Well, a successful Tecumseh could presumably recruit his western neighbors and get a cavalry-based army while still not falling exactly into the same old pattern :D I know "smallpox comes early" would be awfully hard, but I'm just so tired of the same narrow focus over and over that I'd at least like some writers to think about it. Even if they end up writing something else, they'd probably have gotten some new ideas and maybe would go for something different, like Tecumseh.
The even weirder thing is that not only is a lot of American identity wrapped up in struggle against foreign enemies, but it's also frequently not defined as war - even defined as peace. Textbooks will flat out say that the US was at peace between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, though they usually just gloss over the latter and skip to WWI. (Although they will make sure you memorize key term "yellow journalism" and the slogan "Remember the Maine!" while not expecting you to think of this as a serious war that counts as anything more than a national ego boost.) Educated commentators will talk about 9/11 as one of the only attacks on American soil in all seriousness, counting only maybe the War of 1812 besides Pearl Harbor as earlier ones. (Unless they remember Pancho Villa's raid on Texas, but no one ever does.) And this while mentioning that we were also occasionally wiping out some Indian nations and even getting attacked in return, and watching Westerns every other week! It's a mind-boggling example of cognitive dissonance. You would think that spending decades and tens of millions of dollars fighting would register as "not peace," but no. And you're absolutely right about the masculine, militarized ideal and democracy being suspect ("someone has to be the decider").
Surviving the decline is the trick, isn't it. Right now everyone is still talking about getting the economy back to "normal," but "normal" requires consuming mountains upon mountains of mass-produced disposable plastic thingamabobs, which I really don't think is a sustainable long-term economic foundation. (Some, yes. Even lots. But not the astronomical amounts we've got.) But I haven't heard anyone even ask what alternatives there might be even as supplements to "normal" in a public forum, apart from vague nostalgic ramblings about how we used to manufacture our own mountains of consumer goods. Where do you even start?
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Date: 2010-12-11 06:05 pm (UTC)The even weirder thing is that not only is a lot of American identity wrapped up in struggle against foreign enemies, but it's also frequently not defined as war - even defined as peace. Textbooks will flat out say that the US was at peace between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, though they usually just gloss over the latter and skip to WWI. (Although they will make sure you memorize key term "yellow journalism" and the slogan "Remember the Maine!" while not expecting you to think of this as a serious war that counts as anything more than a national ego boost.) Educated commentators will talk about 9/11 as one of the only attacks on American soil in all seriousness, counting only maybe the War of 1812 besides Pearl Harbor as earlier ones. (Unless they remember Pancho Villa's raid on Texas, but no one ever does.) And this while mentioning that we were also occasionally wiping out some Indian nations and even getting attacked in return, and watching Westerns every other week! It's a mind-boggling example of cognitive dissonance. You would think that spending decades and tens of millions of dollars fighting would register as "not peace," but no. And you're absolutely right about the masculine, militarized ideal and democracy being suspect ("someone has to be the decider").
Surviving the decline is the trick, isn't it. Right now everyone is still talking about getting the economy back to "normal," but "normal" requires consuming mountains upon mountains of mass-produced disposable plastic thingamabobs, which I really don't think is a sustainable long-term economic foundation. (Some, yes. Even lots. But not the astronomical amounts we've got.) But I haven't heard anyone even ask what alternatives there might be even as supplements to "normal" in a public forum, apart from vague nostalgic ramblings about how we used to manufacture our own mountains of consumer goods. Where do you even start?