As Gen. Patton famously stated, “Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. . . Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. . .The very thought of losing is hateful.” This cultural truth brought us the Capitol invasion. Did we really intend that?
When I Was A Naïve Immigrant
The home team is leading 43 to 3. I start cheering for the losers. My new friends, who’d enthusiastically invited me to my first football match, shout, “What are you doing?!” “Stop that!” I don’t think they are serious and keep rooting for the other side. But then I realize they are very serious and stop, explaining meekly, “But they’re losing?” They look at me in disbelief. I understand I’m doing something wrong, but I don’t know what. Is it that I’m rooting for the other side and that’s wrong? Is it another of those confusing cultural misunderstandings?
In 1966 I’d arrived on a student visa at Washington University in St. Louis. My new friends at the architecture school brought me to this WU Bears game. Where I came from, if the other side was losing badly, you cheered for them. It was only fair and right. Why would you cheer for the team that’s way ahead? That makes no sense. They don’t need it.
Wrong!!!!. Need has nothing to do with it. Apparently fair has nothing to do with it. It’s about winning — and it’s about The American Way. Step that fight up a few notches, and it’s where we are today nationally. Scorched-earth tribal politics. Invade and destroy the Capitol.
There’s No Other Way
I’ve talked to friends about this all-too-quick-jump to fighting. They pretty much pooh-pooh it, while not noticing their tacit agreement, by arguing about it to me! Arguing, dominating, winning is so deeply rooted in our U.S. culture, another way seems unimaginable; a classic blind spot.
To me as an outsider, an alien, an immigrant, some things are sharply clear. The same things are often invisible to someone born and raised within this culture. That’s true of any culture. As they say, “We don’t see our culture, we see the world through our culture.”
We have all watched several decades of the widening gulf between the two main political parties in Washington DC. It has nothing to do with ideology or policy (that’s a charade), and everything to do with domination and control — with winning. For a slight majority of Americans, this looks peculiar. We ask, why this emphasis on fighting when there are problems to solve, work to do?
Stop Pretending
Sometimes I feel terribly alone in hoping we can stop the fight and get on with the job. Then of course I realize that what I think is the job, isn’t the job at all. The fighting is the job, and if I were born in the United States, I’d be a lot more comfortable with that. So, Barry, get with the culture, get with the program, shape up!
Our frightfully expensive electoral process is combative. Our public decision-making process is also combative, (fighting over what to do, rather than first trying to understand the problem). Big business loves the combat, encouraging and financing both sides, expecting and receiving big paybacks. Our media joins in, preferring a good fight — is there anything more boring than a video of people carefully listening to each other, trying to understand a situation and how they might solve the problem? Like all animals, we are instantly attracted to a fight. It sells pages and page views. “Let the games begin!”
We Get What We Ask For
If you want fighting use a combative, legalistic decision process. If you want cooperation and agreement, use a non-combative decision process. To use an embattled election and decision process and then hope for cooperation is nuts!
Nobody gets out of bed to act crazy. Most of us are perfectly reasonable — from our point of view. To understand and make sense of what’s happening in Washington, I poked around the Internet for the rules — if they could be called rules — of winning, of warfare. I found the principles that any leader, hoping to be victorious, should follow. It’s no surprise that these fairly accurately describe our national scene.
- Accumulate power, gain control.
- Strategize, engage immediately, dominate, overwhelm, keep moving.
- Lie, camouflage your position, deceive, disorient, deflect, disguise.
- Demoralize, exhaust.
- Deny, conceal, speak ambiguously, contradict, use the other side’s words against them.
- Use the most advanced technology and weapons.
Trust Out the Window
Because each side sees the other side as behaving this way, it’s no wonder we distrust our elected leaders. We have carefully designed a system that has led us to a place most of us do not want. We have designed a battleground, a Culture Against Man.
(In the best adversarial tradition, you might ask, “So, what would you do?” — and then argue about it.)
Reprinted with permission.
Please let me know how you understand or make sense of our present situation. As always, I appreciate your thoughts and comments, and suggestions.
Thank you.
me, Barry Phegan
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