{"id":610,"date":"2018-09-02T17:50:56","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T00:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=610"},"modified":"2021-05-07T16:48:19","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T23:48:19","slug":"we-americans-1999","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/we-americans-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"We Americans (1999)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Here is an example of someone who reaches a set of ideas that is substantially libertarian through history rather than political theory. This is a book review of John Harmon McElroy\u2019s American Beliefs, published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, in 1999. I had never heard of McElroy, who was a professor at the University of Arizona. But his approach to political questions resonated with me, partly because living outside the United States had made me more aware of my essential American identity. My review was published in Liberty, October 1999.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Americans share certain beliefs. John Harmon McElroy believes all cultures have beliefs in common, and he is interested in exhuming the distinctively American ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What are they? Here\u2019s one. When Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress in 1940 to enact Lend-Lease, whereby a neutral America would give destroyers to Britain and thereby become embroiled in a foreign war, he described it as lending a next-door neighbor a garden hose to put out a house fire. \u201cBy using that particular figure of speech,\u201d Harmon writes, \u201che was able to win the support of the American people and the approval of Congress.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why? Because of an American frontier belief:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Helping others helps yourself.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Another example is welfare. In America, despite half a century of exhortation by social workers, a stigma attaches to welfare that does not attach to Social Security and Medicare. Part of it is because the latter have been packaged as insurance; but a greater part is because they are for old people, who have presumably done their life\u2019s work. In America, handouts for people of working age are not respectable. They conflict with the primary beliefs of American culture:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Everyone must work.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not everyone believes that anymore. A more accurate title of the book would be, \u201cTraditional American Beliefs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0McElroy is a conservative \u2014 not a tub-thumping one, but a thoughtful, historical one, a retired professor of English at the University of Arizona. He is well-read in Madison, Hamilton, Tocqueville, William Bradford\u2019s\u00a0History of Plymouth Plantation,\u00a0<\/i>and many similar works.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His thesis is that every culture has some simple beliefs, philosophical one-liners. Consider that belief, \u201cEveryone must work,\u201d and its corollary:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Manual work is respectable.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Americans believe that, he says, because their ancestors had to believe it. Many other cultures reject it. In some Asian cultures, men grow one long fingernail as a way of bragging about their soft hands. Here a mechanic is respectable. And if fewer Americans these days make a living working with their hands, they remain the world\u2019s champion do-it-yourselfers. Part of the reason goes back to the settlement of the country, in which everybody had to work.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Social equality is an American identifying mark. McElroy tells the story of Queen Elizabeth greeting a woman at an American housing project in 1991. The woman, Alice Frazier, 67, gave QE2 a big hug and said, \u201cHow\u2019re you doin\u2019!?\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was, says McElroy, \u201ca breach of English decorum of shocking proportions… No commoner in England\u2026would ever have hugged Her Royal Majesty on first acquaintance \u2014 or on any subsequent acquaintance either, for that matter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In America, social class is based on individual success. \u201cNo one\u2019s social status in America is ever fully assured,\u201d McElroy writes. And status is a limited concept: The poor\u2019s deference to the rich is limited. Americans would make the world\u2019s worst servants, and it is probably the worst country in which to keep a servant. Writes McElroy, \u201cThe idea of \u2018one\u2019s betters\u2019 is repugnant to an American.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m reminded of H.L. Mencken\u2019s \u201cDeclaration of Independence in American,\u201d in which it says, \u201cMe and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Another key American belief is:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Freedom of movement is needed for success.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Americans had to move to subdue a continent. The average American moves house every seven years. It was not an American who invented the motor car, but it was Americans who embraced it with gusto. Americans gave the world the truck stop, the motel, the mini-storage, the RV and the strip mall.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Most Americans don\u2019t know how American they are. The best way is to live abroad; the next-best is to travel. McElroy said he \u201cbegan to discover my Americanness\u201d living in Spain 30 years ago, when he had to devise a series of lectures on American culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I recall when a Hong Kong physician prescribed me pills and his nurses told me how many of the red ones to take, and how many of the blue ones, but nobody told me what they were. When I asked the nurse, who looked at me as if I were a moron, and said, \u201cThey\u2019re\u00a0medicine.\u201d<\/i>When I looked at her as if\u00a0she<\/i>were a moron, she said, \u201cDo you want them or not?\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Confronted with something outrageous, you want to stand up and say, \u201cHey! This is\u00a0crap<\/i>.\u201d And you realize that you are the only one who thinks that way, because you are an American.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1972 I was approached in Turkey, by a man who wanted to practice English. He started explaining why he hated the Greeks: because they had burned Turkish villages in 1921. He spoke of it as if it were yesterday, though he was too young to have been there. I hear the same attitudes between the Albanians and the Serbs \u2014 but not the Americans, who think they can \u201clend a garden hose\u201d (B-2 bombers, and such) and \u201cput the fire out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAmericans are future-oriented,\u201d writes McElroy. \u201cAmericans do not brood over past wrongs nor allow their lives to be determined by past events.\u201d The recent rise of identity politics contradicts that, but it also runs against a powerful American belief that what counts is the situation now.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And another powerful belief, McElroy writes: \u201cNo group in society has a moral right to claim an interest that is paramount.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Beliefs about money and property are central to Americans, and here McElroy might be challenged. He argues, provocatively, that though Americans honor a self-made person, and that \u201cProperty was the chief outward sign in America of presumptive honesty,\u201d that most Americans do not hope to get rich. \u201cSuccess for most Americans has historically consisted of aspiring\u00a0not to be poor,\u201d\u00a0<\/i>he writes.<\/i><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some of the beliefs McElroy lists are more firmly grounded than others.\u00a0The people are sovereign\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0The majority decides\u00a0<\/i>are indisputable, but\u00a0The least government possible is best\u00a0<\/i>is clearly having a tough time of it.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Many would quibble over his list. A leftist would certainly have emphasized equality more than McElroy, though he did include,\u00a0God gave men the same birthrights.\u00a0<\/i>A critic would have found some American belief that was obviously foolish.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I would have put in something in about a \u201cright to know\u201d certain things, such as what\u2019s in the little red and blue pills. I would also have put something in about the family \u2014 that in America, your family does not choose your life partner, your profession, your religion or make your other major choices. In America you can get away from your family and do what you want. Many Asians, for example revere their families, and criticize Americans for putting their old folks to nursing homes. But they often come to America to get away from their families, to get some breathing space to experience life unsupervised.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The strength of McElroy\u2019s book is to root such beliefs in the early history of the nation. Key American beliefs, he writes, \u201cdeveloped from the situation of civilized men and women living in a Stone Age wilderness\u201d \u2014 an experience that is now at least a full century removed, and is beginning to fade, but in Europe is a millennium or more removed.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the Spanish, Portuguese and French colonies, immigration was limited by number, religious affiliation or nationality. In the English colonies it wasn\u2019t, and an American, melting-pot identity developed sooner. The English expected the colonies to create their own governments and pay for them, including the provision of their own defense. They did, and it made them self-reliant. When England started imposing rules and taxes \u2014 small taxes, at that \u2014 they rebelled.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0English America was settled far later than New Spain, but it declared its independence earlier. The reason, writes McElroy, is that it had developed a culture with different beliefs.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He ends the book by proposing three \u201csuper beliefs\u201d of Americans: individual responsibility, equal freedom and practical improvement. And in defining what is American, he tentatively and briefly defines what is un-American:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOrganizations that aim to restrict the opportunities of other people or to regulate other people\u2019s freedom of advancement may truly be said to be un-American.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This books reminded me of James Q. Wilson\u2019s 1994 book\u00a0The Moral Sense,\u00a0<\/i>which was tried to induce the essence of morality from such things as history, anthropology, psychology, child behavior and animal science. This book attempts to piece together a gut-level American ideology from classic fiction, diaries, documents, history and personal experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Its drawback is that it\u2019s imprecise, and that one could always argue (as I do) that he didn\u2019t get his list of one-liners quite right. The strength of the book is that it is a new way of taking on these things, and that however imprecise they are, the reader will look more closely and recognize a shadow of himself.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a9 1999 Bruce Ramsey<\/span><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Here is an example of someone who reaches a set of ideas that is substantially libertarian through history rather than political theory. This is a book review of John Harmon McElroy\u2019s American Beliefs, published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, in 1999. I had never heard of McElroy, who was a professor at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-610","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1058,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/610\/revisions\/1058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}