I want to begin this next section of my review of Gelernter’s Americanism with a healthy reminder from C.S. Lewis. This comes from That Hideous Strength.
“So that, meanwhile, is England,” said Mother Dimble. “Just this swaying to and fro between Logres and Britain?”
“Yes,” said her husband. “Don’t you feel it? The very quality of England. If we’ve got an ass’s head, it is by walking in a fairy wood. We’ve heard something better than we can do, but can’t quite forget it . . . can’t you see it in everything English — a kind of awkward grace, a humble, humorous incompleteness? How right Sam Weller was when he called Mr. Pickwick an angel in gaiters! Everything here is either better or worse than –”
“Dimble!” said Ransom. Dimble, whose tone had become a little impassioned, stopped and looked towards him. He hesitated and (as Jane thought) almost blushed before he began again.
“You’re right, Sir,” he said with a smile. “I was forgetting what you have warned me always to remember. This haunting is no peculiarity of ours. Every people has its own haunter. There’s no special privilege for England — no nonsense about a chosen nation. We speak about Logres because it is our haunting, the one we know about.” (p. 370).
As we have said before, America is simply a country, a nation. It is not anything greater than that; it is not a different kind of thing. It is most certainly not a religion, except for those who want to worship something that has eyes but does not see. It (like many other countries have been) can be a great country, but the adjective great modifies the basic noun, shared with everybody. Countries can be good or bad, small or large, rich or poor, but countries cannot be a transcendent, shimmering ideal. Idolaters can think they are, but that is something we have to categorize as a sin. We must have no nonsense about America being unique in any redemptive or salvific sense. But Gelernter is nothing if not persistent.
Here he is on America’s entry into the First World War.
“The noble knight rode forth at last, and Americanism was at last a true world religion” (p. 148).
“Wilsonian [Woodrow!] Americanism requires finely balanced decision-making — but insists that spreading the Creed to all mankind must never be far from America’s thoughts” (p. 150, emphasis his).
“But Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War worked a fundamental transformation. America emerged as something to believe in, a spiritual concept to have faith in just as you might believe in Christianity” (p. 154).
But Gelernter is not some lone idolater doing weird things — like the first Elvis worshiper or something. He has a great deal of company, and I believe that he is correct on the fact that a large number of people do subscribe to his Creed, and are willing to export it as a spiritual duty. Gelernter quotes Woodrow Wilson to this point — “I believe that the glory of America is that she is a great spiritual conception . . .” (p. 156, emphasis mine).
To all this, the believing Christian must turn away in contempt. But if you take out the adulation of America, the basic thesis of this chapter is actually quite interesting and provocative — and I think there is something to it.
“The outcome of the Great War [WWI] itself was a tragedy that is still with us: a world shivered into three dangerous jagged fragments: descendants of the winners who still feel guilty, descendants of the losers who still feel resentful, and the United States, which managed (miraculously) to fight and win yet not be permanently injured” (p. 147).
He notes that the Second World War, and the subsequent Cold War were a temporary detour, pointing out that the map of Europe today is basically what it was in the aftermath of the First World War.
“States created after World War I and submerged after World War II have floated back to the surface like buoyant objects artificially pinned to the bottom for two generations” (p. 152).
The configuration is roughly the same, but the attitudes are completely transformed.
“The war was fought by opposing armies ankle deep, waist deep, chest deep in an ever rising sea of blood. We must grasp this ghastly reality, or we will never understand the modern world, modern Americanism, or anti-Americanism” (pp. 165-166).
Quite so. The trenches of the First Great War was where J.R.R. Tolkien got his image of Mordor. But it was not a Mordor anyone intended to create. “All sorts of Europeans looked forward to a short, dashing war” (p. 171). Much like the spectators who went out to watch a Yankee victory at First Bull Run, Europe expected a short, decisive spectacular war that would touch nothing. But the war drenched everything in blood.
The Germans were deeply resentful at the terms of the peace. The English felt guilty over their joy at the outbreak of the war. A “huge literature (by historians and memoirists) on Britain, pacifism, and appeasement in the 1920s and 1930s makes clear that Britain felt guiltiest” (p. 171).
“Americans had no such crisis of conscience — a hugely important fact that continues to shape world politics to this very day. Americans had done nothing(on purpose or otherwise) to cause the war, and they had not rejoiced when it started. They helped the Allies win and then, for the most part, did their best to forget all about it” (p. 171).
So you have the bitter, the guilty, and the clueless. This explains a lot. “And when the Cold War ended and World War II disappeared, finally . . . the Great War reasserted its powerful presence in world culture” (p. 172). I actually find this argument compelling. It accounts for all kinds of things, including anti-Americanism.
“British intellectuals lost all control and spewed up all sorts of poisonous hatred that they harbored inwardly for the upstart, nouveau-powerful nation personified by President Wilson, that preachy, naive, absurdly religious, childishly idealistic vulgarian. Anti-Americanism became especially acute now that the United States had stepped in and saved Europe’s hash” (p. 177).
There are all kinds of theological reasons for avoiding the idolatry that Gelernter is urging. But there is a practical reason as well. Anti-Americanism is every bit as religious as Americanism is. There is a natural, carnal reaction to someone else’s victory (it’s all in Girard, man), but if the victor starts talking as though the heavenly gods have descended upon him, that victor is guilty of hubris. And throughout the history of the world, hubris always precedes a spectacular cropper. It is one thing for Appalacian State to have a victory party. They ought to, and good for them. But if the governor deified the coach, an understandable reaction would set in. All this to say that Gelernter is making things worse. But I think he is right about the lay of the land.
“When that Fifty Years War was over at last, the Great War reappeared like a mountain long hidden by fog. The world we live in today was shaped not by World War II but by the First World War, which dominates the landscape once again (a commanding, brooding presence) as it did in the 1920s” (p. 173).
Far better the attitude that C.S. Lewis had before going into the First World War himself. He was not yet a believer, but his point still contains a great deal of wisdom. Willingness to die for your country does not entail a willingness to live moment to moment for your country.
“I said to my country, in effect, ‘You shall have me on a certain date, not before. I will die in your wars if need be, but till then I shall live my own life. You may have my body, but not my mind. I will take part in battles but not read about them'” (Surprised by Joy, p. 158).