Incomplete thoughts about the involuntarily acquired rootlessness characteristic of the USA and the blindness of capitalism

(edited, revised, and partially expanded Monday, 25 June 2012)

Someone who signs himself as "bob mcmanus" had an interesting remark at "Crooked Timber" on 24 June:

"'My contention is that to become an American is to become deracinated in principle, capable of living anywhere, including your home person over there, so extremely rootless as to devalue and be contemptuous of other’s “rootedness” or sense of place or past. This is not and can never be a true cosmopolitanism, in accepting others traditions, we despise all traditions and aggressively attack them in the name of “freedom”, economic, political, individual.

We are the country of rationalistic nihilism, and imperialistic, culturally destructive, and genocidal not simply by history or accident but in our deepest natures. And evangelical about it."


(Note:  I confess that I do not understand:  "including your home person over there".--Perhaps it would make more sense in context, but I can't check it just now.)

The original post by Henry Brighouse on 22 June 2012 ("Imperialist Doublethink") dealt with a Washington Post editorial about Julian Assange's request for asylum in Ecuador. It is worth reading:   http://crookedtimber.org/

With respect to the quote above:  I do not find myself "capable of living anywhere.".  (Hence the existence of this blog.)

I also believe that I am not contemptuous of other's 'rootedness'....Largely because I have known and envied people who did feel a definite connection to a place.---And it can be quite beautiful to see.

I was amazed when a Spanish friend showed me around her "hometown".  She had both personal memories and shared long-term memories--stories about locally famous possibly mythical lovers--- which she shared with me---as if she were writing on various buildings the history of the people living there and her own personal history, as if the blank stones became, with her telling, covered with calligraphy or elaborate designs......

So, I wonder whether my current discomfort in the USA---a daily sensation, like  pebble in your shoe which can't be removed---is not due to my failure to share these elements of the USA psyche identified above.....(those elements and others.....)........

On the other hand, prior to living abroad, I had been forced to move within the USA many times.  And my parents were forced to leave behind their families in order for my father to secure employment.  

I used to wonder--quite often, in fact---whether Americans had not lost something very valuable, via a process in which there was no debate......no discussion.......Another feature of their uprootedness is the casual way in which (at least sometimes) one talks to complete strangers.  This was once parodied with the claim that if you meet a North American on the plane, he will tell you about his divorce, offer to lend you money, and then forget your name......But the alleged informality of USA culture might be a result of this need to move, to move for a job or a "career". If you move frequently, you need to make friends fast.

But, wait a minute!  Maybe you cannot make real friends quickly.  Maybe it just takes time!  It simply has to involve getting to know someone gradually, over time.   If so, the mobility expected in the USA is a bad thing.  (And that is my current opinion.)

On the other hand, there is a kind of myth of the American small town, which some people find appealing..... But for most Americans (I suspect), it is axiomatic that you might have to move to get a job, or to get a better job.  (To be honest, that used to be an axiom for me and my family.  Were we unique?) I believe that it is a goal of the European  Union to encourage young people to move around within Europe, in search of work.  That could change things in the direction of USA-style rootlessness......

There are genuine psychological limitations---how many names one person can remember, or how large a group can become before what's said won't be heard clearly by everyone.  (I seem to recall that the anthropologist Dunbar gave the figure as seven or eight.  In a group larger than that, when one person speaks, at least one person wont' hear what's being said.)

And, at the risk of saying what's obvious, capitalist forces are peculiarly blind.  It is most characteristic of capitalism as a system not that it is dynamic, but that its dynamism is blind. --Blind from the standpoint of genuine human flourishing, genuine happiness.  In other words, capitalism encourages actors to ignore the consequences of their actions.  They aim at profit, but profit is neither happiness nor justice, but competes with those two genuine goods.  So, to that extent, I shouldn't wonder if the human race continues to  move towards greater unhappiness (unhappiness for the vast majority of human beings) so long as we continue to allow ourselves to be organized in this fashion.