© Charles D. Hayes
Lately I’ve been preoccupied with novelist
Saul Bellow's observation that people, especially Americans, seem readily
willing to hate the very things that make their lives possible. But alas, I
think the reason is so simple and straightforward that it's easily overlooked. Bear
with me while I explain.
We have an enormous volume of
psychological research available on the difference between the worldviews of
liberals and of conservatives. The simplest and most consistent criteria for
discerning the variance seems to depend on whether or not a person is open to
new experience.
Testing this theory, numerous studies have
shown that it’s possible to determine with significant accuracy whether
toddlers as young as three or four will grow up to be liberals or
conservatives. Children who relish autonomy and are drawn to novelty grow up to
be politically liberal, and those who are fearful, wary, anxious, and
distrustful about change and uncertainty grow up to be conservatives.
Given our history, it’s clear that both
of these postures are useful and necessary in order to sustain and maintain
society. There are times and situations in which both approaches are critical
to the well-being of society.
More basic, though, than our political
inclinations is the compelling mound of evidence that we humans are a tribal
species. It is in our nature to pay sharp attention to differences among our
fellow human beings and to associate food shortages and pathogens with
strangers. We are predisposed to favor our own customs and our own kind, period.
The notion that cultural differences should be celebrated does not fare well globally.
To see how these tendencies play out, consider
the state of the economy. Since the partial financial meltdown in 2008, every
media source informs us constantly that America's middle class is in free fall.
What does this portend? In a nutshell: scarcity.
What happens when we face the scarcity of anything of value? Simple: scarcity
is a call to focus.
This brings us to the crux of tribalism.
What are people who are fearful about change and uncertainty likely to focus
on? You guessed it: the other. Outsiders
are perceived as freeloaders simply because they are outsiders. And who stands
in, both figuratively and literally, for the other? Again, you guessed it: the government because the government caters
to everyone, including strangers.
Granted, all human beings have a built-in
wariness against free riders. People who don't pull their own weight threaten
our success. But there’s something most people simply do not get— especially hard-right
conservatives—and it's critical to furthering the goodwill necessary to sustain
ourselves as one nation.
Yes, we have free riders in our midst, people
who expect something for nothing and who whose mission in life is to game the
system. Short on virtue, these individuals are found among the rich and poor
alike. They will always be with us, and we do indeed need to take steps to curb
their behavior.
But, if we’ve paid attention to our
actual history, we know that we are way ahead of the free riders. It’s not a
contest, and this is something liberals are much more likely to observe and
acknowledge. Free riders in our society are simply rendered unimportant because
they are overshadowed by those in our past who have sacrificed their very lives
for the rest of us. The cost of free riders is dwarfed by the contributions of
our fellow citizens who remain strangers only because we lack direct knowledge
of their sacrifices.
Up against Arlington Cemetery, the free
riders don't even warrant a mention. Our men and women on active duty in the
armed services, those in law enforcement, and firefighters stand ready and
willing to risk their lives in service of the rest of us. Millions of our
citizens are dedicated public servants, and millions more spend their whole
lives working tirelessly in the shadows for the betterment of society.
We have the lowest tax rates in a
half-century, and yet the carping about high taxes is unrelenting. We are more
than $2 trillion behind in the maintenance of our hard and soft infrastructure,
but that doesn’t stop the thoughtless handwringing about being overtaxed. Nor
does it burst the fantasy bubble of ideologues who envision a dynamic country
with a strong middle class, a small and powerless government, and very low
taxes, even though there has never been an example of this kind of economy in
the history of civilization.
That our government is in need of reform
is painfully obvious, starting with the uncoupling of its entanglement with special-interest
lobbyists and corporate influence. But hatred of government among egregiously
ill-informed citizens is so pervasive today that it results in political
support for underfunding successful government programs and then using the
diminished capacity of the government agencies as proof that they weren’t
needed in the first place. That critics can use this approach to enrage ill-informed
people against the very thing than sustains their way of life is a tragedy that
defies adult logic.
We are free in America because of our government, not in spite
of it. If you doubt this, take a quick look at Somalia. Without the stability
behind our laws, regulatory agencies, social programs, and public services, we
are anything but free.
I share Saul Bellow's torment and sense
of irony over those whose major contribution to society is to whine constantly
about a government that they clearly could not live without. And yet their limited
involvement is to jump on the government-hatred bandwagon. Then, in their next
breath, they declare we are the greatest country on earth, believing themselves
to be totally self-reliant citizens who owe everything they have to their own
glorious efforts and to no one else.
I don’t deny the enormous amount of
waste in government programs perpetuated by corruption and kept in place
through a standoff somewhere between spite and contempt. We can’t even stop the
military industrial complex from making weapons we don’t need. But all one has
to do to imagine the country without a federal government is to envision
professional football without rules or referees. If enough people would get off
the hate-the-government bandwagon, we could fix it without the anguish of perpetual punting.
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