I was in a discussion a while ago about Islamic culture when someone argued that the Islamic world hates America. "Look at what goes on there," he said, "they're burning flags and shouting death to America." What I inferred from his context is that these people held not only a hatred for America, but an unfounded one at that, a prejudice. Ignoring the part about the Islamic world and expanding this discussion to the entire world, I would like to beg the question, is this hate really a prejudice? In other words, is this hate unfounded?
I say the entire world because there seems to be some level of dissatisfaction with our country in just about every other country on the planet. Perhaps the word hate is extreme in certain countries, I saw a program where they interviewed French citizens about their opinions on the United States. While overwhelmingly negative, they didn't seem vociferous enough to warrant the qualification of hate. On the extreme end of the spectrum, though, you have flag burning, effigy burning, and chants of death to America, which certainly seem to indicate an active hatred. Perhaps generalizing the two and any who fall in between is too broad a generalization, but it serves my purposes so far as this discussion is concerned. If I can justify the extreme end of the spectrum, speaking only in terms of sentiment and non-violent protest and not extremist violence, then the more muted disdain for the United States should naturally be justified as well.
Is this hatred unfounded? That is the question that draws the line between hatred and prejudice, a concrete justification of one's views. In the United States, African slaves and their descendants were largely viewed as mentally inferior, a prejudice due to a lack of scientific support for that position. We now know, in fact, that there is no genetic difference in the mental capacity of dark and light-skinned humans thanks to our advanced science. On the other hand, one might say there was a hatred of the white populations by enslaved Africans, such as in Haiti where the first successful slave revolt took place, and why not? Is that an unjustified hatred, one that is directed at the people who displaced you from your homeland, shipped you across the world in dank ships like cargo, and sold you to a life of hard labor? There is no prejudice there, an extreme reaction is not only justified but should be reasonably expected.
Can the same be said, though, of a hatred of the United States? Are these people just prejudiced? Are they simply jealous of our successful society, wishing themselves to elevate themselves from their current state? Curious, that the language here even resembles that used to justify slavery in the past. These people are savages we said, they know nothing of higher learning, only labor. At least we can use their barbaric nature to further our great society, and by providing that labor they can be part of something greater than they ever could hope for in their primitive society. Funny, the cyclical nature of history.
Perhaps it is jealously, though. Even the impetus for my writing this seems to suggest some level of jealousy. Today I was reading the newspaper and there were plenty of articles about politics. The first one I read was about Republican measures to de-list American wolves as an endangered species. As I read it, their motivations became quite clear. Why is it necessary to kill these animals? Because they are threatening human establishments, such as ranching and hunting. When we Americans expand beyond our needs, when we step over into territory belonging to other species we complain of their presence. They need to die to satisfy our needs, and why? Because we are not satisfied with what we have.
I turned next to an article on a Republican senator, one who is rallying to oust not only Democrats but Republicans who do not fit his own dogmatic description of a true conservative. When not only is there suffering and pain aplenty around the world in many forms but here in the United States in an economic form what is this man concerned about? Ideology. I was reminded a bit of my recent arguments over healthcare, and what was the primary argument against it? It was an imposition on personal liberty. The biggest issues here are the personal mandate and the taxes on certain foods, but these arguments have a fundamental flaw, that is that the personal decisions of these people naturally effect other people. We do not live in personal bubbles, our actions can have consequences beyond the reach of us and those in our immediate vicinity. Having individuals who do not need health insurance buy it provides revenue for the health insurance companies to cover individuals who actually need care, and in turn those same people who are buying insurance and not using it will one day reach a point where their use will surpass their payments and they too will be dependent on those who do not use insurance. In the same way, those who over-consume sugary foods are at increased risk of diabetes and other health concerns and are therefore costlier to insure. What is the problem with attributing this cost directly to the people incurring it, rather than on to the insurance consumer body as a whole? Well, it's an imposition on personal liberty. There is a reciprocity to our personal actions, though, and liberty is not always as clear cut as it is made out to be. The concern on one side of the argument is pertaining to the actual consequences of actions, and on the other side the intangible, ideological concerns.
How does this pertain, though, to the hatred of the United States across the world? It shows exactly how we are becoming a society that is increasingly concerned with theorizing rather than actual consequences, a society of pontification. The reason this is a problem is because this does not hold true for most other citizens of the world. As soon as I finished the article on the Republican I read an article on Somali refugees. This article talked about a man who had his whole family killed by a rocket, and another man who was forced from his small subsistence orchard and lives as a transient. The article detailed the lives of people who have to live with war, death, and total unpredictability their whole lives. Similarly, a while ago I heard someone complaining about their trip to France being postponed because of terrorist threats and lashing out at Middle Easterners in general. Immediately I thought of someone else I knew living in the Middle East who had previously described fleeing her home before rocket attacks hit in the area. Given this, it seems a bit petty to complain about a ruined vacation while others have to live in constant danger every day. It also seems petty to me to spend so much national energy on ideological debates when there are people who literally have nothing but the clothes on their back. Does ideology matter to the Somali refugees? While we sit here and argue about the intangible, people all over the world deal with the tangible through no choice of their own.
So perhaps this hatred really is derived from jealousy, but is that really unjustifiable? Is it really so incomprehensible to be jealous of those who can work and live and have the luxury of debating ideology without having to worry about the real world results? More importantly sometimes they have to deal with results created by us. We create conflicts, like preparing the Taliban to fight the USSR, only to invade Afghanistan decades later because those same people empowered by us to impose our will are suddenly not as friendly to us. We upset the established progression of societies like that in Iraq because we think we have the right to impose our way of life on other countries, and in the wake of such invasions chaos ensues. The United States contributes to 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, yet does not constitute 1/4 of the world's population. We over-consume, and the rest of the world pays the economic price. We consume one of the largest portions of the world's oil, again despite not having a proportional representation of population. We create problems of global supply, and while the rest of the world deals with both supply and pollution problems we sit around and debate ideology. We debate about rights: about our right to pollute the earth, about our right to alter ecosystems, about our right to impose these problems on the rest of the world without any concern given to consequences.
And yes, some around the world approach the idea of living like Americans with trepidation for this very reason. I recently saw a man being interviewed who said he wanted America's prosperity in the Middle East, but he didn't want America's attitude. There is a jealousy of our prosperity, but not of our way of life. What people want, what everyone wants, is some level of stability and the rights that are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is no shame in being jealous of that, but that doesn't necessarily translate to hatred. What translates to hatred is our national apathy over issues that affect the entire world, and the contrast with national outrage over ideology. What translates to hatred is the fact that we can sit here, fat asses and all, and complain about the issue of liberty in regards to taxing food items that can drive health insurance prices up for everyone. What translates to hatred is the fact that while people go without water, food, shelter, or even a way of life across the globe we sit here and argue over whether we have a right to kill ourselves through gluttony. Is that hatred unjustified? Is it wrong to hate a person who gorges themselves while you go hungry, who throws out food while yours is rationed carefully and sparingly, who is indignant at the thought of being taxed for buying unhealthy foods while you would relish three square meals a day, healthy or no? Is it wrong to hate a nation that constantly intervenes in foreign struggles, and is constantly being met with resentment by those who must deal with the consequences while we sit and argue about it?
And yes, you might think it an injustice for this to be generalized to all Americans, but why should that matter to them? Perhaps there were white men in Haiti who were sympathetic to the slaves, but they received the ire of the slaves nonetheless, and why not? To those slaves, white men had imprisoned them and that is where they directed their angst. This is not a prejudice, this hate is founded. Undoubtedly there are Americans who are part of the solution, who give to humanitarian causes, oppose war, and do everything they can to make the world a better place, and yet this America that the rest of the world knows remains. We concern ourselves with the intangible, and we direct our energy to the perpetuation of apathy. As a society we support this system of exploitation and reckless indifference of the consequences. I am not saying that Americans don't have cause to resent this to some degree, but we should not think that this hate is a prejudice. Some resentment is natural when presented with an opinion that is critical of one's own culture, but what absolutely must not be allowed is for us to think that this hatred is unfounded. Yes, some people hate America, but if any American were displaced and put in their position it is likely they would come to hate America too.
