THE DANGER OF LIVING IN THE "PERPETUAL UTTERANCE OF SELF-APPLAUSE"

The popular song of the WW I era, "How will you keep 'em down on the farm (after they've seen Paree)?" (by Lewis, Young and Donaldson, 1918) underscored the troubling question about the perceptions of returning doughboys and how they might change once they were exposed to the wider more sophisticated world in Europe. Perhaps Lewis and Young who wrote the lyrics were aware of our isolation, and insularism, and saw it as a potential problem as far back as the outbreak of WWI, nearly a hundred years ago. Today, that problem has not ameliorated much, even with all our scintillating technology, i-pads, i-pods and i-phones, pulsing internet, a decade of deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to the Middle East,(and still little change in interest in the languages and cultures there) and our frequent TV watching and movie-going. We continue as a big, isolated nation, ignorant and unconcerned about what is really going on beyond our shores. Much of this is a result of our history, our great physical size and our pride, but neither can we deny our poor educational outcomes, and embarrassing lack of interest in foreign languages and intolerance of other cultures. This ignorance prevents our citizenry from establishing a meaningful "national yardstick" with which they could compare our nation with others. Most of our national leaders would discourage such kind of thinking. They would rather keep the vast majority of us ignorant.

Too often, I hear people, like a relative of mine---(name withheld to avoid embarrassment)---who shuns foreign excursions--his reason: "We are the greatest nation in the world. What do I gotta see, in France?"

The problem with America may be that too many of us "ain't seen Paree", rather than too few.

Which brings to mind an interesting piece entitled: "America's season of hollow boastfulness", by Edward Luce, which appeared in the Financial Times, (September 9, 2009). The author examines the tendency of our politicians (and unquestioning journalist corps) to be over-expansive or jingoistically boastful about America during this 2012 campaign.Politicians in the throes of a campaign seem to be obliged, according to Luce, to favor swagger, boast, and national-aggrandizement as a means of attempting to increase their popular vote---though they almost always avoid discussion of our real and pressing problems. According to him, this unpleasant trend is especially apparent during this 2012 campaign. Luce states: "Tucked into Mitt Romney’s recent acceptance speech was a line that captured the hubristic side to America’s 2012 campaign. Praising Neil Armstrong, Mr Romney said the astronaut personified the American character: “That unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American......He added the obligatory line – also common among Democrats – that the US is 'the greatest nation in the history of the world'".

Luce reminds us that "from the nation’s birth, America’s leaders have detected the hand of providence in its journey. But since the attacks of September 11, 2001, oratorical jingoism has become blunter and more widespread. Alexis de Tocqueveille said that Americans lived in “the perpetual utterance of self-applause. To one degree or another most nations now share that impulse. But America has entered a new season of hollow boastfulness."

Luce digs for examples of historic American braggadocio from as far back as President Lincoln, who, used the line ( “last best hope of earth"), Franklin Roosevelt (“nothing to fear but fear itself”), Ronald Reagan (“shining city on a hill”), and even Michelle Obama (“the greatest nation on earth”).

Luce claims that our modern election campaigns indulge in hollow boasts and "in national denial". He states, "Whether you call it a one-way conversation or a dialogue of the deaf, campaign 2012 is steeped in denial."The US has real problems and deficiencies but who will face them or begin to seek a solution if our leaders saturate us with, "hollow boastfulness" or engage in "perpetual utterances of self-applause"? Who will listen to those that suggest change if there is no belief that change is necessary.

But on the other hand, we don't have to seek too far to establish facts that will help clear the miasma created by the blow hard politicians, crowing over American greatness and exceptionalism and ignoring our problems which beg for solution.

In a study of modern economic theories I discovered that the model for the economic policy favored by Republican politicians and rightward leaning economists (the Austrian or Chicago School) is known as the the "American Model" and is different from that which is favored by German, French and other economists. How does it work? It doesn't work so good, in fact. It is the model used here in the last several decades and which ended us in the trash heap of the Great Recession. The American model is reported to "promote low wages and high inequality." Wait! That is not good. Nothing to boast about there.

But there is more. Economic studies show that the USA, due in large part to its Republican-style neoliberal polices; has low wages and high wage and wealth inequality. In the US, only 40% of our workers are adequately employed, ( and these data predate the current great recession) the other two thirds are either working for very low wages (30%) or are underemployed. That's nothing to be proud of.Several studies show that deliberate neoliberal polices (supported most vociferously by the GOP) encourage "anti-unionism", and "profiteering in the health industry". I can not write a glowing report to my London relatives about that. In comparison to other modern democracies , the US has "substantial levels of social exclusion" ( meaning not all social groups have access to the same level of education, opportunities of employment, housing and health care). We have higher levels of income inequality than most European nations ( differences in wealth and wages between the rich and poor are greater than other equally wealthy nations and that results in a restricted smaller middle class). Furthermore, regarding poverty--We have high rates of it on absolute terms (not relative to our population size). In education, we have poor and unequal educational outcomes (our kids go through our school, but find themselves un-prepared for employment or higher education). In health care we pay a lot more than other nations, but have poor health outcomes (we spend more on health care but are sicker longer and don't live as long as other equally advanced nations). As regards crime, we are king in that category! We have high rates of crime and staggering rates of incarceration (we jail more people than any other nation in the world). It's easy to dumped into a cell here in the US, but climbing up on the ladder of success is more difficult for us. We have lower levels of economic mobility (its harder for a plumber's kid here in the US to move up into an executive position in a corporation than in any other country in western Europe). So, I can't boast about any of that stuff to my French friends!

Studies of policies in vogue here (i.e. GOP style neoliberalism) with its vaunted "labor-market flexibility" (the term refers to a company's policies regarding hiring and firing employees, and the modern trend toward part-time or "flex jobs) show that such polices do not improve labor-market outcomes. In other words "It ain't good for business in the long run." These circumstances in the US give us no valid reason to swagger.

We got problems! And we got to stop this phony bragging. It only digs the hole deeper. In the end, objective analysis reveals, we are not so good at a lot of things, but it is very worrying to think that we might not be smart enough to know it.

Now that would be a problem!

Get the picture?

rjk