"Although it stands to reason that a samurai should be mindful of the Way of the Samurai, it would seem that we are all negligent. Consequently, if someone were to ask, "What is the true meaning of the Way of the Samurai?" the person who would be able to answer promptly is rare. This is because it has not been established in one's mind beforehand. From this, one's unmindfulness of the Way can be known. Negligence is an extreme thing."
-Yamamoto Tsunetomo
I was sitting in class last week when my professor asked one of the perennial sophomoric questions that im sure we all have encountered at some point. We were talking about the need or lack thereof to assimilate immigrants to american values and part way through my professor goes, get this she goes; "But does america really have values? Do we? What are they?". Now, im pretty sure she knows we do have values but most of the class, they are mouth breathers, but anyway, they sat there with their jaws hanging slack and I waited for the inevitable response . . . "hamburgers?" I heard someone murmur. I can remember being in high school and thinking the same thing, the most quintessential american custom was backyard bbq hamburgers. It was McDonalds and summer time and 99cents. If you could put that summertime bbq smell in a can people would buy it (we reckoned). I was almost coughing on my tic tac when the professor then replied "are hamburgers an american value?". Now again, I was once this naive so I cant blame these poor dupes but really, hamburgers are an american value? Lets try and do some decon here. First of all, hamburgers are not a value, they are a food item on a menu, no more american than chicken tikka masala is british. So, ok we all knew hamburgers were food items anyway so why this confusion?
It seems to me, to my great dismay, that most americans have never for a second even considered what american values are. They, in this sense, are fundamentally unamerican. The unexamined life is not just not worth living, its quite confusing, you might even think that the nation that made you is exemplified by hamburgers. If it is really necessary for one to hesitate in response to this question you are not in my estimation anything more than accidentally american. I remember back when the war in iraq was getting going, people where playing the patriotism card, saying things like, "If you dont support the war you are not an american! Get out of my country!". Well I think that was a jingoistic thing but id like to revive it. If the first thing that comes to mind when someone says "american values" is "hamburgers", then, ahem, get the fuck out of my country you fucking cunt.
American values: The right to self determination and political participation for everyone irrespective of race sex etc. Equality of the sexes. Freedom of speech and free expression. Religious freedom and freedom from state religion. Freedom of religion from the state. Equality in the eyes of the law. Liberty. Opportunity. Economy. Having your shit squared away because its the right thing to do. Having the freedom to be a dirtbag and not doing it. Sacrificing for these values even when you dont like the people you are preserving the values for. Not taking your ball and going home. Competition. Making your own luck. Just doing it. Loving it. Optimism. Progress. The anglo-saxon tradition. The french enlightenment. Battling down anybody who doesnt stand for these things. Saying "fuck the police" and actually meaning it. Being the police because you actually believe in justice and the rule of law. Not being a bitch ass hater. Having answers, not questions. Do I need to go on? Are you getting this? Are you starting to see why I think so highly of the libyan revolutionaries? Seriously, if you arnt running with this fucking run from it. Take your goddamn hamburgers too.
If these notions sound like a nike commerical or a disney movie its not at all by accident. Nike didnt invent american values, it just articulated them through advertisements. This is like the reverberation in the room after a great cacophony has been created. Dont mistake the burger for the ideology that led to the burger. Irrational exuberance isnt a product of deregulation or wallstreet greed, its our fucking middle name. The united states of irrational exuberance.
Sometimes when you are drowning in these things its hard to see them. Its understandable really, raised in it, breathing it every day, it becomes invisible. The mythology of your culture appears to be a "self evident" reality to anyone from your culture. If you really want to understand your values it is instructive to examine another culture for comparison. You might pick any really but lets say the theocratic state of the iranian republic. Religious freedom? Nope. Equality of the sexes? Nope. Independence of religion from the state? Nope. Freedom of speech or thought? Nope. Holding hands in public? Nope. So it is quite easy to see by contrast that these values are ours, not theirs, and that we do not share them and that if it is necessary (and it is) to articulate american values that these would some of them. Further more if it seems to you that these values that I have articulated are common to all civilized societies it would not be a coincidence, again, the west is civilization. It defines the entire archetype. If you do not participate in the legacy of the greek humanist and stoic philosophers, if you do not take part of the roman republican tradition, the enlightenment, an idea of the nation and a nations sovereignty and a slew of other things, you are not recognized as civilized, you are a barbarian. We define our values most easily in contrast to this barbarism.
If these notions sound like a nike commerical or a disney movie its not at all by accident. Nike didnt invent american values, it just articulated them through advertisements. This is like the reverberation in the room after a great cacophony has been created. Dont mistake the burger for the ideology that led to the burger. Irrational exuberance isnt a product of deregulation or wallstreet greed, its our fucking middle name. The united states of irrational exuberance.
Sometimes when you are drowning in these things its hard to see them. Its understandable really, raised in it, breathing it every day, it becomes invisible. The mythology of your culture appears to be a "self evident" reality to anyone from your culture. If you really want to understand your values it is instructive to examine another culture for comparison. You might pick any really but lets say the theocratic state of the iranian republic. Religious freedom? Nope. Equality of the sexes? Nope. Independence of religion from the state? Nope. Freedom of speech or thought? Nope. Holding hands in public? Nope. So it is quite easy to see by contrast that these values are ours, not theirs, and that we do not share them and that if it is necessary (and it is) to articulate american values that these would some of them. Further more if it seems to you that these values that I have articulated are common to all civilized societies it would not be a coincidence, again, the west is civilization. It defines the entire archetype. If you do not participate in the legacy of the greek humanist and stoic philosophers, if you do not take part of the roman republican tradition, the enlightenment, an idea of the nation and a nations sovereignty and a slew of other things, you are not recognized as civilized, you are a barbarian. We define our values most easily in contrast to this barbarism.
