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20 Feb 2009 05:30 pm
The Temptation of American Optimism
Daniel Larison is conservative in ways many now aren't:
One of the most tired accusations is that so-and-so “blames America
first,” which in a more sane world would be understood as taking
responsibility for one’s own flaws. One would think that a more damning
charge would be to say that someone never blames America, and so
refuses to take responsibility for anything done in her, our, name, but
even this use of the word blame is misguided.
In fact, most of the
people who “blame America first” go to great lengths to identify the
flaws of America only with the parts of the country unlike theirs and
only with the people on the other side of cultural and political
divides. The more comprehensive the critique, the fewer people there
are who want to hear it. When making a cultural critique of private
habits, the resistance becomes even more fierce. The more prophetic and
less convenient the warning, the less political traction it has because
it unites more enemies against it. To call for self-restraint, rather
than self-congratulation and self-rewarding, from everyone is
necessarily to be a voice in the wilderness.
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