Americans have long been aware of our special circumstance. We think of America as a refuge for every human being who has ever dreamed of a better life and been willing to risk his or her own to come here and start over. Cynicism, skepticism, and pessimism are completely alien to the American way and find little support among the American people. Can the same be said of Europe?
That’s why it saddens me to say that America is no longer a great country. Yes, it’s still the most powerful economy in the world, with a military presence unmatched in all of history. But to be a great country, it is necessary to be a good country. It is true that people everywhere enjoy American cultural forms and consumer goods. Rap music, action movies, and other forms of entertainment, as well as our brand-name clothes, are eagerly snapped up around the world. America is even envied, but it is no longer admired as it once was. The American Dream, once so coveted, has increasingly become an object of derision. Our way of life no longer inspires but, rather, is looked on as outmoded and, worse yet, as something to fear, or abhor.
Even most Americans, if we took the time to really think about it, would have to say that we have somehow gotten off track, lost our way. We are not as sure about who we are and what we stand for, about what motivates and inspires us on both a personal and a collective basis. To some extent, it’s the American Dream itself that has led us to our present sense of malaise. Its central tenets are less applicable in a globally connected world, something we will explore at great length throughout the book. Just as important is the fact that the American Dream has been truncated, with part of its essence being left by the wayside, leaving the core hollow. We’ll come back to the second point shortly.
A Chosen People
The first thing to understand about the American Dream is that from the very beginning it was meant to be exclusive to America. It was never meant to be a dream shared with or exported to the rest of the world. Its power rested in its particularism, not in its universalism. One can only pursue the American Dream on American soil. The dream’s uniqueness to the American context is what made it so attractive and America so successful. Its exclusivity is now what makes it increasingly suspect and inappropriate in a world that is beginning to forge a global consciousness.
When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they truly believed that they had been delivered by God from the yoke of their European oppressors. The last of the Protestant reformers, these refugees saw themselves as the new Israelites and likened their perilous journey to that of the Jews of old who fled their Egyptian taskmasters and, after having wandered aimlessly in the desert for forty years, were delivered by Yahweh to Canaan, the promised land. Their spiritual leader, John Winthrop, told his small flock just before disembarkation that they were “the chosen people,” called upon by God, to be an example and light to the world. “For we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us . . .”4 If we fail in our service to the Lord, Winthrop warned, “We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are agoing.”5 If, on the other hand, they served their Lord by improving their lot, God would look over them and reward them.
While schoolchildren today learn about the great daring and sacrifices of these brave and humble servants of the Lord, they were not always so well received by their own contemporaries. Some, like Archbishop Richard Hooker, saw in their “puritan” ways a certain holier-than-thou attitude that made them less fit to walk among common men and more disposed to live “in some wilderness by themselves.”6
The Pilgrims, and other oppressed religious orders and sects that came after them, saw the great American wilderness as a fallen nature ready to be subdued and reclaimed for God’s glory. They saw themselves, in turn, as God’s emissaries, his stewards, who by dint of faith and perseverance would tame a wilderness and create a new Eden—a promised land that would flow with milk and honey.
The notion of a “chosen people” continued to resonate down through American history, becoming the leitmotif of the American Dream. Herman Melville’s book White-Jacket: or, the World in a Man-of-War speaks to the exuberance and zeal Americans felt, being a chosen people, destined for greatness. He writes,
We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people—the Israel of our time, we bear the ark of the Liberties of the world. Seventy years ago, we escaped from thrall, and besides our first birth-right—embracing one continent of Earth—God has given to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark, without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls.7
Many Americans continue to see themselves as a chosen people and America as the promised land. They believe that America is destined for greatness and that the American way is God’s way. Our very success seems proof positive that we were in fact chosen. God has indeed rewarded us for our faith and service with the most prosperous and powerful nation on Earth. Most Europeans find this aspect of the American Dream odd, even a little scary. The very notion that God has made of us a chosen people and our nation a promised land often elicits chuckles of disbelief, especially among a more secular European population who long ago left a personal God behind. But what our European friends seem to miss is that it is this very element of the American Dream that has been the driving engine behind the American sense of confidence—many Europeans might say arrogance—that each of us can “move mountains” as long as God is on our side.
Every school day, our children pledge their allegiance to “one nation under God.” Our currency is inscribed with the motto “In God we trust.” While we try to make sure to separate church and state, the private life of the vast majority of Americans is taken up with God. We are the most devoutly religious people of any advanced industrial nation in the world.
Americans’ religious beliefs often spill over into the political arena. Nearly half of all Americans (48 percent), for example, believe that the United States has special protection from God.8 Some prominent Evangelical Protestant leaders even suggested that the reason the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were attacked and nearly three thousand people sent to their deaths was because God was displeased with America’s errant ways and no longer afforded special protection to his chosen people.
A strong majority (58 percent) of the American public say that the strength of American society is “predicated on the religious faith of its people.”9 Nearly half of the American people say that it is necessary to believe in God to have good values.10 Six in ten Americans say that their faith is involved in every aspect of their lives,11 and 40 percent say that they have had a profound religious experience that has changed the direction of their lives.12
Americans live their faith each day. Thirty-six percent of the public pray several times a day, while an additional 22 percent pray once a day, 16 percent pray several times a week, and 8 percent pray once a week.13 Sixty-one percent attend religious services at least once or twice a month, while nearly half (45 percent) attend services at least once a week.14 Given America’s deep religiosity, it’s understandable that 71 percent of the public favor starting each school day with a prayer.15
What’s even more surprising to Europeans is how literal Americans view the scriptures. Sixty-eight percent of the public believe in the devil.16 Even among college graduates and those with post-graduate degrees, 68 percent and 55 percent, respectively, believe in the devil.17 More than one-third of all Americans are biblical literalists, who believe that every line of the Bible is the actual word of God and not simply inspired interpretation or made-up stories.18 (By the way, 93 percent of Americans own a Bible.)19
America’s deep religious convictions have butted up against American secular education almost from the very beginning of the public-school movement. Nowhere has the struggle between th
e two been more fiercely waged than over the question of whether to teach evolution or creationism in the nation’s schools. Forty-five percent of Americans believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”20 It’s no wonder that 25 percent of Americans believe that creationism should be required teaching in the public schools, while another 56 percent say creationism should at least be offered in the curriculum.21
Even more disturbing to many nonbelievers in the United States and Europe is the fact that 40 percent of the American people believe that the world will end with an Armageddon battle between Jesus and the Antichrist. Forty-seven percent of those who believe in Armageddon also believe that the Antichrist is on Earth now, and 45 percent believe that Jesus will return in their lifetime. The majority of those who believe that Armageddon is coming point to natural disasters and epidemics, like AIDS, as signs of disruption and chaos prophesied in the Bible.22 If there is a silver lining to the Armageddon story, it is that 82 percent of Americans believe in Heaven, and 63 percent say they’re likely to go there. Only 1 percent believe they’re going to Hell.23
I’ve heard it said by more than a few commentators that while Americans and Europeans squabble over big and small matters, they are still far more alike than different in their basic attitudes and outlooks. The religious statistics suggest otherwise. While six out of ten Americans say their religion is “very” important in their lives,24 in European countries religion is barely a factor in people’s day-to-day lives. Even in Catholic Italy and Poland, only a third of the public say that religion is very important to them.25 In Germany, only 21 percent say that religion is very important to them, while the percentage in Great Britain drops to 16 percent and in France to 14 percent, and in the Czech Republic, it’s 11 percent. 26 In Sweden, the numbers are even lower, 10 percent, and in Denmark, 9 percent.27 Nor is Europe alone. In Korea, only 25 percent of the population considers religion to be very important in their lives, and in Japan only 12 percent consider themselves very religious.28 While half of all Americans attend church every week, by comparison, less then 10 percent of the population of the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark attend religious services even once a month.29 Across Western Europe nearly half the population almost never goes to church, and in Eastern Europe the number is even lower.30
Many Europeans no longer believe in God. While 82 percent of Americans say that God is very important to them, approximately half of all Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes say that God does not matter to them.31 When it comes to religious beliefs, American views are much closer to the views of people in developing countries and very much at odds with the rest of the industrialized world.
Does any of this really make much of a difference? Nothing is more fundamental to how people think and behave in the world than their personal values. In the case of the majority of Americans, religious values color how we act, not only at home but also abroad. For example, American attitudes on the nature of good and evil differ substantially from those of our European friends. The World Values Survey asked respondents in various countries to choose which of two different views of morality best reflected their own attitudes: “There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. These apply to everyone, whatever the circumstances”; or, “There can never be absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. What is good and evil depends entirely upon the circumstances of our time. . . .”32 Most Europeans, and even Canadians and Japanese chose the second response, while Americans were more likely to favor the first response.33
Because of our deep religious conviction that there are absolute and knowable guidelines about what constitutes good and evil and these guidelines never waver, regardless of the circumstances, we tend to see the world itself as a battleground where good and evil forces are continually at play. For that reason, our foreign policy has always been conducted, at least in part, as an unfolding moral saga pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil. Other countries might see our military intervention in more material terms, believing that for Americans, like others, self-interests and utilitarian gain are the prime movers. That may be. But, at least as far as justifying war, it has always been sold to the American public as a struggle of good against evil. During the Cold War, our efforts to curtail Communist expansion were viewed as a moral crusade against “Godless Communism.” In the waning years of the Cold War, President Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire.” After the fall of Communism, we turned our moral compass on the threats posed by rogue regimes and terrorist groups. In the wake of the attacks of September 11, President George W. Bush rallied the American people by referring to our efforts to ferret out terrorists as a great crusade. Later, the president would refer to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “axis of evil.” Although Europeans cringe at America’s use of religious language to define the global struggle, the White House rhetoric finds a willing audience in the American heartland.
The belief that we are a chosen people has made Americans the most patriotic people in the whole world. In a study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, the U.S. ranked first of twenty-three countries in its citizens’ sense of national pride.34 Seventy-two percent of Americans say they are very proud of their country.35 No other industrial country in the world boasts that kind of pride. Less than half of the people in the Western democracies—including Great Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark—“felt ‘very proud’ of their nationalities.”36 It’s not surprising, given America’s patriotic ardor, that American men and women are far more willing to fight for their country than citizens of thirty other nations, according to a poll conducted by the Gallup Organization.37
Europeans view with alarm America’s patriotic fervor and feeling of national pride, and especially America’s sense of cultural superiority. Six out of ten Americans believe that “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others.”38 By contrast, only 37 percent of the people in Great Britain and 40 percent of Germans feel that their culture is superior to others.39 And here’s the kicker: only one out of every three Frenchmen believe that their culture is superior to others.40
What most concerns many Europeans is America’s belief that everyone else should conform to the American way of life. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Projects, 79 percent of Americans believe that “it’s good that American ideas and customs are spreading around the world,” while less than 40 percent of Europeans endorse the spread of American ideas and customs.41
What’s particularly interesting in all of these surveys about patriotism, nationalism, and ideas about cultural superiority is that among Europeans and people of other regions around the world, national pride is declining with each successive generation. America is the exception. A whopping 98 percent of American youth report being proud of their nationality, compared with only 58 percent of British youth and 65 percent of German youth.42 Most Americans see these numbers as a positive sign of the vitality of the republic. Many Europeans wonder if America is lost in the past. In a globalizing era where allegiance to country is becoming less important in defining individual and collective identity, the fact that Americans remain so passionately committed to the conventional nation-state political model puts us squarely on the side of traditional geopolitics, but hardly in the vanguard of a new global consciousness.
As long as the majority of Americans find their solace in religious faith and continue to believe that we are a chosen people, looked over and protected by God’s grace, there is little likelihood that our sense of nationalism and patriotism will wane. I don’t mean to suggest that a sense of nationalism has disappeared from the world stage. But, what is clear is that for virtually all of the industrialized nations, and for many developing countries, the nation-state is no longer the only platform for expressing one’s beliefs and convictions and for fulfilling one’s aspirations. The European Dream, as we will see later on in
the book, is the first transnational dream to emerge in a global era. If national pride is shrinking in Europe, it’s not for the reason that Europeans are less enamored of their countries but, rather, because their identities and loyalties now reach below and beyond nation-state borders to encompass a richer and more deeply layered sense of embeddedness in the world.
It’s going to be very difficult for Americans to adjust to a borderless world of relationships and flows where everyone is increasingly connected in webs and networks, and dependent on one another for one’s individual and collective well-being. What happens to the American sense of being special, of being a chosen people, in a world where exclusivity is steadily giving way to inclusivity? Does God really care less about the whole of his earthly creation than he does about the North American part? Europeans might find such a conjecture funny, but, believe me, many Americans remain wedded to the notion of our special status as God’s chosen ones. If we were to give up that belief, or even entertain doubt about its veracity, our sense of confidence in ourselves and the American Dream might experience irreparable harm. Frequently, American athletes and celebrities, political leaders and businesspersons say, when interviewed on television, that whatever adversities they have overcome or accomplishments they’ve achieved or successes they’ve enjoyed they owe to their religious faith and God’s grace. I have yet to hear a single European sports figure, celebrity, or political leader make a similar claim.
The European Dream Page 3