Should A Dark Age Fall…
"Our culture that ... like it or not, and a lot of them don't ... squats across continents like a massive toad, its reach and power far exceeding our military and political influence."
by Jules Crittenden
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
The defacto embassy of American culture in the world took a friendly fire hit this week. McDonalds, slammed by Prince Charles. And he did it in the Middle East. Abu Dhabi. This, from the horse-faced Windsor who represents our famously closest ally:
“Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s, have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.”
Thanks, Chuck. I thought we were in this together. Then I remembered. That guy’s totally 18th century, trying hard to 21st. With his line of organic Duchy Original Cornish Pasties and everything.
It’s been a strange couple of weeks in the global culture. That would be ours. Our culture that … like it or not, and a lot of them don’t … squats across continents like a massive toad, its reach and power far exceeding our military and political influence.
A court led by a hamming, weepy judge who desperately wants a TV bench, argues about what to do with the rotting corpse of Anna Nicole Smith and debates what to do about all the daddies. A producer of epic Hollywood extravanganzas is diving into the mystery of the ages … where the heck is Jesus … with some gratuitous CSI-style DNA analysis thrown in for effect.
No wonder they hate us. I look at it, and sometimes I hate us.
Big-bosomed barely clad blonde women. McDonalds. Hollywood. Blase blasphemy and pseudo-science. Everything you want. All the superficial, glittery trappings that are the most identifiably American things you will find anywhere you go in the world.
They really hate it. They love to hate it. Because their people love it. Hey, wait a minute. I love it, too. And they can’t resist it. I really love that. Our pop culture, at its cheesiest, has a lure they cannot fight, which is why bootleg DVDs and CDs are wildly popular on the streets of every Arab capital, even Baghdad, where the battle is most fiercely joined. From the banned satellite dishes of Teheran to the forbidden pleasures of Kim Jong Il’s private screening room. All that Ronald Reagan John Wayne cowboy stuff they can’t stand? None of them can get enough of it. You know there are grown Germans who dress up like cowboys?
Rambo, the ugliest of Americans? Huge, even 25 years later.
The Golden Arches and Anna Nicole Smith’s breasts? Forces for freedom.
With all its libertine amorality and immorality, our popular culture is and has been for decades a bait that draws people to freedom. That’s right. All the cheese and schmaltz and brass and come-hither. It makes them ask, “Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I have some of that?” Free enterprise, free thinking, free everything. “Why can’t I wear what I want? Why can’t I speak to a girl? Why can’t I say what I want? Why can’t I have a little bit of that exciting life and the things I see on TV?”
Hold on. I’m going to have to stop myself before I get too deep and preachy or all sobby and flag-waving about Anna Nicole’s iconic American bazooms. Poor Anna Nicole. The girl never had a chance. That’s an American tragedy.
OK, serious. The future of our political and military might, and the future of our ideals, is what is at stake in the bloody battles of Iraq and the bloviating battles of Washington. It is in those places, far from Hollywood where all that other crap resides, that it will be decided whether the United States is to continue as a force for good in the world.
I personally don’t believe our nation’s own self-destructive tendencies — the self-loathing and self-doubt, the greatest dangers we face — will prevail this time. We’ve already seen that the American people, pulling out ahead of the politicians they elected last November, are beginning to recognize what is at stake and are turning away from the short-term gratification of withdrawal from Iraq. Every now and then they do something like that, the American people, to remind you what sensible, good people they are. That they are so much better represented by the GIs in Iraq than they are by that freak show in Hollywood or the other one in Washington DC. The politicians, searching so hard for ways to make us fail, are discovering that their own positions are at best impractical. But at heart, immoral, amoral, morally bankrupt. Even more than McDonald’s or Anna Nicole’s breasts ever were.
At times like these, when we face fundamental challenges to our existence as a force for freedom in the world, you have to ask yourself, what have we brought and what will we leave behind, when our time comes to fall as all empires before us have?
The Golden Arches and a pair of double D’s? (No way that uncanny resemblance is a coincidence, by the way.)
Should a Dark Age fall … if we buckle in the face of puny forces arrayed against us, they will blame it on those things. Also, the cowboy thing. All the things they love to hate about us.
If we choose to buckle, and a Dark Age should fall, we’ll deserve it. To be mocked for the wild party that was the late 20th and early 21st century, the exuberant orgy everyone wanted a part of.
But don’t worry, there’s a booby prize … so to speak.
Our noblest gifts to the world will have survived. The Roman orgies and the bloody spectacles of the Colisseum may be objects of historical fascination today. But Latin and the learning and philosophy of the ancient world are the underpinnings of our own modern language, sciences, and many of our notions of free thought and free government.
Our language. Our science. Our freedoms. The good things we tried to do. The things we lived and so many died for. These will be the things that lie in wait for a new Enlightenment.
Jules Crittenden is an editor and columnist for the Boston Herald.
Crittenden’s web page is at Forward Movement.
Bonus Feature
| Comment |  Digg This |
 del.icio.us |
 |
 |
 PJM Home |
10 Comments
mixfish:I know your right we are winning a culture race. I’ve been in China the last 2 weeks,everywhere English go to hear a few local bands, 70% English song’s 25 years in the US I never once herd a band do a Chinese song. Mix
Mar 2, 2007 - 3:00 am william jonasbb:It may come down to which philosophy appeals to the greatest number of people. The global left has enormous influence but once people are aware of the potential of freedom they become less enamored of socialism.The only way socialism can maintain itself is through force .Even in European Socialist states the aging structure of guarantees for employment, health,personal vacation, education etc.are straining the ability to provide more benifits to more people.
Mar 2, 2007 - 6:44 am david still:Currently they are keeping collatse at arms length but the inevitability of exhausting all resources by total taxation looms closely on the horizon.
The cultural appeal of personal liberty is magnetic to modern societies. Will they have the resolve to defend it?
With due respect, where do you find the American people now turning against what they voted for when the voted (it seems) flor anti-Iraq poltiticians? I see no evidence butc rather a hardening of the numbers in support of getting our great servicxe people out of the middle of a civil warf. You see the American public thin king otherwise. Can you give us the sources for your view?
Mar 2, 2007 - 6:54 am Randy:Excellent article. Thank you very much for articulating our current inward struggle with outer consequences so well.
Mar 2, 2007 - 7:36 am Maggie:While Princess Di was basically a Monarchy-required pick for Charles, the Prince’s latest choice for a wife demonstrates to me that he lacks the gene for good taste. But what can you expect from a family whose DNA just keeps cross-contaminating?
Mar 2, 2007 - 11:26 am Purple Avenger:If the USA goes down, who are the moonbats going to blame their failures on?
They gotta keep us around so they can avoid looking in the mirror.
Mar 2, 2007 - 12:06 pm The Apologist:david still: Read this from Jules…http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/02/quagmire.php…for evidence of his claims you have a hard time believing.
Mar 2, 2007 - 12:59 pm Tom:There are additional problems. We cannot survive a serious downturn. The UN can only provide food by using the west as an enormous block to feed them.
The muslim idiots keep forgetting one simple important fact. If the west is to fall … so will Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, (perhaps not japan, not sure), Morocco, Turkey, …
All those countries are 50% (turkey) or 100% (Morocco) dependant on their relations with a non-islamic west. A new dark age will require a complete decimation of the earths population. Europe cannot turn islamic and maintain its population density. It’s just not possible.
There are no agrarian societies left, so if the system of the West were to fall, so would the food supply required to feed the west … and the east … and the middle east …
That’s the sad little truth that people do not yet fully realise. If the left is to win. It will mean the death of 90% of the population.
Mar 2, 2007 - 2:01 pm Bob:Great article. It is unbelievable how self-destructive many of our people are. We have it good, and we should be proud of it.
Mar 3, 2007 - 6:42 pm Katie:I was at a Fußball game in Freiburg, Germany on Sunday, the most European of European popular events, and what did the fans cheer?
In English, with thick German accents but in English nonetheless:
“Let¬¥s go, Freiburg, let¬¥s go!” in exactly the same rhythm one hears in America. We sang “We Will Rock You,” and half the chants that were actually in German still used American tunes and rhythms.
Yes, they complain about the McDonald´s sign on the historical Martinstor, but they love American culture. They can´t come up with anything better, and why should they reinvent the wheel? My friends here complain about American politics but never about American movies. Because, on the day to day level, America´s got it right, and they know it.
Mar 6, 2007 - 7:20 am