Not Standing Pat

As much as I admire Pat Buchanan, I have to say (again, I'm afraid) that he spends way too much time bemoaning the demise of something that has never existed -- or if it ever did, it was way before the living memory of anyone alive today.

Let me explain. In today's column he asks, "In what sense are we one nation and one people anymore? For what is a nation if not a people of common ancestry, faith, culture and language, who revere the same heroes, cherish the same history, celebrate the same holidays, and share the same music, poetry, art and literature?"

For starters, that "anymore" part implies that we were, at one time (and -- by implication -- up until quite recently), "one nation and one people". Well... we have certainly been "one nation" in the legal sense since 1776, except for a slight awkwardness in the 1860s... but since when have we been "one people"? The English founded Jamestown in 1607, and the Dutch founded New Amsterdam in 1613. So for those six years in between, I guess we qualified as being "one people". Unless he means "all Europeans" -- but even that won't work if you include the Indians.

And how about his other points? Common faith? Well... many of the colonies were founded by people of one denomination seeking to get away from people of other denominations, with the result that the colonies overall were a patchwork of various religious groups -- all Christian, of course, until the first Jews arrived... in 1654. Um... OK... well then, how about culture? Each immigrant group brought their own with them; how can that be an argument? Even "typical" American Christmas customs are a hybrid of those from a dozen old-world cultures. Language? Well... we started out with English, Dutch, and French, with Spanish added on before long, then German, and then... well, just check out the number of langages currently used to say "Rest Room" and you'll get the idea.

And how about heroes? Well, that issue bifurcated at the time of the Civil War... plus now we have a whole galaxy of black heroes, Hispanic heroes, gay heroes, etc. History? Hmmm... well, I guess the catalog of any major university could enlighten us as to how many versions of history there are -- basically as many versions as the product of all races/ethnic groups x genders x sexual preferences. And there are actually "scholarly" publications out there nowadays with titles like "Journal of Black Lesbian History, Suckah!" And as to holidays -- well, aside from all the various national holidays still celebrated by all the "hyphenated American" groups, we have Jewish holidays, and now Hispanic and Arabic... and let's not forget "Juneteenth" and "Kwanzaaaaa". So forget about holidays. "Music, poetry, art and literature?" Well, since those are culturally-based they should be a subset of culture, right? And how many of those are there? (Unless we're talking about "high" culture, of course -- which doesn't really "belong" to anyone in the ethnic, national, or organic sense -- and which is therefore a doubtful help in holding a nation together, unless your "nation" happens to be San Francisco.)

So what I'm getting at is -- as I said at the beginning -- Buchanan is getting upset about losing something that has never really existed. America has always been a polyglot patchwork -- a nation of not-quite-assimilated immigrants, with a parish church for each white European ethnic group, rival street gangs based on race and ethnicity, etc. (And for those on the local scene, check out all the different ethnic "days" that Kennywood puts on each summer.) What kept this fact from being more obvious up until recently was the iron-fisted dominance of the "male WASP" over not just American politics and economics but also most visible manifestations of "culture". Remember when sitcoms _all_ involved WASP families? I sure do. And remember when Christmas cards could only depict winter scenes from New England? That's still true! And don't get me started on Thanksgiving, with all the Puritans and their buckled hats and blunderbusses! But while the deepest American iconographic roots are in Puritan New England, and while the male WASP still holds sway over much of the political and economic life of the nation, the "visible culture" has shifted drastically in favor of "diversity" and "minorities" -- to the point where it is virtually impossible to find any WASPs depicted on TV or in film, except in the most ruthless satirical way (think: Archie Bunker). And it's not as though ownership and control of the popular media has shifted all that much over the last few decades -- only that now it's more lucrative to "reflect diversity" than to stick with the same old 1950s Ozzie and Harriet formula. (Besides, all those "minorities" have TV sets now, and discretionary cash.) So those few of us who can still lay claim to being genuine WASPs (in terms of heritage, at least) have to get our cultural nourishment and light amusement from the efforts, and antics, of people who are "not our kind". It's as though the old-time minstrel show has metastatized and become the univeral baseline -- instead of WASP culture for everyone, it's now "Anything But WASP" culture for everyone. And frankly, I don't mind this trend at all -- I mean, we forget how crushingly boring those old 50s sitcoms were, until we happen to see one on Nickelodeon. Gimme J.J. and Steve Erkel any day.

So I guess Pat's complaint is -- not unlike the complaint I discussed a while back about "declining birth rates" -- less about diversity per se than about the accelerated rate thereof, and the fact that we are quickly becoming a modern-day version of the Tower of Babel. (Anyone who has witnessed a Pakistani trying to place an order at an inner-city McDonald's need seek no further... ) And this is completely true, and is completely the product of, guess what, demographics. Not just illegal immigration and refusal to assimilate, but of the fact that the more "aggressive" racial/ethnic groups persist in refusing to "control" their birth rate, whereas the more... um... "polite" groups are non-reproducing themselves out of existence. Darwin wins again, in other words. And Pat does admit that "the European-Christian core of the country that once defined us is shrinking as Christianity fades, the birth rate [I assume he means the non-Hispanic Christian birth rate] falls, and Third World immigration surges." Yes, and you know what? This is a self-inflicted wound on the part of the establishment, i.e. "real Americans" who have been drinking population control Kool-Aid ever since the 1960s. Them and the feminists, of course... who are, by and large, drawn from the same subpopulation.

He also states that "globalism dissolves the economic bonds while the cacophony of multiculturalism displaces the old American culture". Well, certainly globalism stands in opposition to nationalism, and therefore to nation-based economies. But it imposes its own economic bonds, which may turn out to be even stronger, and more oppressive, than those that any nation has been able to come up with. And as to "cacophony" -- right. Do some channel surfing any night of the week. But again, I don't see this as a problem so much as the result of free choices by individuals and groups. Selling one's culture down the river is not a cause so much as an effect -- an effect of cultural weariness and fatigue, of boredom, of uprootedness and lack of self-confidence and a vision of the future. Ask any racial/ethnic/sexual "minority" to describe their vision for America, and you'll get an instant thesis, delivered loudly and with confidence. Ask an old-time WASP the same question and he's likely to mumble something about "values"... and if you press the point it'll turn out he means "steak, chicken, and seafood" restaurants and a place on the golf course with swimming and tennis. And, oh yes, a fat portfolio, and a white Cadillac in the garage. This is not the sort of thing that sustains a culture or a nation, folks! It's bourgeois smugness and complacency -- almost guaranteed as a cultural death wish. The young, lean, and aggressive shall inherit the earth -- at least in the cultural sense. And those people are to be found among the "diverse", no matter how much Pat Buchanan regrets the notion.