[Today we have another guest post from our regular contributor, John Hess.]
In her remarkable study of our westward expansion, The legacy of conquest: The unbroken past of the American west, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues that the values the pioneer Americans attached to westward expansion persist even today, in cheerful defiance of any contrary evidence.
Among those persistent values, few have more power than the idea of innocence. Americans moving west did not see themselves as trespassers or criminals; rather, they were pioneers. The ends, to them, abundantly justified the means.
Personal interest in the acquisition of property coincided with national interest in the acquisition of territory, and those interests overlapped in turn with the mission to extend the domain of Christian civilization.
Innocence of intention placed the course of events in a bright and positive light.
This innocence is preserved and the nation regenerated through violence, its guilt and failings purged and cleansed through blood. As Chris Hedges puts it in War is a force that gives us meaning:
“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destructiveness and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidity of much of our lives become apparent….And war is an enticing elixir. It allows us to be noble” (p. 3).
“War makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of them and us. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us willingly accept war as long as we can fold it into a belief system that paints the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but also meaning” (p. 10).
“The goal of such nationalist rhetoric is to invoke pity for one’s own. The goal is to show the community that what they hold sacred is under threat. The enemy, we are told, seeks to destroy religious and cultural life, the very identity of the group or state” (p.14).
No wonder we salute people like Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Eva Mozes Kor, for they are, sadly, extraordinary.
John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston