u.s. citizens benefit be/c of all this and it's because of all this that the u.s. is the empire. there is aboslutely _no_ connection between the u.s. standard of living resting on imperialism and plundering other people's lands and economies. in fact, if anything, people seem to think it's a gift, like an employee gives the gift of jobs.
i dunno, though. that's just my experience. what I hear far more often from people is the fear that other people are jealous of what the u.s. has. they think in terms of individual emotions. the u.s. has stuff and other people want the u.s's stuff. it's just the way humans are, on this view. Because of course everyone, everywhere covets other people's stuff --and it's a sin according to dog, so it is a timeless feature of the human condition and nothing whatsoever can be done about it.
The freudians have a name for this kind of defensive-formation. Now, the thing is, this is the kind of thinking that was prominent before 911. I think that's why the "they hate us" stuff so resonated with people. There was already a culturally myth out there. It's as if all these little boys have grown up and recirculated their childhood fear and hatred of bullies into a widespread cultural mythos. In this mythos, the little boy who used to fear/admire the bully on the playground, is now projected on to other cultures/societies. those petty little confused feelings now belong to an Other. those _others_ both hate and admire the bully, they both want to be the bully and destroy the bully. But, like little boys confused by those conflicting feelings -- how can I hate the bully who hurts me _and_ want to be like the bully. if the freudians are right, little kids have these feelings all the time. in healthy environments, they learn to resolve the tension in favor of a productive identity with the nurturer. But, if there is no nurturer with which to identify in the u.s.'s cultural mythos..... To deal with these uncomfrtable feelings, they're projected on to an Other(s) in this cultural mythos.
Also, the other aspect of this cultural mythos is that is identification with the victim. Instead of openly embracing the u.s. AS a bully, that's rejected in favor of identifying the u.s. as innocent victim of the agression of the Other.
so if there is any price to pay for being empire, the price is that they'll hate us because of our stuff. and there ain't nothing you can really do about that. QED.
kelley
At 11:01 AM 2/9/2005, JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
>Yes, another good angle. But given the political climate here, and the fact
>we can't even get a toothless shade like the Kyoto protocol signed by the
>U.S., I had a much more humble goal in mind, which is to build an
>understanding
>that imperial conquest is not benefitting the ordinary U.S. person. We're
>in a
>sorry state, one in which it's a blinding insight to see that our
>interests as
>workers are not the same as George Bush's. The illusion that U.S. wages,
>health care, living conditions, etc. are the best in the world is very
>widespread
>here and it's attributed in part to U.S. power in the world.
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling