The American Lifestlye is Not Negotiable

Does anyone remember this dictum of the early George W. Bush years? One aspect of the general American criticism of Bush that surprises me is how his policies seem to take us by surpise. They shouldn't. Go back and watch the Cheney - Lieberman and Bush - Gore debates from 2000. How we got to where we are today becomes much clearer. If we're honest, we would recognize that America was not so much deceived by Bush as much as Bush effectively held up for us Americans an enormous mirror, and we don't like what we see. The American lifestyle is (irrationally) defended because it is difficult for us to see a unified alternative to our fractionalized society. James Madison and other "founding fathers" built America by utilizing a fundamental disunity to create and encourage a union of disunion. The American dream is a beautiful thing, but a disturbing aspect of its nature is that its fullest realization is not a united society but millions of satiated individuals that have little to do with one another. The American dream isn't to make America better, but to have a bigger house in a bigger yard with a bigger television. It's hard to compromise on this dream if a picture of broader social unity is extremely difficult for Americans to imagine. It also creates a hostile environment for broader social goods. It renders our lifestyles "not negotiable."

Coming to Europe, one realizes that a greater harmony can be achieved by surrendering the American dream for what Dostoyevski termed in Crime and Punishment as one's square meter of space. Having less at home frees the individual to have more elsewhere, to reclaim nature and other aspects of communal health. I perceive this in small ways, such as using stones to build roads in city centers instead of asphalt and reserving areas of cities for footgoers only, and in big ways, such as widespread use of renewable energy and connecting cities, towns and villages through efficient public transportation.

But who is going to call the American dream into question? Compounding our own image problem, it is also what America is most admired for in the world at large. Perhaps if America loses its image as an economic leader in the world as well as a political one, it will offer us an opportunity to rethink our image and goals as a society.