The social traits I have here described are intrinsic to a free society oriented around technology and commerce. Important though they are, they are not the full story. To complete the story, we must examine the big change that came about in the 1960s,
and was consolidated in the 1970s. You can see physical evidence of this change at the Yale Club in New York, where the photographs of Yale graduates are displayed. Through the 1950s and 1960s, these graduates present a neat, clean-cut appearance. Then, around 1969, the photographs tell a different story. The hair of the men gets longer, the hair of the women gets shorter. The hippie and the freak become recognizable social types. By the 1970s these changes have shaped virtually the whole class: the vast majority of graduates are seen sporting a languid, disheveled, rebel look. We can see a similar change by comparing the Beatles in the early 1960s with the Beatles in the early 1970s. By themselves these changes are merely cosmetic, but I am suggesting that they are outward manifestations of a much deeper alteration of outlook.

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a moral revolution in the United States in which the idea of freedom was extended beyond anything the American founders envisioned. The change can be described in this way. The American founders believed that all people share a basic human nature, and therefore they want pretty much the same things in life. The founders set up a regime dedicated to three types of freedom—economic freedom, political freedom, and freedom of speech and religion—so that people could pursue happiness, or what we call the “American dream.”

But this notion of freedom was radicalized in the 1960s. The change was brought about by the “counterculture,” the mélange of antiwar activists, feminists, sexual revolutionaries, freedom riders, hippies, druggies, nudists, and vegetarians. Rebels they all were, and bohemians of one sort or another. The great thinker who stood behind them, the philosopher of bohemia, was Rousseau. This is not to say that Rousseau
caused
the social revolution.
But he articulated its complaints and aspirations in the most eloquent, profound way. By examining Rousseau and what has been termed his “romantic” philosophy, we can more deeply understand the important moral shift that has occurred in America in the past few decades.

R
ousseau was a deeply strange man. It has been said of him that he labored under the illusion that changes within his own life mirrored the great transformations of Western civilization. (Some have accused me of operating under the same delusion.) Many aspects of Rousseau's thought are misunderstood. Upon receiving a copy of Rousseau's
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
, Voltaire wrote to him, “The desire to walk on all fours seizes one when one reads your work. Unfortunately I lost that habit more than 60 years ago.”
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Even today the popular impression is that Rousseau wanted us to abandon civilization and live the life of a noble savage. But Rousseau explicitly disclaims any such intention. “Although I want to form the man of nature,” he writes, “the object is not to make him a savage and relegate him to the depths of the woods.”
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So, too, many people misunderstand Rousseau's concept of the “general will” as constituting some kind of an apologia for totalitarianism. In fact, Rousseau was a champion of radical freedom. We can see this by focusing on a central element of Rousseau's thought—the one that pertains to the “new morality” of the 1960s.