Likely to be titled “Scraps 10/11/09,” I begin this entry with utterly no idea of what I’m planning on saying. That’s a little scary, but mostly freeing. Especially in such a disposable medium as the internet. The little red X, your permanent escape ladder.
I will begin with my immediate stimulus. I’m listening to Clutch. No surprise there, and I need something to drown out the remarkably varied grinding and humming sounds of the dishwasher, which is currently scrubbing the child-detritus off a variety of eating utensils. As well as some adult leavings. I can’t claim innocence. In fact, I found myself earlier today soaked to the knuckles in lamb grease. But that might be another story for another time. Another, more delicious time.
I suppose it’s worth mentioning that since returning to Melbourne from Adelaide, I have developed a pleasant, if unlikely, social life. Being a “token-American” is kind of an interesting experience. The reactions I get are as diverse as the dishwasher’s clanks and clunks. Some say that they like Americans they meet because we’re well spoken and educated. I say they’ve only met academics (a profile I begrudgingly fit into, with my apparent wit and Kierkegaard tattoo). Still others believe that all American young people hail Obama as a shining light in a world of darkened corruption. I don’t really feel that to be true. With the preemptive award of the Nobel prize, I feel he is now doomed to fail. How you can you live up to an award in that fashion? Imagine giving a capable if new film director an Oscar and saying “Go earn it.” Or giving a soldier a medal and telling him to go get wounded in combat. It adds even more weight.
Other people have the startling and refreshing belief that we Americans are, in fact, human beings. You know, beneath our scales and comically oversized foam fingers. But no matter how accepting they may seem, one ill-placed “U.S.A.!” chant and you are back getting the cold shoulder here down under. But at least it’s a cold shoulder with a sense of humor.
Americanism is one of those things that sort of baffles me. It could be because I’m the child of immigrants and have a general sense of homelessness. But I feel like it might be deeper than that. Our theoretical bond as Americans should be our borders, and more abstractly our choice to live within a country sharing certain beliefs. Holding things to be true. More and more it seems like people think America is great for the dissent. The protests, the “patriotism” veneer on vitriolic rants. It seems to me, sometimes, that America might be great for the freedom to hate everything you ever come into contact with. To disagree with everything, to dissent upon dissent. A nihilist state of mostly chubby people.
Alright, that’s overly pessimistic, but I got carried away. Which’ll happen. There are those in America who believe what they believe without negating everyone else. That’s true. Not everyone casts themselves as what they are not, rather than what they are. There are altruists, and charitable folks and generally good people floating in the States. Probably just not in my circles. I don’t mean my friends, I mean my world. My friends I believe to be the people picked from certain circles, people who seemed (to me) worth hanging onto, while everyone else descended into madness and shame and general buffoonery. Buffoonery is a damn fine word. Its own utter unlikely stupidity in structure perfectly reflects the actions it represents, you see. Do some unpacking on that adverb pile-up and I’ll meet you on the other side of this paragraph break.
I came to what sounded like a pithy conclusion on a bathroom break, during the aforementioned paragraph break. I will now clumsily wield the quadruple edged sword of metaphor. America is a hydra. It’s many faced, and each time one is removed, two more spring up in its place. The extended portion of that metaphor, the business with the faces, means the following. When an idea (or even worse ideology) is extinguished in America, when it passes out of favor, two more spring up. One that was for the idea that would never work, and one that was against the idea that would never work. In this hilariously reactionary way, arguments that seem to be about the original thing transmute, and become something totally new. Additional significances are added every time a conclusion is reached, and America gets more confused, more meta and more diverse. People reach micro-conclusions, develop perhaps less informed but more nuanced opinions. Maybe this semi-delusional form of prolonged discourse is what makes America great.
All I know is that I did not expect the opinions of America here to be as varied as those I find within the beast itself. I didn’t really assume a monolithic positive or negative, because its reputation as a diverse nation precedes it. But I did, ultimately, expect some form of consensus. Perhaps I’ve been talking to the wrong people. I do know, though, that in America, we wouldn’t be as forgiving on international issues. Countries are essentially good or bad, either oppressive or rife with America-rubber-stamp-approved Freedom™. I will continue to review and attemptedly reform the opinions of Aussies, but I figure we could use a wake up call on open mindedness.
The only closing note I can think of is a quote from a man I generally find racist, repugnant and flat-out strange. Carl Jung, the man who believed that only an Asian man would have the feminine sensibilities to operate a kindergarten, crafted this gem. “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.” That sounds pretty good. Strikes a nice balance between the hippy dippy pan-acceptance-ism and the cynicism which both dominate America’s two headed culture machine.
And now, I am done. I think. For now. And I still don’t have a title. I’ll go with Scraps. But really, this one feels more cohesive. It turned into something in the writing.
Practical updates: In Melbourne until Halloween weekend, whereupon I go to Sydney. Will likely continue to go out and be drunk and revelrous with Australians, who are by and large a drunk and revelrous people. Or at least one to whom drunken revelry is no foreign concept. It might be the true universal language. People claim mathematics and music, but there are countries where the understanding of mathematics is such that it might as well not exist. And have you ever heard some of the music out there? Not the “International Music” you might buy in a store that sells incense, but the real stuff. The Ramayana Monkey Chants, the Tuvan throat singers… Some of that sounds like its from another planet. So yeah. Inebriation and laughter. The true universals.
RJC
posted : Monday, October 12th, 2009
