Lawrence F. Kaplan: 4 Years After 9-11, We're Still Bowling Alone
"Without the Cold War," Rabbit Angstrom asks in John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, "what's the point of being an American?" Rabbit's question, which he posed in 1990, anticipated something in the national mood during the decade that followed....
... The need for a moral equivalent of the cold war evaporated on September 11. Having failed to reverse the equation during the '90s, the architects of national greatness would henceforth make a virtue out of necessity. If most opinion-makers concentrated on the war abroad, the potential benefits at home were never far from the minds of others. Celebrating the end of America's "holiday from history," columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that "this land of 'bowling alone,' of Internet introversion, of fractious multiculturalism developed an extraordinary solidarity. ... It turned out that the decadence and flabbiness were just summer wear, thrown off immediately." As to what awaited the United States on its return from this holiday, Commentary Editor-at-Large Norman Podhoretz wrote, "Beyond revenge, we crave 'a new birth' of the confidence we used to have in ourselves and in 'America the Beautiful.' But there is only one road to this lovely condition of the spirit, and it runs through what Roosevelt and Churchill called the 'unconditional surrender' of the enemy." President Bush put the point somewhat more bluntly: "For too long, our culture has said, 'If it feels good, do it.' Now, America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: 'Let's roll.'"
The significance of national greatness was never the movement it spawned, but rather the moment it encapsulated--a minute, really, in which it was hoped that something good might come from bad. What its adherents anticipated after September 11 was really less a return to national greatness than a return to basic national goodness, a civic quality the excesses of the '90s seemed to have corroded. Civic attachments, a sense of shared purpose, a propensity to sacrifice for the common good--if historical precedent offers any guide, all of these should have been renewed in the aftermath of September 11. As Harvard's Theda Skocpol noted in her 2001 study, "Patriotic Partnerships: Why Great Wars Nourished American Civil Voluntarism," "America's civic vigor was greatly enhanced, both following the national fratricide of the 1860s and amidst the plunge into global conflict between 1917 and 1919." The pattern held during World War II and the cold war, conflicts that boosted everything from membership in voluntary associations to the fortunes of the civil rights movement. And, yet, not only has everything not changed since September 11; nothing has. According to a mountain of attitudinal and behavioral data collected in the past four years, the post- September 11 mood that former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge dubbed "the new normalcy" resembles nothing so much as the old normalcy.
That matters at home, where the toll of civic disengagement, which has ranged from the loss of community life and its benefits at the local level to the hollowing of participatory democracy at the national level, has been well-chronicled by Putnam and others. And it matters abroad, too. An erosion of the common good, after all, can easily shade into an erosion of common purpose, even more so if that purpose demands public hardship--something the war on terrorism requires.
owever intuitive the idea that September 11 ought to have sparked a return to civic engagement, the form that engagement should take is less obvious. A draft, for example, makes sense only as a response to military necessity, of which there is none today. The war in Iraq may be thinning the ranks of the all-volunteer military, but hardly to the point of requiring the conscription of tens of millions of young men--and, this time, women. Vague proposals for national service, while appealing as a means to promote social cohesion, run into the same problem. The war on terrorism doesn't require mass mobilization. Nor, in terms of civic renewal--that is, patriotism as an activity rather than merely a sentiment--should it. The vigorous citizen is not a helpless dependent awaiting a summons. That is an incompetent citizen. As political scientist Alan Wolfe puts it, "However important leaders, policies, and programs may be, greatness will not come about unless Americans care enough about it to will it into existence." For young Americans, meeting this condition could have meant at least entertaining the option of military service, a stint in law enforcement, or any number of philanthropic vocations. For others, it could have been expressed through activities as basic as volunteerism, attendance at public meetings, or membership in local organizations. For the rest of us, it could have simply been a contribution to the common good, whether through service to one's fellow citizen, one's neighborhood, or one's nation. In short, national greatness means citizens caring deeply about the fate of the nation. And, more important, acting like they do.
That so many of us seem not to has something, although not everything, to do with the quality of our leadership. Bush may employ high-minded rhetoric about America's purpose. But his rhetoric entails no obligation to act. The counterexample of Franklin Roosevelt has become a favorite cliché among the president's critics. And for good reason. If Bush has, in some respects, followed in the footsteps of FDR abroad, he has governed more like Warren Harding here at home. "No less than December 7, 1941," then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced in October 2003, "September 11, 2001, forever changed the lives of every American." About 1941 she was correct. As the famous World War II poster put it, remember pearl harbor: work--fight--sacrifice!! And Americans did. Legions volunteered to join the military (and millions more were drafted), while, on the home front, millions of others labored directly in support of the war effort. They did so, in part, because their president asked them to. In 1943, FDR declared that "Doctor New Deal has been replaced by Doctor Win the War." And, through scrap drives, rationing, war bonds, and a doubling of their tax burden, the public responded in kind. "You see those bombers in the sky," the Irving Berlin tune went, "Rockefeller helped build them and so did I. I paid my income tax today."
Ironically, as historian David Kennedy documents in his book, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, FDR felt "let down" by the American people. In 1943, the president complained that too many Americans were "laboring under the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious sacrifices." What would he make of the present era? The circumstances that required mass mobilization during World War II are, of course, not the circumstances the United States confronts today. In Bush's telling, however, the war on terrorism requires something closer to mass demobilization. "Get on board," he urged in the immediate aftermath of September 11. "Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life." As for sacrifice, the president elaborated, "I think the American people are sacrificing now. I think they're waiting in airport lines longer than they've ever had before." Nor, in the ensuing four years, has Bush asked ordinary Americans to sacrifice much of anything else.
On one of the few occasions he did--the 2002 State of the Union Address, in which Bush summoned Americans to commit 4,000 hours to volunteer work during their lifetimes--the proposal, at least to judge by static rates of volunteerism, went nowhere. Bush's national service bill, which would have expanded the ranks of AmeriCorps, never even reached the floor of Congress. Not only has the president failed to offer even a symbolic initiative along the lines of war bonds, whose purpose was mostly to create the impression of participation in a larger effort, he has failed to offer even necessary measures. Never mind AmeriCorps: Bush began the war on terrorism by opposing the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. And, with the Armed Forces pinned down in two foreign wars and starved for manpower, he has yet to devote a speech merely to urging young Americans to consider the benefits of military service. ...
Read entire article at New Republic
... The need for a moral equivalent of the cold war evaporated on September 11. Having failed to reverse the equation during the '90s, the architects of national greatness would henceforth make a virtue out of necessity. If most opinion-makers concentrated on the war abroad, the potential benefits at home were never far from the minds of others. Celebrating the end of America's "holiday from history," columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that "this land of 'bowling alone,' of Internet introversion, of fractious multiculturalism developed an extraordinary solidarity. ... It turned out that the decadence and flabbiness were just summer wear, thrown off immediately." As to what awaited the United States on its return from this holiday, Commentary Editor-at-Large Norman Podhoretz wrote, "Beyond revenge, we crave 'a new birth' of the confidence we used to have in ourselves and in 'America the Beautiful.' But there is only one road to this lovely condition of the spirit, and it runs through what Roosevelt and Churchill called the 'unconditional surrender' of the enemy." President Bush put the point somewhat more bluntly: "For too long, our culture has said, 'If it feels good, do it.' Now, America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: 'Let's roll.'"
The significance of national greatness was never the movement it spawned, but rather the moment it encapsulated--a minute, really, in which it was hoped that something good might come from bad. What its adherents anticipated after September 11 was really less a return to national greatness than a return to basic national goodness, a civic quality the excesses of the '90s seemed to have corroded. Civic attachments, a sense of shared purpose, a propensity to sacrifice for the common good--if historical precedent offers any guide, all of these should have been renewed in the aftermath of September 11. As Harvard's Theda Skocpol noted in her 2001 study, "Patriotic Partnerships: Why Great Wars Nourished American Civil Voluntarism," "America's civic vigor was greatly enhanced, both following the national fratricide of the 1860s and amidst the plunge into global conflict between 1917 and 1919." The pattern held during World War II and the cold war, conflicts that boosted everything from membership in voluntary associations to the fortunes of the civil rights movement. And, yet, not only has everything not changed since September 11; nothing has. According to a mountain of attitudinal and behavioral data collected in the past four years, the post- September 11 mood that former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge dubbed "the new normalcy" resembles nothing so much as the old normalcy.
That matters at home, where the toll of civic disengagement, which has ranged from the loss of community life and its benefits at the local level to the hollowing of participatory democracy at the national level, has been well-chronicled by Putnam and others. And it matters abroad, too. An erosion of the common good, after all, can easily shade into an erosion of common purpose, even more so if that purpose demands public hardship--something the war on terrorism requires.
owever intuitive the idea that September 11 ought to have sparked a return to civic engagement, the form that engagement should take is less obvious. A draft, for example, makes sense only as a response to military necessity, of which there is none today. The war in Iraq may be thinning the ranks of the all-volunteer military, but hardly to the point of requiring the conscription of tens of millions of young men--and, this time, women. Vague proposals for national service, while appealing as a means to promote social cohesion, run into the same problem. The war on terrorism doesn't require mass mobilization. Nor, in terms of civic renewal--that is, patriotism as an activity rather than merely a sentiment--should it. The vigorous citizen is not a helpless dependent awaiting a summons. That is an incompetent citizen. As political scientist Alan Wolfe puts it, "However important leaders, policies, and programs may be, greatness will not come about unless Americans care enough about it to will it into existence." For young Americans, meeting this condition could have meant at least entertaining the option of military service, a stint in law enforcement, or any number of philanthropic vocations. For others, it could have been expressed through activities as basic as volunteerism, attendance at public meetings, or membership in local organizations. For the rest of us, it could have simply been a contribution to the common good, whether through service to one's fellow citizen, one's neighborhood, or one's nation. In short, national greatness means citizens caring deeply about the fate of the nation. And, more important, acting like they do.
That so many of us seem not to has something, although not everything, to do with the quality of our leadership. Bush may employ high-minded rhetoric about America's purpose. But his rhetoric entails no obligation to act. The counterexample of Franklin Roosevelt has become a favorite cliché among the president's critics. And for good reason. If Bush has, in some respects, followed in the footsteps of FDR abroad, he has governed more like Warren Harding here at home. "No less than December 7, 1941," then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced in October 2003, "September 11, 2001, forever changed the lives of every American." About 1941 she was correct. As the famous World War II poster put it, remember pearl harbor: work--fight--sacrifice!! And Americans did. Legions volunteered to join the military (and millions more were drafted), while, on the home front, millions of others labored directly in support of the war effort. They did so, in part, because their president asked them to. In 1943, FDR declared that "Doctor New Deal has been replaced by Doctor Win the War." And, through scrap drives, rationing, war bonds, and a doubling of their tax burden, the public responded in kind. "You see those bombers in the sky," the Irving Berlin tune went, "Rockefeller helped build them and so did I. I paid my income tax today."
Ironically, as historian David Kennedy documents in his book, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, FDR felt "let down" by the American people. In 1943, the president complained that too many Americans were "laboring under the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious sacrifices." What would he make of the present era? The circumstances that required mass mobilization during World War II are, of course, not the circumstances the United States confronts today. In Bush's telling, however, the war on terrorism requires something closer to mass demobilization. "Get on board," he urged in the immediate aftermath of September 11. "Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life." As for sacrifice, the president elaborated, "I think the American people are sacrificing now. I think they're waiting in airport lines longer than they've ever had before." Nor, in the ensuing four years, has Bush asked ordinary Americans to sacrifice much of anything else.
On one of the few occasions he did--the 2002 State of the Union Address, in which Bush summoned Americans to commit 4,000 hours to volunteer work during their lifetimes--the proposal, at least to judge by static rates of volunteerism, went nowhere. Bush's national service bill, which would have expanded the ranks of AmeriCorps, never even reached the floor of Congress. Not only has the president failed to offer even a symbolic initiative along the lines of war bonds, whose purpose was mostly to create the impression of participation in a larger effort, he has failed to offer even necessary measures. Never mind AmeriCorps: Bush began the war on terrorism by opposing the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. And, with the Armed Forces pinned down in two foreign wars and starved for manpower, he has yet to devote a speech merely to urging young Americans to consider the benefits of military service. ...