Amidst the turmoil of the elections, the sonorous bellows of staunch Republicans and Democrats, amidst heartland America crying out its support for President Bush and urban, multicultural United States crying out its support for Sen. Kerry, the predominant question that many are beginning to ask themselves is how this country will ever get over this cultural divide, supposedly created by these current elections?
A recent Time magazine article claimed that the United States has become "A Nation Divided," and has blamed the situation entirely on presidential candidates Kerry and Bush for their constant debates regarding domestic and foreign policies. Such simplifying views tend to portray the United States as having been quite culturally homogenous before the current electoral campaigns.
Is this quite true? Social commentator David Brooks in 2001 was already calling the United States "One Nation: Slightly Divisible" after the September attacks of that year. In the midst of this battle of Liberals versus Conservatives, Democrats versus Republicans, who has stopped to look at the true reasons for the cultural divide among Americans? Who has stopped to put his finger on what that cultural divide consists of?
Those are the questions that need answering, and I think that most answers lie in studying the historical backgrounds of the people supporting both groups. As a citizen of various countries, and as a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party's ideals, I feel the need to have a glance at the Republicans, not at their party, but at the followers themselves, and focus on their ideological and cultural past. Many of my fellow political contemporaries shudder with contempt and repudiation for the narrow-mindedness of Bush's supporters, but I believe that it is important to analyze them in order to fully understand them.
Who are they? The exorbitantly wealthy oil magnates and industrial corporate owners who have seasonal penthouses in Upper East Side Manhattan and Rio de Janeiro? The upper-middle classes of West Palm Beach, Fla.? The labor class workers and farmers? I used to think that social class distinguished one type of voter from another, but I have long found out that this is not the case. Aside from the top echelons of society, however, Republicans are predominantly white Protestants and Catholics, of a variety of social classes, and inhabit rural, suburban, small town and provincial urban areas of the United States, like Jacksonville, Fla.; Wichita, Kan.' Fairbanks, Alaska; Nashville, Ten.; and even niches of Democratic states, like Annapolis, Md. and Rochester, NY.
The next question is why have these people isolated themselves from the international community? Why have they isolated themselves from their fellow American community, that of the major urban areas, of the professional and intellectual classes, of minorities, and of people of similar background to theirs who have woken up to new, innovative ideologies and cast off the blindfold of isolationism?
What is the historical reason for isolationism and segregation from the rest of the world? Various historians, ranging from chroniclers of European history to chroniclers of American, have reached conclusions that might shed light onto the enigma. It might be odd to some to think that a visiting Latin American writer might have stumbled upon answers, but Octavio Paz, in his book "Ideas and Customs I," provides readers with remarkable insights regarding American isolationism, so let's have a quick peek at some roots of American history.
American isolationist tendencies are part of a historical cultural tradition dating back 2000 years. Germanic Europe had already isolated itself from Latin and Slavic Europe since the Roman conquests. England, owing more to its Germanic and Celtic legacies than to its Latin ones, was already isolated physically and culturally from the rest of Germanic Europe. It went on to become further isolated religiously with the formation of the Anglican Church.
The Puritans and other Protestant sects, isolationist groups within that already isolationist culture, clinging to separatist beliefs, fled to the New World in search of religious freedom, followed by those desiring political and economic freedom as well, the separatists were very wary of mixing with the native populations as well as with the new incoming European immigrants, lest they be corrupted.
Ethnic mixing, of course, inevitably took place with other European groups as they arrived from the Old World, but their old cultures were cast aside as they were forced to adapt to this new culture of isolationism and solitude. Why this exacerbated culture of isolation? What was the ideology, the subconscious logic behind it? It was isolation from Europe, that sinful Old World that had caused them so much poverty and suffering. Europe had made them suffer; it had treated them badly. And Europe, to them, was the entire world. Thus the world had to be shunned. Those painful chapters of social rejection or poverty had to be closed. A new world, named America, had to be created, with a new history, and it had to be kept purer, safer and untainted by any religious, cultural, moral or social deviation in order for it to thrive and prosper. Anything that had to do with Great Britain or Europe was viewed as corrupt and decadent, a feeling felt ever since.
Independence from Europe fulfilled, the isolationist American masses looked at themselves as the sole owners of an orderly, just, sane and moral system in a world caught up in telluric conflagrations and revolutions. Their "American Way of Life" became the measuring stick by which to judge all other cultures. If the other cultures complied, they were deemed as good. If they did not comply, they were shunned (and in the late 20th century, punished).
Of course, this is not the history of all the United States and its inhabitants, nor does it refer to the alternate "American Way of Life." I wish to make clear that I am referring to the people who formed the foundation of the isolationist side of American society, as opposed to its urban, multicultural one, which has stayed very much in contact with the rest of the world.
Currently, the result of that history of isolationism is seen everywhere. Suburbs are isolationist - communities kept purified and untainted by the "corruption" of the urban centers, as seen in the decades since the white flight and establishment of suburban culture, which is now predominant. The individualism imbued in such a large part of the American population is isolationist as well - the selfish pursuit of individual well-being instead of collective well-being, material and monetary accumulation, social success, etc. The United States truly came to harbor one of the most remote, hermetic societies on Earth, and yet it simultaneously created the opposite, independently and as a backlash: an analytical, self-critical, objective, and domestically and internationally conscious society. That is the current cultural divide in the United States, with both cultures neatly appropriated by two political parties.
Was Paz correct in his analyses? It seems like it. Are the current elections important to solving the immediate crises and dilemmas? Yes they are, but the advent of one candidate or another to the helm of the White House during the next four years will in itself do little to unite the two American cultures that are so incredibly different from each other. It is up to the analytical thinkers, whether they are Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans, nonpartisans, or others to put down their arms and have a good look at what this culture of isolationism has done, to us and to the world. England and Europe learned how to integrate the hard way...
Stuart Feltis is a junior in the School of Communication.
