Both noble and petty
The American character veers between two poles
Over the last week, Hurricane Harvey has done enormous damage to southeast Texas. When it is all said and done, it will be the most costly storm in American history — at least in terms of economics. Mercifully, casualties have been kept to a minimum, in no small part because of the intrepid response of federal, state and local officials — as well as average Americans who have volunteered to assist.
Watching events unfold from far away, I cannot help but note that the response to Harvey has been a case study to the bifurcated nature of the American character.
On the one hand, it has been amazing to see the pictures and videos of people volunteering, at great personal risk, to help rescue stranded citizens of the beleaguered city of Houston. It speaks to everything that is great about Americans: our ability to put our differences aside to help each other out of a jam, and to stare down danger without flinching. It reminds me of those old black-and-white pictures of people lining up to volunteer for the armed forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
On the other hand, there has been an endless stream of snark. Oh, did you see Melania Trump’s stiletto shoes? How gauche of her to set out for a flood zone while wearing them! My goodness, Donald Trump didn’t even get close to the devastated areas. How heartless of him! These good-for-nothing Southern rednecks have it coming, anyway, seeing as how they produce the oil and natural gas that causes global warming, which creates storms like Harvey in the first place!
Why are we like this? How is that Americans can be so noble and so petty?
The truth is that we are all just people. James Madison observed that the tendency toward tribalism is “sown in the nature of man.” It stems from differences of religion, geography, employment, wealth and so on. We are even so inclined to fall into “mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”
Today’s politics is definitely on the frivolous side of the spectrum. Everything comes down, it seems, to Trump, Trump, Trump — even though he has gotten no major legislation through Congress and has very dim prospects to do so.
Maybe the smallness of our politics is related to how petulant it has become. We the people perceive no compelling, urgent reason to unite for a common purpose. So, we divide into “parties, inflamed ... with mutual animosity,” as Madison put it, to hurl invective at one another for no other purpose than the benighted satisfaction it brings us.
Maybe this is why our elders can still look back upon a time when politics was more consensus-oriented. The middle half of the 20th century was one of the most difficult periods our country has known. Between 1925 and 1975, we faced a Great Depression, three major wars (World War II, Korea and Vietnam), as well as the Cold War. Americans united in shared sacrifice, because frankly they had no other choice.
Compared with that difficult halfcentury, the nation today is a land of milk and honey; rather than come together in celebration of peace and prosperity, we instead pick the most trivial and insignificant things to quarrel over, because that is just what people do.
The good news is that, as the response to Hurricane Harvey shows, that can-do American attitude is still there, ready to be called upon when need be.
Future generations may look back upon this age and bemoan the many opportunities for concerted action that were wasted by frivolous squabbles. But we in the present can at least rest assured that, though our union seems divided and fractious now, its underlying resolve is still there. Let’s hope that our children and grandchildren will make better use of it than we have.