When I was a very young child, I fell in love with the image of painting oneself into a corner. The picture in my mind was more than rich enough, and there were -- don't ask me why -- enough comic strips and cartoons that materialized that image before my very eyes. I always wondered how that was possible? How can you paint yourself into a corner? How little can you know about what's going on around you to end up in a situation like that? And then I grew up.
We like to think that we're a free and open, a tolerant and forward-looking society, but all we've really done is paint ourselves into a corner. We have those flag-waving patriots who still believe in "my country, right or wrong" even though the world has recognized America for what it is: the latest version of Empire which acts not based on values but on violence. We have those free-market libertarians who think that money is the answer to all problems and the more they have themselves the more the problems are solved. We have those gun-crazy tea-baggers who think that the government is out to get them when all it's really concerned about is seeing to it that those that have get more and those that have less get less. Then we have all those hopelessly exposed racists who can't bring themselves to admit that the United States simply hasn't overcome its genocidal history. And, of course, there are my favorites, the über-Christians who want God to save America from the satanic machinations of a crypto-Muslim dictator, who can't take enough away from those who need it most, who deny science -- publicly and without shame or contradiction -- and who don't hesitate a second to decry, condemn, pursue, and persecute anyone who even thinks of straying from their own perverted view of Christianity.
How, in the name of all that's reasonable, can we even start to think that we have anything even approaching shared values? Which values might these be? It's obvious from recent legislation, attempts at legislation, Supreme Court decisions, and other public phenomena that there are so many splintered, specific, interest groups which are patently unable, and unwilling, to even think of speaking with any other group that the mere thought of "shared values" is not only chimerical, it's downright absurd. Who is speaking for whom? And when? And how? And why?
No, dear reader, we have achieved the complete and utter disintegration of all that we once held in common. We have a society -- if one may even use that term -- of fragmented, dispersed, alienated, isolated, and unreconcilable pseudo-groups, which are, in turn, plagued by self-centered, self-absorption, and egoistical individuals who all trying the best they can to get what they can for themselves, and to hell with everyone else. Where is the basis here for shared values? Please excuse me if I don't see it.
The real losers in this scenario, of course, are those who can't get beyond themselves to see that the entire evolution of humankind (... and no, I have not forgotten that the majority of Americans no longer accept the theory of evolution ...) has been possible because of one, single trait that has set us apart from all others: our ability to cooperate, to work together for the benefit of all.
Now, I don't want anybody thinking I'm just picking on Americans. They may be closer to me than other nationalities, but they are not unique. Every single Western culture is suffering from the same malady. As is so often the case, though, the Americans have taken this misery to a heretofore, unseen level of sophistication. All of us in the West suffer from the disease. The Americans are simply better at it than the rest of us.
And that is the corner into which we have painted ourselves: the inability to recognize, to acknowledge, to accept, to engage, and to deal seriously with an other (or, Lord forbid several other) point(s) of view.
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