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As the country has changed greatly since 1960, most particularly
with the rising relative importance of the South and the West, this
reshaping of society also has a geographical aspect. If the North-East
has changed, so also has the South and the West. Outsiders perceive
the latter in terms of homogeneous communities, and sometimes
starkly so. I was assured in 2005 by one resident of Alabama, who was
not locally born, that the state s politics were run by  Bapto-Fascists ,
but, in fact, the Southern Baptists themselves have diverse views on
social and political topics, while Alabama, like other Southern states,
contains a variety that, while it is in aggregate different in tone to
Connecticut or Massachusetts, is also far from homogeneous in partic-
c onc l us i ons 237
ulars. Indeed, alongside the emphasis on uniformity as a consequence
of national consumerism and other factors there are important factors
encouraging variety. The hegemony of the television networks has
fractured as new technology and media have allowed more ways to
communicate and thus define identity.
More profoundly, the very themes of conformism have been greatly
attenuated. This is not so much a consequence of 1960s values, but,
rather, a broader process of economic opportunity, social individual-
ism and an assertiveness that is not only a matter of youth and women
but of all social groups and of most individuals. Assertiveness can, of
course, be an aspect of conformism; for example, rejecting one s looks
through diet, exercise, plastic surgery or hair transplants in order to
share in social suppositions about appeal. Nevertheless, however much
influenced by advertising and other factors, the relationship between
conformism and choice has shifted towards the latter.
This is an aspect of the restlessness that is part of the essence of the
American experience. This restlessness helps to explain the energy of
Americans, which clearly has such positive and negative manifesta-
tions. The sources of this restlessness are cultural and environmental,
the former in part an aspect of the extent to which America is an immi-
grant society whose people, directly or (with the exception of the
blacks) through their forebears, chose to come to the usa. Furthermore,
the presence of so much physical and material abundance (magnified
by popular accounts and images) stirred the imagination and
presented Americans with the idea of improvement and upward social
mobility. Unity within so much diversity is to be found in a rough alle-
giance to the idea of America as a place where liberty and freedom
(variously conceived) prevail, and provide opportunity. Technology
corresponded to this unity within diversity. The spread of information
technology that has been so important to productivity growth since
1995  and has been significant culturally in creating common experi-
ences and new languages  contributes to similarities and yet also
provides a way in which to express different views.
As far as immigration is concerned, integrationists have to hope
that immigrants will identify with what are presented as American
values; they cannot be coerced into doing so, and this has led pessimists
238 a l t e r e d s t a t e s
to fear a re-shaping of the usa as a result of its porous frontiers, external
and internal. Yet, the re-shaping of the country is scarcely new, and the
very drive to settle in the usa reflects the potent attraction of its oppor-
tunities and the appeal of its sense of possibility. That offers a powerful
antidote to the reality of a prominent sector of American society that is
mired in crime and drugs. Talking to Americans, it is clear that many
identify the latter with inner cities and blacks, but that scarcely
describes the reality of a far more widespread drug-taking, or indeed of
criminality that is as much about Whitewater, Enron, WorldCom. and
Tyco, as of the Willy Hortons that haunt much of the collective psyche.
Indeed, polls in the early 2000s indicated considerable distrust of the
leadership of large companies. In addition, structural factors led to
disquiet about the probity of important tranches of business and
public life. The investigation into mutual-fund fraud launched by Eliot
Spitzer, New York s Attorney-General in 2003, suggested serious
conflicts of interest. Whether this, or the blatant and destructive
Savings and Loans scandals of the 1980s, or the problems facing Refco
in 2005, when the major broker was accused of concealing transactions
in order to make it more attractive for investors, deserve to be
compared to the gerrymandering of political constituencies is a matter
of opinion, but also a question worth asking. Furthermore, just as the
political history of this period can be discussed, at least in part, in
terms of violence and of cultures of fear, so the economic history can
be considered, in part, in terms of crime and fraud. As with violence,
this is a matter both of top-down activities, such as fraudulent account-
ing, and also of independent action by the many, for example, the
piracy and downloading of videos and dvds.
Other countries have similar and sometimes worse problems.
However bad American crime figures might be, they are good compared
to those of Brazil or South Africa. Although there is a popular apocalyptic
fiction predicting environmental crisis, such as Kim Robinson s Forty
Signs of Rain (2004) and Fifty Degrees Below (2005), in which Washington,
dc, faces the flooding consequences of melting icecaps, in fact pollution
and environmental degradation are worse in China and India. American
geographical sectionalism is less acute than that of Canada. Yet, to take
this course is scarcely to find much positive support for the aspiration
c onc l us i ons 239
that is America, and there is no consolation, at least in so far as compar- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]