Crowds, Conventions and the Slow Death of Individualism in Americ a ( “Country first”, is “America f irst”, == Deutschland űber alles)

[Henk Elegeert]

http://hnn.us/articles/54294.html

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Crowds, Conventions and the Slow Death of Individualism in America
By Louis René Beres

Mr. Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of
many books and articles dealing with international relations and
international law. He is a Professor in the Department of Political
Science at Purdue University.

Every sham can have a patina. Unwittingly, our two political
conventions recently lay bare and magnified the hideous triumph of
mass society. The perfectly choreographed events in Denver and St.
Paul made clear that America richly rewards conformance and cliché,
not "rugged individualism" and independent thought.

The conventions were microcosm. Like the delegates, noisily desperate
for simple truths, Americans in general feel most comfortable when
they can chant in chorus. Bored with intellect, and distrusting even a
hint of real learning, this nation now seeks redemption in banal
slogans and empty witticisms. "Country first." "America first."
Deutschland űber alles.

No nation can be "first" that does not hold the individual sacred.
Once, after Emerson and Thoreau, a spirit of personal accomplishment
did earn high marks. Young people, especially, strove to rise
meaningfully, not as the embarrassingly obedient servants of crude
power and raw commerce, but as proud owners of a distinct Self.

The recent conventions were merely a symptom; not the underlying
pathology. Whether America's political parties and presidential
aspirants would prefer that we the people now become more secular or
more reverent, a submission to multitudes has already become our
unifying state religion. Such sentiments have a long history (we
Americans are hardly the first to surrender to crowds). The
contemporary mass-man or woman is in fact a primitive being that has
slipped back, said the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset,
"through the wings, on to the age-old stage of civilization."

Mass defiles all that which is most gracious and promising in human
society. Charles Dickens, during his first visit to America in 1842,
observed: "I do fear that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty will
be dealt by this country in the failure of its example to the earth."
We Americans have successfully maintained our political freedom from
one kind of tyranny and oppression, but we have also given up our
liberty to become authentic persons. Openly deploring a life of
meaning and sincerity, we continue to confuse wealth with success and
chants with happiness. The unmistakable purpose of all this
synchronized delirium is to preserve us from a terrible loneliness.

The individual who chooses disciplined thought over effortless
conformance must feel alone. Still, "The most radical division,"
asserted Ortega y Gasset in 1930, "is that which splits humanity….
those who make great demands on themselves…and those who demand
nothing special of themselves…" In 1965, Abraham Joshua Heschel
offered an almost identical argument. Lamenting, "The emancipated man
is yet to emerge," Heschel then asked each one to inquire: "What is
expected of me? What is demanded of me?"

If we are lucky, it is time for camouflage and concealment in the mass
to yield to what Heschel called "being-challenged-in-the-world."
Individuals who dare read serious books, and are willing to risk
disapproval or exclusion now offer America its only real hope for a
change to believe in. These rare souls can seldom be found at
political conventions, in universities, in corporate boardrooms or
anywhere on television. Their inner strength lies not in elegant
oratory or even the enviable capacity to skin a moose, but in the far
more ample power of genuineness and thought.

Not even the flimsiest ghost of originality now haunts American
politics. Once a self-deceiving democratic citizenry has lost all
sense of awe in the world, this public not only avoids authenticity,
it positively loathes it. In a sense, the conventions might be
regarded, in part, as a sort of adrenalized eulogy for the western
literary canon, a pair of humiliating venues in which the rabblement
of desperate political lemmings chose to enthusiastically hurl
themselves from manufactured cliffs of plastic and foam.

Ecstasy can be contrived; so, too, can wisdom. My division of American
society into few and mass represents a separation of those who are
imitators from those who seek understanding. "The mass," said Jose
Ortega y Gasset, "crushes beneath it everything that is different,
everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select."
Today, in deference to the mass, the intellectually un-ambitious
American not only wallows in nonsensical political phrases, he or she
also applauds an unmistakably shallow ethos of personal and political
mediocrity.

By definition, the mass can never become few; yet, some individual
members of the mass can make the transformation. Those who are already
part of the few must announce and maintain their determined stance.
Aware that they comprise a core barrier to America's spiritual,
cultural, intellectual and political disintegration, these resolute
few who knowingly refuse to chant in chorus will ultimately remind us
of something important: Staying the lonely course of
self-actualization and self-renewal is now the only honest and
purposeful option for our country.

Today, our national cheerleaders draw feverishly upon the sovereignty
of the unqualified crowd. Similarly, they depend on the withering of
personal dignity, and on the continued servitude of independent
consciousness. Unaware of this parasitism, we the people are converted
into fuel to feed the omnivorous machine of "democracy." This can
change only when an expanding number of Americans finally recognize
the mortal cost of submission to multitudes, and when we also learn to
prefer a well-reasoned heresy of individualism to an impassioned
mimicry of crowds.
"

Fritz, o.a. dit bedoelde je laatst?

Henk Elegeert