American Hubris Gets Kicked in the Balls
As I say farewell to the most dramatic year of my 71-year long life, I take with me one abiding image. It is of a group of armed men standing on the steps of the Michigan, Ohio State Court House, protesting covid-19 lockdown and the use of face masks. These over-privileged, protected, indulged, but psychologically weak men, drew on a singular rhetoric to justify their actions; the discourse of ‘freedom’, ‘rights’, ‘choice’ and ‘end to tyranny’.
‘Freedom’ is, without question, the most abused word in the English language.
MAGA caps, battle fatigues and assault rifles don’t just symbolise a country at war with itself, they illustrate the larger decline of Westernism/Americanism. While we can certainly trace this decline back to the 60s — the assassinations of Kennedy and King, the debacle of the Vietnam War, the Chicago riots — only in 2020 did it become apparent for all to see.
And for that I thank Covid-19.
The world has suffered under the falsity of American rugged-individualism for far too long. We have unquestioningly accepted America’s self-image of exceptionalism. We have been seduced by Hollywood culture, the lone male against authority, the violent individualist; from Rambo to Billy the Kid, Al Capone to The Joker these males have been idolised.
We have made such men into heroes when what we should have done is submit them for psychological analysis.
We have failed to see that these real and imagined men represent a damaged male psyche, a toxic masculinity which is nourished by the avid entrepreneuralism of unfettered neo-liberalist capitalism.
Covid-19 has done us all a favour. It has single-handedly demolished the illusion of America as the Best Nation on Earth. That so many gun-toting Americans could believe such rubbish can only be explained by the fact the so few of them have passports — they’ve never set foot outside their own state.
2020 has exposed the rotting underbelly of American life and it’s not a pretty sight. White men carrying expensive weaponry, clad in expensive fatigues, driving expensive pick-ups, fattened by expensive fast-food and claiming they are subject to ‘tyranny’ from their government has to be one of the most ironic images ever produced by humans. It would be laughable were it not for the fact that these individuals, both men and women, clearly know nothing of tyranny nor, indeed, discrimination. They only know the word, they do not understand its meaning.
The very same culture that produces Barak Obama somehow manages to also produce Donald Trump. Which is like a doctor telling a patient their heart is 100% healthy but unfortunately, they have stage 4 liver cancer.
Go into most any US school and you can be sure the WW2 history lesson spends more time on Iwo Jima than Stalingrad.
When (white) Americans can only see themselves as heroes and saviours of the world, how does that affect their relationship to the rest of us? Not with respect, that is for sure.
The brash, loud, self-congratulatory arrogance which we’ve all seen from Americans over decades sits in stark and telling contrast to their utter failure as a nation, and of its elected leaders, to even remotely handle covid-19. But not just Americans. The ‘great’ former colonial powers of Spain, Britain, Italy and France are similarly humbled. The historical sense of racial and cultural supremacy which has taken root in the Western world over many centuries looks mightily reduced today.
Given what we are witnessing in the USA, UK and France, there is little hope of the Western world providing the necessary global leadership to see us tackle global warming, climate change, or indeed the next global virus.
For that leadership we will have to turn East, to Asia.
And the reason being is not because the Asians have better political policies than Western nations, nor cleverer politicians, but because they are more cohesive as nations.
The idea that rugged (Western) individualism can save us was always a fallacy — entertaining in movies but pathetic in reality. What can only save humanity is what has always saved humanity in times of disaster and crisis — community strength, sacrifice, responsibility and cohesion.
Living in Asia, I see Asian governments make many of the same mistakes as Western ones, but what I don’t see is a rampant individuality. The very idea that Thais, Chinese, or Japanese would regularly physically attack each other over the use of face masks, or stand in front of a court house armed with assault rifles shouting ‘freedom’ because of lockdown, is just unthinkable.
In Bangkok, Taipei, Manila, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Singapore or Hong Kong, men and women have quietly worn face masks, adhered to lockdown rulings, and tried to make the best of it. Not because they necessarily love their governments, but because it is the right thing to do and as members of a collective community, they recognise a responsibility to each other.
Unlike many of their American and European counterparts, Asian males have not felt emasculated at having to wear a face mask. Sure, they have suffered from Covid just as much as any people, but they’ve not turned this suffering into anger and violence against others, into incoherent rants of rage about tyranny, freedom and choice.
The end of days of the trumpeting of Western individualism as the inevitable future of humankind has been steadily building up for decades, probably since 1945.
2020 marked the moment when Western and especially American hubris met its long-coming nemesis. The inflated gonads of Western individualistic selfish masculinity have been given a most welcome kicking.
What we need now is a lot less American individualism and a lot more Asian collectivism.
Dr Stephen M. Whitehead, author of ‘Toxic Masculinity’, (Andrews, 2019). www.stephenwhitehead.org
