God, Guns, Gold and Glory: American Character and Its Discontents

394 Pages·2016·1.626 MB·English

by  Lauren Langman and George N. Lundskow

God, Guns, Gold and Glory
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Studies in Critical
Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest (Wayne State University)
Editorial Board
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Duke University)
Chris Chase-Dunn (University of California-Riverside)
William Carroll (University of Victoria)
Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney)
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw (University of California, la, and
Columbia University)
Heidi Gottfried (Wayne State University)
Karin Gottschall (University of Bremen)
Mary Romero (Arizona State University)
Alfredo Saad Filho (University of London)
Chizuko Ueno (University of Tokyo)
Sylvia Walby (Lancaster University)
VOLUME 93
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scss
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God, Guns, Gold and Glory
American Character and its Discontents
By
Lauren Langman
George Lundskow
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Cover illustration: Reinvention of the “American Gothic” painting of Grant Wood by Dino Favale.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
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issn 1573-4234
isbn 978-90-04-32339-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-32863-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface: What’s the matter with the United States? xiii
The Fault Lies within xvii
Enter the Frankfurt School xxiii
Changing American Social Character: The Prelude to Socialism xxvii
Chapter Outline xxxii
1 Introduction 1
Erich Fromm and Social Character 4
The Social Character of Elites: Dominators and Destroyers 11
Character and Contradictions 14
The Origins and Rise of the Modern Social Character 16
The Mayflower Arrived and Its Legacy Endured 19
The Waning of Puritanical Sexuality 23
Commerce and the Colonies 25
The Polarities of Social Character 26
American Mythology 40
Social Character Today 45
Toward a New Character Typology 48
The Authoritarian-Dominance-Destructive Orientation 50
The Dynamics of Fear and Power 52
The Social Dominator 54
The Contradictions of Social Character 59
Summary 60
2 God and His Chosen People: Act ii 63
New England 67
Appalachia 71
The Deep South 77
Religion, Contradictions and Character 81
Religion and Culture 84
The Midwest 85
Religion and Culture Today 87
The Religious Right and Left 91
Religion and Social Character 94
Summary 102
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vi contents
3 America: Chasing the Pot of Gold 104
Character and Political-Economy 104
Back to the Past 122
They’re Back! 128
The Pitchforks are Coming! 133
The Rise of Predatory Banksters 134
Too Big to Fail, Too Powerful to Jail 137
Spoiled by Success 138
Detroit Falls to the Bankster Hordes 142
Hostile Takeovers—The Social Dominators at Work 146
The Social Dominator 149
Summary 152
4 Guns: Violence, Gender and American Character 157
God, Guns and the Colonizer 160
From the Seaboard Colonies to the Western Frontier 162
In Real America, Real Men Shoot, Kill, and Destroy 167
Chris Kyle—Mass Killer and American Hero 169
Big Balls and the Phallus in American Sport 173
Work and Sport 177
Instrumental Aggression and Character 180
Pom-Poms and Male Power 182
Phallic Worship 183
God Bless American Violence 185
Summary 189
5 Glory: The Rise and Fall of American Exceptionalism 194
From Chosen to Exceptional 194
Puritan Co-existence? 196
De Tocqueville: On Americans as Exceptional 197
The Land of the Free-for White Males 199
Manifest Destiny—Exceptionalism as Political Doctrine 201
If They are not Willing … 204
Exceptional … How Exactly? 208
The Sorrows of American Exceptionalism 211
The Unwinding of Exceptionalism 214
American Exceptionalism is Really Authoritarianism 215
Cultural Narcissism 224
Summary 225
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contents vii
6 The Sorrows of American Character 228
The Rise, Fall and Transformation of American Character 228
Genesis: The Rise of the American Character 228
The Fall 230
The Crises of Empire 234
Coming Soon: Election 2016: potus as American Character 235
It’s the Economy Stupid 241
It’s Not Just the Economy Stupid 245
Variations on a Theme 248
Battles Today 252
History, Social Change and Social Character 255
The Transforming of American Character 256
Dynamic Character Change 261
Sturm, Drang and the Bearers of Social Change 266
The Social Psychology of Social Movements 268
Needed: A War of Position 272
Social Movement Organizations 273
Summary 274
7 49 Shades of Social Character and One More on the Way 278
Can Reforms Reform? 278
The Return of the Repressed 280
Progressive Regression in the Service of Humanity 284
The Commune as Moral Regeneration 292
Toward a Sane Society: Step One-Transforming the Political
Economy 293
Toward a Sane Society: Step 2-Democratizing Democracy 297
Toward a Sane Society: Step 3 After God What Comes Next? 300
On Being and Having 305
What is to be Done? 306
To the Barricades 307
Summary 308
8 Epilogue 316
Resurrecting the Frankfurt School 316
The Resurrection of Critical Theory 318
Toward a Better Future 322
Bibliography 325
Index 348
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Acknowledgments
Like most authors of a scholarly tract, we’re much indebted to many other peo-
ple who informed our approach, all the friends and colleagues who encour-
aged us to write this book and commented on many parts, and our families
who supported us while we were much more engaged in writing.
First, let’s acknowledge our indebtedness to the giants who provided sub-
sequent generations with so much illumination. Marx talked about how po-
litical economy alienates, warps, thwarts and distorts human potential in its
unbridled quest for profits, based of course on the exploitation of workers.
The immense prosperity of the capitalist era also causes a great deal of human
misery—poverty, wars, and environmental despoliation. Marx also witnessed
the contradictions of capitalism that created diametrically opposed groups
that would eventually overthrow the system. We agree with his diagnosis and
vision but feel that his timing was off.
Max Weber provided us with an understanding of how the cultural and so-
cial psychological factors that resulted from the rise of capitalism led to the
transformation of class relations and religious domination of Europe and
culminated in the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism and its many
denominations. Not least of which, for our purposes, Puritanism was both a
consequence of the changing nature of market society and a way of life that ex-
panded modern capitalism. Weber was also quite critical of modern rationality
that entrapped people in rational systems, so while bureaucratic organizations
were much more efficient, the price of that efficiency was dehumanization.
Finally, unlike many of our sociological colleagues, we openly celebrate
Sigmund Freud. He was far from perfect of course. However dated his b iological
theories of motivation, however limited some of his sociological observa-
tions might have been, his work still helps us to understand how domination
becomes internalized, how people quite often act contrary to their own self-
interests and how strongly various defenses and denial mechanisms for indi-
viduals, as well as for societies, prevent people from knowing themselves or
understanding the world clearly.
The most immediate influence on our work is Erich Fromm. Initally, he of-
fered a synthesis of these perspectives to understand primarily how and why
the Germans embraced Adolf Hitler and Nazism, which included a racist ideol-
ogy that led to the systematic extermination of 12 million people, the slaughter
of at least 20 million Russians, and many more millions of Europeans in war
and its aftermath. Fromm makes us aware of the role of authoritarianism and
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x Acknowledgments
its cousin, the nihilistic destructiveness he termed necrophilia—the love of
death. Fromm was no bitter pessimist. On the contrary, he bequeathed a vi-
sion, the notion of a “sane society” in which the transcendence of capitalism,
commodification, domination, and the pathology of normality in a capitalist
society, is possible. A better future is possible.
As Critical Theorists ourselves, who work in the traditions of the early Frank-
furt school and the entire career of Erich Fromm, so consequently, we don’t
really fit into the neat categories of academia. Although we are both housed
in Sociology, the mainstream of social theory rejects our type of work as philo-
sophical, and perhaps far worse, biased. We offer an emancipatory theory that
critiques domination, and we completely disavow the so-called “value free”
and allegedly unbiased ideals of the mainstream that believes one’s personal
values preclude the possibility of an objective, “scientific” analysis. At the same
time our Marxist colleagues accuse us of abandoning social class and material
factors and escape to the impressionistic and illusory areas of culture. Few see
any value in associating the social world with the depths of the unconscious
with all of its sexual and aggressive desires, defenses, ambivalences and anxiet-
ies from which there is no escape. As the reader will see, such critiques entirely
miss the point of what we are doing.
Perhaps the most immediate appreciation should go to Professor Stephen
Bronner who first encouraged us to integrate issues that we’ve worked on a
long time and put them into a book. Given what we’ve said, matching our
goals with a publisher was not easy and it was for this the reason we espe-
cially appreciate the work and support of Professor David Fasenfest, who
is not only the editor of Critical Sociology but of the Brill series that has
published a number of critical sociological analyses and in this case, some
may feel that Critical Theory is not truly a Marxist perspective. Given that
much of our discussion is based on the political economy that is the basis
for alienation, immiseration and dehumanization should dispel that notion.
Moreover, when we speak of “discontents,” we begin with the economic con-
sequences of growing economic inequality, hardships and a dysfunctional
government owned and controlled by the capitalist elites. So perhaps more
than anyone else we thank Professor Fasenfest for his support from the be-
ginning to the end.
A number of friends and colleagues have influenced and encouraged us,
and in many cases have read parts of the manuscript or at least heard us ram-
ble. A few intrepid colleagues read the entire manuscript and offered valuable
comments. These are Professors Neil McLaughlin, Roger Salerno, and Michael
Thompson.
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