28 in 28: Day 7 -- View to a Untied State

[fivecats]

Death of a Snowman
February 2010 Outside Raleighwood, NC
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Day 07 → Your view of the United States.

Anyone who has been reading for, oh, say the past week or two, is likely to remember a rant I posted recently. If you're interested in more rantings,

My take on America?

America, at 234 years old, is just hitting it's stride in the country-as-child equivalent of it's Terrible Twos. We're full of ego, arrogance and expect to be the center of everyone's universe.

The only thing that makes us really dangerous is that we've hoodwinked the rest of the world into believing our PR about economics, democracy and being The Good Guys.

That, and we have The Bomb. (Tends to make some people nervous)

My long-held theory on the US is that, unlike most of the rest of the world, we do not have visible, tangible reminders all around us of our history. Pick a European city -- chances are you'll find an old city plaza, an old church. Down the road there is a farm that's been around for a few hundred years with the same family living in the same house as their ancestors. The rest of the world has a sense of Their Own Place in History, that they are a part of a continuum much bigger than the current times we are living in, regardless of how Serious they seem.

Those ruins on the hillside? They're thousands of years old. Our ancestors built them, lived in them, died in them. We may have automobiles, better medical knowledge and the internet, but seeing those ruins there has to be a sense of being a part of that fabric of history.

In the US, seeing a building 50 years old is practically unheard of. (An exaggeration, true, but if it's good enough for Eddie Izzard, it's good enough for me to use) We look around and we see... us. Our buildings, buildings created within the recent memory of those of us living now. Sure there's the odd bit of "history" but that's mostly old trees just waiting for a good storm to get knocked down or struck by lightening. Buildings are thrown up and torn down with such regularity that a city's landscape can change in a generation.

And while we are taught history, it's only US history (the history of US). Without the common, daily visual reminders that we are part of a greater story of human history, this gives us the impression not that we are just the latest addition to the ongoing saga, but that we are what all of history was building towards. We are the apex. We are the pinnacle. We are the Champions.

Or something like that.

And because we're spoiled rotten brats with the bomb who value profits, cheap oil and whatever else satisfies our ever-changing whims, there ain't no chance of things changing. (Unless someone can topple us economically... or we do so ourselves)

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