I thought I would spend a little time today musing about
something that has puzzled me for quite some time. I genuinely do not know what
to think about this and I would be curious to know whether anyone has some
insight into it.
The United States is an extraordinarily violent country in
which a sizable proportion of the population seems genuinely to want an
autocratic or dictatorial ruler. There are more than 400 million guns in
private hands in America and mass shootings, defined as shootings in which four
or more people are killed or wounded, happen a good deal more often than once a
day. Virtually all of the shootings that are not triggered by some personal
relationship between the perpetrator and one or more of the victims seem to be
rooted in right wing conspiracy fantasies, racist anger, so-called fear of
replacement, or old-fashioned anti-Semitism.
And yet, despite the presence of so many weapons and the
enormous amount of talk about revolution, armed conflict, and the like there
seems at least thus far to have been virtually no organized armed military
style conflict. The assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was violent,
enormous in the size of the participation, and at least on the part of some of
the people there well planned in advance. And yet, when the rioters broke into
the building they milled around, spread their feces on the walls, and
then took selfies which they posted on social media, making it easy for the Feds
to track them down. That event is frequently described as practice for the next
coup, and yet I rather suspect that it may have been the high point in
antigovernment violence, not the prelude to something more violent and more
successful.
There has been a great deal of reporting about the presence
in the ranks of the police and the military of individuals sympathetic to these
efforts to overthrow democracy, and yet there been no organized units that have
as units broken with their superiors and set themselves systematically against
the state.
The United States is not only a hatefully violent place, it
seems also to be a society obsessed with a kind of performance art.
Are we on the brink of a descent into fascist autocracy? I
simply cannot figure it out.
16 comments:
"dissent" descent
It seems safe to comment again, so: When I reflect on the warp and woof of violence and atomistic individualism in American life, I always recall by contrast the following: In 2002 I was walking late at night through Helsinki. I turned down a small, poorly-lit side street flanked by narrow sidewalks. About 20 yards in front of me walked a snazzily dressed young woman. From the far end of the street, on the same sidewalk, came two Finnish sailors, lurching about drunkenly. When they were about 10 yards from the woman, they stepped off the sidewalk, took off their hats, and bowed as she walked by. Would something similar happen in the U.S.?--I know a high-level research scientist, a right-winger in his mid-60s who gives money to Ted Cruz, who is urging his friends to arm themselves. I can't quite make out why.
I don't know if a lot of people want an autocratic or dictatorial ruler. There are a lot of people who hate the system, who feel left out, alone, that they're losers in a society which only values winners and "the swamp in Washington" is one of the visible symbols of those elites which scorn them and which they blame for their malaise.
The U.S. is one of the countries with most complete social breakdown and anomie that I've seen. People don't believe in anyone and in anything, traditional industries left for
China, the available jobs are low status, their only "connection" to the "world" is through their phones and internet offers you every possible fantasy and conspiracy theory to suit whatever your grievances are.
The individualism which is the basis of the U.S. culture has its positive sides of course, but not everyone is Bob Dylan, that is, a person gifted and creative enough to develop their individuality and make something of it. Most people, left to themselves, wither and begin to hate others. Add to that the prevalence and availability of firearms and you have an explosive cocktail.
For a society to work you need some sort of common narrative and that no longer exists in the U.S. or in many other nations either.
Imagine if, 100 years ago, the X Box was available in Weimar Germany and all the incipient Nazis spent 8 hours a day playing the video games “Beerhall Putsch” and “Call of Sturmabteilung Duty”. Would this have been good training for the actual practice of fascism? Or would it have simply diverted these energies? I suspect the latter.
Thanks to my various motorcycle-oriented YouTube searches (e.g., how do I re-valve the forks on my Ducati?), its algorithm has, for years, directed NRA-world content my way. So much of it, in fact, that I feel like I have a duty to become some kind of social anthropologist. This stuff is all very interesting. It is obviously consciously written to appeal to the many, many (many!) frustrations experienced by American men. Generally (but not entirely) lower-middle-class, protestant, white American men.
And on January 6 the product of this kulturkampf, an American Freikorps, appeared on the scene. These guys were all familiar to me from YouTube, and they were (as noted above) stunningly incompetent. Why? I suspect it is because these potential warriors are simply too addled and diverted by “culture”—video games, Fox News, a new, louder muffler for the pickup truck, another tribal tattoo—to be able to properly attend to fascist insurrection. These guys are “fashy” without ever becoming truly Fascist. That’s too much of a commitment.
John Pillette, that is a very interesting series of observations. I have virtually no direct experience with this world but what you say rings true in many ways. My inclination has always been to look for structural economic or racial underpinnings for political behavior and I am way too old to have the sort of first-hand experience that would give me insight into the world to describe. I do not know whether to breathe a sigh of relief will collapse into tears of desperation
Here’s the structural economic reason for it.
You may recall that, in the 1970s, there was no “gun culture” as we now know it. Guns were not associated with political “ressentiment” but rather with wholesome outdoor activity. The old Field & Stream magazine was representative of this culture, which had a very definite genteel cast to it. It was the American analogue to the culture of hunting as practiced by the European haut bourgeoisie.
Here’s how it worked: once or twice a year you and your pals would get up at 3:00 am, pull on your long johns, tuck your wide-wale cords into your LL Bean boots, get into the Wagoneer and drive three hours north from Darien. Maybe you shoot a deer (with your classic ‘30-.06 Winchester model 70), maybe you don’t, but you have a good time, maybe sell some municipal bonds, and you can all talk about it next week when you meet up for squash at the New York Athletic Club.
In the 1980s this culture all went away. One by one, all of the old firearms manufacturers realized that the market for old-style guns (hunting rifles) was too small and too saturated. The “sporting arms” industry was taken over entirely by venture capital and these young, clever MBA types realized that a new market would need to be manufactured wholesale, and that is exactly what they did. They engineered this whole thing, from the 2nd Amendment foam beer koozie, to the SCOTUS Heller opinion, to “Duck Dynasty”, to the AR-15s sold to autistic 13-year-olds.
Culturally, the whole thing is a declasse abomination, and the guys ultimately responsible (who still live in Darien and still work out at the New York Athletic Club, by the way) would never in a million years mingle socially with the trashier end of it, but they don’t really care about the deleterious effects on society as a whole. They’re making too much money from it.
Very nice analysis. Perhaps a little too simple, but elegant and coherent. I like it.
1. Practice makes perfect - after all the Beer Hall Putsch was just a first try and somewhat of a clown show. The lesson from that is to never give up and keep innovating which is currently happening in several of our laboratories of democracy. Had the Senate clerks not thought to safeguard the ballots and had they been tampered with/destroyed, it would have taken at least a day to get the copies from the National Archives and a lot can happen in a day.
Distance makes organization difficult. Two counties over (140 mi./three hours + driving) a far right takeover of the Board of supervisors has happened. Freak show but lost in the static.
2. Contra JP a widespread gun culture has existed in the U.S. since forever. After the Civil War firearms were needed and widely available (see "Bannerman's").
https://www.guns.com/news/2015/11/07/bannermans-legacy-ultimate-army-navy-store
After WWI and WWII surplus arms flooded the market e.g. firms like Golden State Arms and Martin B. Retting. The legacy manufacturers have been doing bankruptcies and reorganizations since the mid-nineteenth century. Interesting ad from the 1920s:
https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/77522674222/thompson-submachine-gun-adverts-pt-1-john-t
I've always thought the Klan/Bund thing becoming uncool sort of segued into the militia movements of 1950s/60s fed by anti-Communist/Civil Rights paranoia. Back in the 1960s I went out to the California desert to go shooting. I regularly crossed paths with a group of guys carrying the then new AR-15s and wearing camo. Turns out they were Hungarian refugees for whom it was always Budapest and always 1956.
Anyway, the 1960s assassinations led to the 1968 GCA which led to Harlan Carter's 1977 hostile takeover of the NRA which turned the organization from a focus on hunting and marksmanship to political action and industrial lobbying.
Throw in Movement conservatism, Roe, and the 1970s neoliberal heel turn and here we are. the militias are capable of stochastic violence but the threat is from political actors.
"They’re making too much money from it."
Plutocrats seem to never get that kleptocrats see them not as allies but as prey.
Just saw this:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/03/the-destruction-of-public-higher-education-in-red-states
Perhaps the Red states will spiral into dysfunction and authoritarianism.
Professor Randall Collins devoted a few blog posts to the gun as a sacred object in American gun culture- sometimes it's knowing your car can go zero to 60 in three seconds rather than driving like a madman in the streets that is significant.
I can ask Professor Collins if you'd like
Words to the wise
John Pillette--
"Guns were not associated with political “ressentiment” but rather with wholesome outdoor activity. The old Field & Stream magazine was representative of this culture, which had a very definite genteel cast to it."
One thing I wanted to add to this observation from a midwesterner. Where I grew up every male and even a few females hunted something (my father didn't so I was an outsider in this hunting world). A thing I always note is that a lot of hunters belonged to Ducks Unlimited (the NRA was not a thing in this hunting world at the time). Yes it had a genteel NIMBY vibe. Ducks Unlimited was interesting in that it supported hunting and land conservation. Rationally, the hunters realized that a big threat to proper hunting was development. It was at least moderately powerful in that it helped to stop a housing development in a nearby town. The organization still exists and has tried to emphasize its environmental cred though I suspect it is less influential.
Another perspective on this issue is addressed in a post by Henry Farrell on Crookedtimber.org/2023/03.06/conservatives-on-campus/#more-50971.
Conservative groups in all countries perpetuate a rigid separation of the 'economic' and the 'political' to serve its ideology. In ensuring that mainstream and social media concentrate on the latter rather than the former, people are orientated solely to cultural, ethnic and moral issues that focus on individual freedom and control.
In the U.S., conservative groups appear to have 'weaponised' this differentiation to undermine and prevent any common normative commitments, other than their own. Hence,
a greater number of people are less tolerant of dissenting voices and fail to use normative rules of discourse. Gun violence plays into this narrative.
"...though I suspect it is less influential."
These groups are still quite active and influential. In central California the annual Duck Days event brings birders, hunters and environmentalists together.
In 1937 the Pittman-Robinson Act put a 10 - 11% excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment. In 1950 the Dingell - Johnson Act put a similar tax on sport fishing equipment. The revenue is distributed to state F & G agencies.
A Texas Republican (of course!) recently tried to play the Second Amendment/tax cut card and introduced a bill to repeal PR. It has received considerable push back from these groups.
They have also been successful across interests. E.g., in the 1950s there were ~700 breeding pairs of Aleutian Cackling Geese. Last month there were thousands passing through our local pastures as well as thousands of other migratory birds.
"And yet, despite the presence of so many weapons and the enormous amount of talk about revolution, armed conflict, and the like there seems at least thus far to have been virtually no organized armed military style conflict." --RPW
"Sheep! Mere sheep! Easily dispersed, if the shepard is struck down..."
--King Edward I 'Longshanks' in the movie Braveheart
Some may find this funny...
https://www.google.com/search?q=braveheart+sheep+mere+sheep&oq=&aqs=chrome.1.35i39i362l15.-1j0j7&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d7550809,vid:9Os37Ruc430
ML, one of the things Prof. Collins seems to have missed was the instant attitude adjustment after Ashli Babbitt was shot. Cadres, NSM!
Post a Comment