So I was driving back from one of the best video stores in the world yesterday, Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee, and was struck with a thought. I think it may have been brought on by a bumper sticker I saw, but I can't remember what it said. Anyway, I got hung up on the statement made last year that "This is a conservative country.
" I started thinking about it, independently of politics, because I thought maybe that's where the problem lies.
So, are Americans conservative? My answer would be hardly.
What about America says "conservative" except in the political sphere? Huge cars with DVD players in the dash, an obese population waiting for the red fresh Krispy Kreme sign to light up, Starbucks inside Starbucks, department stores that occupy and employ entire communities, more entertainment and distractions by the hour -- all concerning Paris Hilton's cell phone -- what is conservative about this? If you ask me, it's very clear that we are a country of excess, a country that fails to conserve much of anything because we'd rather use it now.
What's the one exception? I don't think it's politics because none of the above excesses could exist apart from politics. America is morally conservative.
Yes, for the most part, this country still has the worldview of the Quakers and Puritans who gave turkey, corn and the flu to Natives. I'm not writing this to say this moral conservatism is wrong or right, but rather that's what it is. This is also not to support the popular myth that the 2004 election was based on "moral values.
" I mainly just saying that to call a country that drowns in its own excess conservative is delusional.
What's the point? What's the solution?
How the hell should I know? I just got to thinking that this statement about how conservative America is has been taken as a given by both sides of the political spectrum, which just goes to show you that these politicos need to crawl out of their think tanks and universities and stroll around a bit in the harsh daylight of the real world because they confuse political games with real life. It's a term bandied about by the gloating winners and the bitter losers, both eager to divide every man, woman and child to polar extremes: saved and damned, crazy and righteous, dumb and dumber.
Don't mistake it for anything more, especially for something real.
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