Summary
Title: America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism
Author: Anatol Lieven
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195168402
Pro:
• Insightful and illuminating discussion of American beliefs that often go unexamined
• Provides a new way of understanding the current administration policies
Con:
• Probably won’t provoke the discussions that need to happen
Description:
• Analysis of various trends in American nationalism, both good and bad
• Argues that while Americans have much to offer, negative trends in America could prove devastating
• Addressed to both Americans and non-Americans
Book Review
In his book America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism, Anatol Lieven examines the complex nature of American nationalism and American ideology in order to help both Americans and others around the world better understand the unconscious assumptions that tend to drive American foreign policy, especially with regards to America’s reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
On the one hand is what Lieven describes as “The American Creed,” a civil nationalism that promotes values like democracy, liberty, law, egalitarianism, and individualism. This is the best part of what America has to offer the world and Americans commonly see themselves acting out of these interests alone. These values aren’t unique to America, but the passion with which Americans have faith in them and the degree to which they are identified with the essential nature of America are unusual.
Unfortunately, a focus on these values can actually go awry. Like so many passionately held faiths, The Creed has developed messianic tendencies which have led to chauvinistic, aggressive contempt for those who fail to believe with the same fervor:
- “If the Message is self-evidently true, universal and universally apprehendable, then any failure cannot be due to the Message. It must be due to some failure on the part of the audience, whether because of innate wickedness or because its collective heart has been hardened by some wicked agents: manipulating nationalist elites, former communists, emissaries of Satan...”
This paragraph sums up a lot of the problematic attitudes in how Americans today tend to view foreign policy. Americans tend to start from the assumption that everyone in the world basically wants to be just like Americans, either by emigrating to America or by importing the same political, economic, and social systems. America is the City on the Hill, chosen by God to spread the Good News to the dark and barbaric peoples. The idea that they might want something else or simply lack interest in America’s solutions to the ordering of society just doesn’t occur to many.
People today ask why America is hated in the world and what can be done about it, but such a question cannot be answered without a certain amount of critical self-reflection that they simply don’t engage in. The question is asked in the context of the assumptions described in the above quote — it is assumed that America has nothing but salvation to offer the world which everyone else would rationally choose if given the chance.
Thus, even when Americans appear to be making an effort to understand how to change, they tend not to be questioning their most fundamental assumptions. It is unfortunate that the best which America has to offer is so readily corrupted by chauvinistic and messianic attitudes. Even worse is the fact that American nationalism is based just as much upon an embittered, backwards-looking Jacksonian element as well.
