Where Weather is a Verb
Andrew
Sullivan wrote
eloquently last week of the differences between the British
reaction to terror attacks and America's. The famous moderate hawk
notes that he spent his first 21 years in England and his second 21
over here. His article in Time magazine reinforces one of my most
insistent themes.
Stoicism? Sure. It's a
characteristic of an island where weather is a verb, where in a tiny,
crowded place, patience is necessary. Americans, used to an entire
continent of limitless potential, tend to have less need for stoicism.
If they hate where they live, they often move somewhere else. If Brits
move more than a few hundred miles, they're in the sea. But it seems to
me we need both approaches in a war on terrorism. We need to fight back
militarily when appropriate. We need boldness and aggression. But we
also need to steel ourselves for casualties, for failures, for mistakes
along the way. Victory in this war will be elusive and never complete.
As long as some maniac wants to kill himself and others in a subway or
supermarket, we will not be able to stop him. And so stoicism matters.
Getting on with our lives matters. Spelling bees, college football,
celebrity gossip, high school proms: the simple continuance of these
things is integral to the meaning of freedom.
Maybe I react to terrorism as the Brits do because I'm
literally a Britt, and not because I was conditioned by the Southeast
Asia Airlift
Adventure Camp. My familiar name is a shortened version of my
middle name, Britton, my
mother's maiden name. Interestingly, both her parents were
Brittons, distant cousins, in fact, from the Nottingham area. Most of
the rest of the family were Scottish and Irish–the
MacAllisters came
here early, before the Revolutionary War. Maybe that's why Tim Bray, a
Canadian, sees it that way too. Sullivan continues:
Or so the British have long
proved. Their small-c conservatism can lead to errors of
complacency--like appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. But it is also a deep
strength, as self-effacing as it is unmovable. When mass murder comes
to America again, and it will, we could do worse than remember their
stoicism. And how modestly powerful it is.
Perhaps the RAF, those few to whom so many are obliged, are
particularly set up to exhibit the ultimate sang-froid. I
recall a question from an RAF pilot's exam about the time Queen
Elizabeth II was crowned: "You're flying an open cockpit aircraft at
8,000 feet with Queen Elizabeth as your sole passenger. She falls out
of the aircraft. What is your response?" The students' answers were
creative, like diving to catch her, throw her your parachute, etc. The
correct answer? "Adjust elevator trim tab to compensate for loss of
weight of passenger."
That's the quintessential British inclination to separate
facts and obligations from the romance
that usually surrounds a stimulating event. I've been an unwilling
participant in a couple dozen life-threatening jams and I'm here to
tell you, with earned authority, that most people act far too fast in
emergencies. The universal human urge, to immediately put the world
back the way it was, causes people to do some supremely stupid,
dangerous things.* Like most of
the British, I suspect, I wonder how many of our nation's actions since
9/11 have been precisely that–and, in the bargain, more
romantic than effective. Worse, some of our politicians'
responses might even have been opportunistic and cynical.
But what's the meaning of romance
in this context, and if that's what's going on, what might be the
source of our country's inclination toward romanticism? How might such
an inclination set us up to be victimized by more cynical manipulators
of our perceptions?
Hopeless Romantics and Dreamers All
Have you ever noticed how quivery the press gets, interviewing
some lovable lug in uniform who gets misty-eyed describing his feelings
for flag and country? Everyone seems surprised that a soldier could
have such a, well, affective,
side. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it seems to be
more the norm among my fellow veterans than the exception. In fact, I
submit that the so-called tough guys who, thankfully, are willing to
act as the sharp point of the spear of our foreign policy,
are more often than not sentimental saps: romantics at heart. They're
willing to fight not because they're cool Steven Seagal
type warriors, but because they're hopeless romantics. This is a
condition I observe among my retired fellow veterans more than I
remember among our precursor selves, the lieutenants and young captains
we all were.
An amazingly fact-starved, romantic notion
brought our families here. Our ancestors left the old country because
they just knew
that they could lead a better, less violent life here in the New World.
We weren't forced to emigrate, like the fun-loving down-to-earth
Australians. No, we followed a dream that never was supported
by the facts. The data never supported the notion that the New World
was a better bet for your granddaddy's gene pool. What our families
did, accidentally, was to get in on the ground floor of an economic
revolution driven by free land, abundant resources and few laws. We
know nothing of the many who died before advancing their genetic cause,
so we assume that all settlers' histories were as successful as our
surviving families' luck, transmuted into destiny. It's just another
romantic viewpoint, unsupported by the data.
So how does a Nation of Romantics respond to messages? That's
the core question here. In the land that nurtured P.T. Barnum, we're
essentially a bunch of rubes who hold these myths to be self-evident:
- If it feels good, do it!
- Rich guys who chat amiably with me at the company picnic
have my best interests at heart.
- There's a law against false advertising.
- Real Men don't need to study facts too closely because we
have a built in lie detector.
- Since Americans live in bigger houses than other citizens,
we have better answers.
- The business of America is business.
Turner's Thesis
Suppose that the defining characteristic of your culture is
the
option of headin' west when things get uncomfortable, or when a
conversation with the neighbor can't be avoided, as in, say, a real
culture. How might such a reality form your perceptions, your
ambitions, your toughness and your gullibility?
Frederick
Jackson Turner precedes Andrew Sullivan in suggesting that a
tiny, civilized island of limited horizons may breed tougher people
than a vast frontier of unlimited possibilities. In 1893, Turner said
that the best single model to understand the American culture is that
it had always existed in the presence of a vast frontier, receding
infinitely, in which no one really had to deal with not hanging around
when things grew uncomfortable.
It goes against the collective wisdom of our cultural
conceit–that we're tougher than other countries' citizens
because our forebears had to stand and fight. An alternate explanation
is uncomfortable: We feel and talk tough because we have always
escaped. Our current escape is that we have more TV programs and
tabloids and politicians telling us how tough we are than do other
nations. Never mind that most of our tough-talking males (and it's
always the self-congratulating males, isn't it?) have never seen
combat, are collectively and disastrously overweight and would never
put up with a week without their central heating and cooling. How many
of these beer-curling yahoos have a) served in the military, b) seen
combat, c) spent 2 consecutive nights out of doors without a gun or d)
discovered the wisdom of heeding a wise woman?
And how many of us realize that all of those are equivalent
qualifiers, training us to live quietly with inner strength rather than
noisily with inner trepidation?
*I once stopped a
19-year-old crewmember who was about to eject a crew hatch into the
only working propeller we had on the left side of the aircraft; it was
especially disturbing because the other, non-operating engine on that
side of the aircraft was spewing an 80-foot long plume of flame. Had
anyone suggested to this stripling that the crew hatch needed ejecting?
No. Was there even a parenthetical clause in the flight manual
suggesting anything like this action, in this circumstance? No. Was
there a procedure in place for an Airman to take it upon himself to
remove the bright red pin from the bright yellow handle without
consulting with at least one other crewmember (perhaps, like, an
officer)? No. But there it was, an amazing vision seared into my
eyeballs to this day, of an enthusiastic young fellow about to
chin himself on the C-130 Crew Door Emergency Eject Handle.
Why? Because he just had
to do something. It wasn't I who cried out, but rather my ganglia. "STOP!"
I shouted above the general hubbub you'd expect on the flight deck of a
burning C-130. I hadn't actually taken in what he was doing, but I was
real sure we hadn't had a proper discussion of the consequences.
For 37 years, I've assumed I was roused by my finely honed
aviator instincts, but perhaps it was my genetic British reserve. "I
say, chap, have you discussed this step with anyone else? It would be
jolly good form to take a moment here and see how the rest of us feel
about this. Well, right; rather an extraordinary step,
that–opening a large rectangle in the left side of
the aircraft to invite the flames in to fry us when we land this
promiscuous aluminum tube which, really, we ought to do any minute now
before the flight controls fail us totally which, given their current
rate of degradation, should be in, I don't know, shall we say, three
minutes?"
"There's a good chap! Do have a seat and strap in, things
might get dicey for a bit."
12:30:04 AM 
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