If America has so many problems -- why then does it also have such a grandiose and fun myth attached to it?
The reaction is always the same, when people first start to find out about the 'real America'. They can't believe what they are hearing. People die of lack of medical care in America? Child poverty rates are sky high? Teenage pregnancy is rampant? Many of the cities are dangerous and no one wants to live in them? There are more guns than people? The prison population is the worlds highest -- far beyond any other countries? The South is enraged for a Civil War that happened well over a 100 years ago? An entire political party, the one currently sitting in the Presidential office, actually hates California -- the same California I, as a foreigner, dream of seeing, and living in? The races aren't actually all getting along? But mostly live in their own neighborhoods, angrily separated?
What on Earth are you talking about? says the foreigner. This can't be true! This is not the America I Have heard about. The AMerica i know is a land of myth, opportunity, a land of plenty! All the races tehre get along and laugh with one another! People live in pretty little houses and no one goes hungry. Everyone goes to Disney Land.
Where are all these sad tales coming from? How could a land with this grandiose myth attached to it also be a land with all these rather frightening problems? the foreigner wonders.
For many years, I sat in wonder also, and couldn't quite understand how this myth could be attached to my country -- or even how I myself could believe in it --- whilst still living right in the heart, of so many of America's problems. I always had a pretty passionate love for the American mythos myself. I loved reading about cowboys, Indians, and the Wild West. The stories of how New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other such cities in the northeast came to rise, in the 18 and 1900s, gave my boyhood self some of the wildest thrills imaginable. America was a great story for me--and it still is. I, for example, always appreciated Europe when i was younger -- but I still thought America was inherently safer, better, more interesting, and more forwards than Europe. When I first came to discover that this was the furthest thing from the truth, I was very shocked.
The reaction is always the same, when people first start to find out about the 'real America'. They can't believe what they are hearing. People die of lack of medical care in America? Child poverty rates are sky high? Teenage pregnancy is rampant? Many of the cities are dangerous and no one wants to live in them? There are more guns than people? The prison population is the worlds highest -- far beyond any other countries? The South is enraged for a Civil War that happened well over a 100 years ago? An entire political party, the one currently sitting in the Presidential office, actually hates California -- the same California I, as a foreigner, dream of seeing, and living in? The races aren't actually all getting along? But mostly live in their own neighborhoods, angrily separated?
What on Earth are you talking about? says the foreigner. This can't be true! This is not the America I Have heard about. The AMerica i know is a land of myth, opportunity, a land of plenty! All the races tehre get along and laugh with one another! People live in pretty little houses and no one goes hungry. Everyone goes to Disney Land.
Where are all these sad tales coming from? How could a land with this grandiose myth attached to it also be a land with all these rather frightening problems? the foreigner wonders.
For many years, I sat in wonder also, and couldn't quite understand how this myth could be attached to my country -- or even how I myself could believe in it --- whilst still living right in the heart, of so many of America's problems. I always had a pretty passionate love for the American mythos myself. I loved reading about cowboys, Indians, and the Wild West. The stories of how New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other such cities in the northeast came to rise, in the 18 and 1900s, gave my boyhood self some of the wildest thrills imaginable. America was a great story for me--and it still is. I, for example, always appreciated Europe when i was younger -- but I still thought America was inherently safer, better, more interesting, and more forwards than Europe. When I first came to discover that this was the furthest thing from the truth, I was very shocked.
I did not know, for example, that free medical care was even a possibility that could exist anywhere in the world, until I was almost 24 years old. It was unfathomable to my younger self that someone could go to college for free. In my world, only the richest and most arrogant cousin I had went, and he paid nearly $400,000 for the privilege. This was the only world I knew until I began to meet my first European friends, by way of the Internet. Everything quickly changed from there.
I began to read a different interpretation of America that day -- but it wasn’t necessarily one that shocked me too much. Mostly because my life in America had always been a bit strange, and depressing. I grew up in an area that was basically sitting right on the borderlands of “the Bronx” -- and it was clear to me that a lot was wrong. But I thought, essentially, that a lot was wrong all over the world, and that this was the best we could do. Then, I came to see all of this truth, about how America only enjoys an illusion of being grandiose, even if she actually is not so nice.
Still, of course, many people wonder and always ask: “There must be something special about America, for it to have this powerful myth. ALl this stuff about the prison, the teen pregnancy, the chil dpoverty rates, the dangerous cities, $400,000 for a Bachelor’s degree, the War on Drugs … all of this stuff can’t be as severe as some journalists tell us …. cause everyone still thinks America is just grand…. so it’s a lie, right? Why do al lthese immigrants come to America, if its such a shit? It don’t make sense!”
These people ask a good and imoprtant question, and its the same one i asked, for a long time. I asked it pretty much constantly, up until the time when I started to really read some deeper history, and almost overnight, I began to feel I understood precisely why this myth exists, right alongside all of these truly major problems. I came to understand why people are so passionate about America, even if America is so troubled.
The explanation is very simple: The United States is, and always has been, what i now call a "high voltage" country, and the reason --the only reason -- that it is high voltage is because it's brand new. It's that simple. America is still the New World and the New World is high voltage (i.e. dangerous, bizarre, & tantalizing); therefore, it is perhaps uniquely allowed to have all these weird, sad and downright pathetic problems --- whilst still being an awesome, cool, and really exciting place.
From the Old World perspective, specifically the European one, America is perhaps a bit like a pornographic film: One watches and feels a bit badly for the actors forced to participate in this gross and primitive spectacle -- and yet, one also cannot help but feel that invigorating sense of excitement and arousal. Humanity is being presented at its most raw and vulnerable.
From the Old World perspective, specifically the European one, America is perhaps a bit like a pornographic film: One watches and feels a bit badly for the actors forced to participate in this gross and primitive spectacle -- and yet, one also cannot help but feel that invigorating sense of excitement and arousal. Humanity is being presented at its most raw and vulnerable.
The grandiose myth stems from the primitive arousal of fresh virgin land that also is strangely savage and experienced -- which is what America is. The USA is a dangerous and sexy boy that shoots guns, kills people, doesn’t waste time reading, lays waste to the "weak", and is always on edge. It might get you killed; it also might show you the best time, and sex, of your life. It’s an adrenaline junkies wet dream come to life. Even the places in the USA that are supposedly quiet -- like Wyoming, for examlpe---always have just another high voltage myth attached to them, as well.
"Who lives in Wyoming?"
"People with big fuckin' guns, dawg."
In fact, an important fact to remember is that, America is not merely a high voltage country -- but also a high voltage continent. In the old US folk songs, the term 'sea to shining sea' is used, and often people think of this as territory stretching from the NY east coast, over to California on the west. The truth about the American mythos and this high voltage thing, in reality, however, is that it really stretches throughout all of the Americas. I.e. It goes from Canada all the way down to a country like Atgentina. The Central and South American countries don't receive as much adulation --- its true -- but, ultimately, even they are still a part of the grand myth. And, in fact, examning the Central & South American countries, and their often intense and very dangerous problems (i.e. Mexicans often decapitating one another in border towns over drugs) will also help people curious about the USA and her problems, to understand them far more. The weird tragedy of the USA allowing so many people to starve and die for lack of medical care, its obsession with imprisoning its own citizens, its love of the gun, and some states still asking to hang people legally in 2018 all makes much more sense, once you examine the continent as a whole, instead of just the country.
"Who lives in Wyoming?"
"People with big fuckin' guns, dawg."
In fact, an important fact to remember is that, America is not merely a high voltage country -- but also a high voltage continent. In the old US folk songs, the term 'sea to shining sea' is used, and often people think of this as territory stretching from the NY east coast, over to California on the west. The truth about the American mythos and this high voltage thing, in reality, however, is that it really stretches throughout all of the Americas. I.e. It goes from Canada all the way down to a country like Atgentina. The Central and South American countries don't receive as much adulation --- its true -- but, ultimately, even they are still a part of the grand myth. And, in fact, examning the Central & South American countries, and their often intense and very dangerous problems (i.e. Mexicans often decapitating one another in border towns over drugs) will also help people curious about the USA and her problems, to understand them far more. The weird tragedy of the USA allowing so many people to starve and die for lack of medical care, its obsession with imprisoning its own citizens, its love of the gun, and some states still asking to hang people legally in 2018 all makes much more sense, once you examine the continent as a whole, instead of just the country.
What I offer unto my reader is not a condemnation of America, so much as a justification of why America is who she is. She is young. She is big. She is wild. The continent cannot be blamed. It is still yet to be entirely tamed. We, the real American people, which is a term that, in fact, encompasses all of us, from Canada all the way to Argentina, cannot be held completely accountable for our wild actions here. This is not densely populated Europe. It is a different land.
Yet again, it is so often the case that Americns are expected to “already be at” the same level as the liberal Europeans have now so fortunately been able to reach.
Imagine, for example, if someone told you that what happens in Germany or France has simply never effected Spain or England at all. It would sound preposterous, and no one would believe it. Everyone knows that all of Europe is connected, and that these are neighbor countries. When Germany had a big problem, so too did all the other countries. Yet, when you take this same peak at the American continent, you see -- just like the myth -- that all of the neighboring countries -- many of which are plagued by dictators, revolutions, and civil wars-- get oddly disconnected from the USA's story. They are all explained away, for example, as being "absolutely nothing like" the USA.
Mexico, we are told, is hell on earth -- but USA is absolute heaven. Nevermind the fact that, when one compiles a list of the cities considered the most dangerous in the world, that list features cities primarily from both the USA, Mexico, and further below. On this list I have here, Los Cabos, Mexico rates as the worlds most dangerous city. Saint Louis, Missouri comes in spot #13. There are 50 cities total o nthe list. Not a single one of them is from Europe. Yet the continued obsession of trying to connect the USA with Europe, instead of her true sister countries, goes on and on.
The truth, of course, is that things just don't work like this. Two countries so close together, shared by land, are inevitably connected. They are, as i write, like brothers and sisters, and they have the same parentage. What effects one undoubtedly effects the other.
Imagine, for example, if someone told you that what happens in Germany or France has simply never effected Spain or England at all. It would sound preposterous, and no one would believe it. Everyone knows that all of Europe is connected, and that these are neighbor countries. When Germany had a big problem, so too did all the other countries. Yet, when you take this same peak at the American continent, you see -- just like the myth -- that all of the neighboring countries -- many of which are plagued by dictators, revolutions, and civil wars-- get oddly disconnected from the USA's story. They are all explained away, for example, as being "absolutely nothing like" the USA.
Mexico, we are told, is hell on earth -- but USA is absolute heaven. Nevermind the fact that, when one compiles a list of the cities considered the most dangerous in the world, that list features cities primarily from both the USA, Mexico, and further below. On this list I have here, Los Cabos, Mexico rates as the worlds most dangerous city. Saint Louis, Missouri comes in spot #13. There are 50 cities total o nthe list. Not a single one of them is from Europe. Yet the continued obsession of trying to connect the USA with Europe, instead of her true sister countries, goes on and on.
The truth, of course, is that things just don't work like this. Two countries so close together, shared by land, are inevitably connected. They are, as i write, like brothers and sisters, and they have the same parentage. What effects one undoubtedly effects the other.
I will say it again, and stress it: The USA has significantly more in common, in my opinion, as an American living in an American city, with the very troubled Mexico, than it has ever had with Europe.
The two countries, after all, are both a part of what people used to understand was the New World, as previously mentioned, and again, this fact about being the New World is the entire picture. If this country was not "new", I'm persuaded next to no one would care about it at all.I’m also persuaded that it wouldn’t have so many problems. (Keep in mind, for example, that if america wasn't new, she wouldn't have the same two languages spoken throughout the entire continent, which would change her in gigantic ways. The Europeans all have different languages, but now maintain an accord of peace and good will, that took literally centuries to achieve).
The American continent, in many ways, is like an old aging celebrity: We all know she's getting older and much stranger now than ever before-- yet we still can't help but remember the original excitement she once brought not merely those of us living inside her, but literally the entire world. Many things have been discovered and been invented since the year 1492, when Colombus discovered the American continent, but nothing has ever quite been on the scale of discovery that this continent was. The human race, for example, has learned an awful lot about space and planets and how big the universe is, in the years since we found this continent, but as great as those discoveries were, they were also a bit dull, for the commoner. The planets, for almost all of us, all just sit inside movies and textbooks. They might as well not be real. We cannot participate with them. We cannot visit them.
America, you see, was that last great all inclusive bomb of a discovery that literally anyone was able to jump into. And that's why it's still so exciting, at times. That's why it's still so cool, and attractive, and fashionable, even if it is insane and inhumane, too.
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