EXTREME AMERICA
By Prayaag Akbar
(Travel Blog: In Covert Magazine)
On television and in newspapers, the voices of conservative commentators veer towards hysteria. They speak of an impending existential crisis in America, of a President who is willing to disrespect the tenets of a 200-year history. The drumbeaters of CNN, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and most other news media proclaim that one of the holiest of their holy principles is being violated, the foundation of their great state, the policy that is more American than the bacon cheeseburger [extra cheese, extra bacon]. Quite simply, they are amazed that a President has been elected who has the audacity to attempt to control the tentacles of unstinting capitalist endeavour. The message is clear: mess with anything, Mr President, but do not mess with the free market.
As one final flip of the finger to the large swathes of the country that came to despise him, when President Bush exited he left a broken down economy and a perilously damaged relationship with most of the world. The new incumbent, President Obama, has had to tackle the backslapping bonhomie that has long existed between corporate interests and political parties in the United States. This crisis has grown from a particular economic climate, one where traders like Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased, where insurance companies were able to reinsure dud investments ad infinitum, where the heads of publicly-held corporations could write themselves bonuses of hundreds of millions of dollars while guiding their companies to hell in a gilded hand basket. Yet now that Obama has confronted these issues with the suggestion of Government-appointed financial overseers, the cries of “Socialist!”, which never left his presidential campaign, have begun to hover over his presidency. Obama is certainly not a socialist. He seems unencumbered by attachment to ideology and willing to tackle individual problems free of the politics of Left or Right, White or Black, Straight or Gay. Why voters and the media seem to prefer politicians with such identifiable baggage, it is hard to say.
The car industry was a symbol of the industrial dominance once enjoyed by the United States. The muscle cars of the 1950s, 60s and 70s were valorised and glorified, in movie after movie, book after book. But their steady decline over the past three decades was visible even when the economy showed no signs of distress. Obama’s plan, to nationalise the car manufacturer General Motors, keeps thousands of jobs in America, as well as protecting one of the great institutions of the country. Yet it is met with ridicule and headlines of “GM now Government Motors”. The idea that any modern economy is allowed to run according to the classical neo-conservative theories of laissez-faire and non-intervention is, in any case, ludicrous. Regulation exists. Thankfully, Obama looks stronger than his critics.
THE REAL QUESTION The media is right that America is facing an existential crisis of sorts, but the question this country is just beginning to ask itself is substantively different. What becomes of a country whose identity is premised upon being at the forefront of the world? Whose people have always considered themselves the vanguards of political, economic, cultural and religious expression? Growing, insatiable economies like China, India and Brazil have all demonstrated a greater capability to rebound, largely because they still have economies that build things. Economies that make things people need even in times of crisis, like steel, sugar, textiles and electronics. The America that used to build things is simply no longer there. The Motor City of Detroit is now a ghost town, full of boarded up shop windows and abandoned factories. The steel capital, Pittsburgh, has been forced to reinvent itself as a university town. Both cities surrendered more than industrial supremacy through the flight of capital to Special Economic Zones in China and India. They surrendered a part of the American story, one there is no guarantee can be returned.
ONE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS theory beloved of scholars in America used to be the Hegemonic Stability Theory, which emerged during the period of peace that followed the Cold War. To simplify it, the theory describes a Pax Americana [Peace through American dominance], as there was once a Pax Romana [Peace under the Roman Empire]. Such a belief, that the world would benevolently look on as the American military-financial complex steamrolled cultures and homes around the globe, has been left in tatters by the rise of terrorist insurgencies. If in 50 years, America finds itself no longer the global hegemon, it will need to fashion a new identity for itself, one that does not derive from expanding its influence over the world.
It is a gloomy picture I have painted here, but it is not the complete picture. For the most part, America remains a land of unrivalled plenty, with scales of consumption and the kinds of choice in food, clothing, entertainment and leisure that even the wealthiest Europeans are amazed by. It is humbling, especially when you consider hubristic comments in India about how if our economic progression continues we might soon be on par with the national wealth of the United States. Even if by some miracle our national wealth reaches that of America, the concentrations of power will ensure that too many people are left out of the economic boom for the numbers to be meaningful.
IT MIGHT NOT fit the popular conception of “the idiot American” that so suited the Bush years, but the governance in this country, especially on domestic issues, has been unparalleled for the last hundred years. I was reminded of this as I drove through Yosemite National Park, a lush outpost of Central California full of giant redwood trees and scalpel-cut granite rocks. The trees sparkled in the intermittent sun, their leaves polished green; dead wood was cut from the boughs; dead grass on the ground was burnt away immediately. Nature flourished here, but in a classic American way, with a team of rangers and foresters constantly monitoring everything, improving the colours, spring-cleaning the vistas. It was magnificent. It made me wonder when Indian national parks would justify such outlay. It is then you are reminded of how many steps America is ahead of us; ahead of everyone in the rest of the world. In this and in so many other avenues of life, the pitfalls that stand in the way of development have been negotiated, some with more success than others. And each has been negotiated to the extent that is required to keep the nation warmly vital in a number of pursuits, from athletics to playwriting. This at a time when in China forests are clear-cut to build massive factories that make sewing machines and electric razors. This at a time when in India we displace thousands of farmers every time a corporation has an idea for a cheaper car. National wealth is one, usually meaningless, measure of development. We have a long way ahead of us.
A CULTURE ALL ITS OWN As intrinsic as politics is to the American conception of nationhood, there are many other facets of their identity, some even more unfathomable to the foreign visitor. For instance, it would be hard to imagine another nation that takes its television viewing so seriously. The sale of its biggest car companies has been the most prominent news story while I have been here. The second? Conan O’Brien taking over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno. Reams of newspaper space were devoted to the switch; not back in the entertainment section, but on the front page. Journalists debated with great earnestness the merits of the comically adventurous O’Brien over Jay Leno, whose show had steadily declined into tepidity. The television is an essential part of Americana, at once uniting a disparate people through the plasma prism they watch. The switch between comedians attracted so much attention because it tells of what millions of Americans will do right before going to sleep. Political strategists will now consider what jokes Conan will make about their candidates where once they had to consider Leno’s take. Movie producers will think of what stance the new host will take on their big-investment movie projects. Culture here is inextricably entwined with television.
Another uniquely American tradition is the propagation of insane activities, or as they like to call it, Extreme Sports. If you can find a snow-covered mountain to propel down strapped to a board, or a bridge or building high enough to parachute from, or a hundred foot long sheer rock face to climb with only your fingers and some rope, you are almost certain to find an American or two indulging in said activities, muttering “Extreme! Extreme!” as they go along. I participated in one such activity, which I would be laughed at if I called an extreme sport, but an activity that nonetheless left my body bruised and battered, an activity to which I shall add elements of danger on every retelling of this story.
My cousins, who were raised in California, drove us out to a place in the Sierra foothills they quaintly called “The Water Slides”. I do not believe it was their intention to mislead, but if I had to choose another name for the place I would perhaps go with “Whitewater Chutes of Sharp, Jaggedy Rocks”, for that is what they actually were. The place was basically an offshoot of a waterfall, where water trickled down quite pleasantly in certain parts and very rapidly in others. My cousin decided to demonstrate how to travel down the slide. His method, which I would not have considered possible before, involved sitting on your behind and basically being thrown by the force of the water down the waterfall, bouncing off rocks on either side all along the way. When he reached the pool in the bottom he got up and yelled [I think it was “Extreme!” but I could not hear] and began to encourage others in our party to do the same.
Once all the other Americans started getting in on the act, hurtling down this rocky slope with huge smiles on their faces as though they were at a particularly hilarious movie, I of course could not shame my country by declining to participate. My instructions were clear: lean in front and keep my arms by my side. But somehow by the time I was sitting in the flowing water, waiting to push myself off, those instructions disappeared completely from my mind, replaced by thoughts along the lines of, “That rock looks very sharp” and “What am I doing here?” Many times I flew down that waterfall at great speed, each time forgetting to stay in front, in fact leaning back as if I was on a reclining chair, but thankfully each time emerging from the water with only a few cuts on the arms and legs and a pair of bruised buttocks.
Then, as a little after dinner snack as it were, we climbed down to a little ledge over a lovely green pond that the waterfall fed. Standing there, with no way to get back to safety and without much warning, my cousin took a couple of steps and jumped into the water 40 feet below. Forty feet does not sound like much on paper, but peering over the edge of that ledge, as the girls we were with stood below filming us, it looked like a whole lot. By this time I had already submitted my fate to whichever God would accept me, so it was not hard for me to jump. What I had failed to notice however was that each of the rest who had jumped had taken a substantial leap. I sort of sauntered off the edge of the ledge, flying down one-two-three seconds through the air perilously close to the cliff, prompting one onlooker to tell me I would have cracked my head open had I leaned back. One cousin called it “the path of least effort and most danger”, which I assumed meant I embodied some sort of Gandhian ideals, but in retrospect might have been a polite way of calling me both lazy and stupid.
I had spent most of the day in a sort of stupor, wondering at the surreal nature of the challenges being placed in front of me, my brain refusing to comprehend that this was something Americans called “fun”. But by the end of it all I was exhilarated beyond words, my heart invigorated and my body racing. Then on the drive back, as I was falling asleep, I think I whispered to myself: “Extreme!”
