SIN AND DECLINE
IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND AND PRESENT-DAY US
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH’S THE DAY OF DOOM AS A FRAMEWORK
FOR RECONSTRUCTING A JEREMIAD ABOUT TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY US
DIPLOMARBEIT
zur Erlangung des Magistergrades
an der Kultur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät
der Universität Salzburg
Fachbereich Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Gutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ralph J. Poole, MA
eingereicht von
Julia Weißenböck, BA
Salzburg, Mai 2013
To my parents, my grandma, my family and friends.
They guided, supported and pushed me, shaped my life and made me who I am.
And to Salzburg, the city I lost my heart to.
Acknowledgments
When I was assigned a gloomy doomsday poem in the seminar “Colonial Muses and
Puritan Masters” in summer 2012, I had never heard of Michael Wigglesworth and/or
The Day of Doom before. But the deeper I delved into analysis and research, the more
I liked it. Eventually, me and Michael Wigglesworth turned out to be a pretty good
match and my fascination with the poem resulted first in a BA-thesis and now in this
diploma thesis, because I soon realized that there was a lot more to tell about
Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom and its relevance to present-day US. Who would have
thought that a somewhat priggish, sometimes comical, and usually pessimistic Puritan
minister could hold my attention for more than a year? Certainly not me.
And although my thesis and my studies are now finished and another chapter of my life
is about to start, Michael Wigglesworth’s jingling rhymes will probably stay with me
and occasionally pop into my head just like that, proving that the poem is as catchy
in the twenty-first century as it was in Puritan New England; only a few poems have
that ability.
Therefore, my congratulations and gratitude to Dr. Poole for choosing Michael
Wigglesworth’s The Day of Doom as a reading for his seminar. Who knows if I would
have come across it otherwise? I also thank Dr. Poole for not restricting my analysis
in any way. He was always open to my ideas and very supportive in my decision to take
a quite unusual cultural approach and relate a 350-year-old poem to present-day US.
Many thanks also to a certain Dr. S with whom I had the chance to discuss my
topic and who provided critical input and helped me find the missing link in my thesis.
A very special thank you to my dear friends and colleagues for proof-reading
this thesis, offering constructive criticism and pointing out inconsistencies which I had
overlooked: Magdalena Kasperek, for applying her infallible feel for words and syntax;
Gundula Ehringer, for reviewing with her critical eye for grammar and punctuation;
and Stephan Ramp, for reading with great attention to detail and his unfailing sense
of aesthetics.
But most of all I thank my parents, who have always unconditionally supported
me in whatever I wanted to do and whichever path I chose to pursue. I know they
will probably say that this is just what parents do, and for that I thank them even more.
CONTENT
Introduction
1
Defining Terms
3
PART 1: DECLINE IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND—THE HISTORICAL BASIS
4
1.
1.1.
The Puritan Belief System
Social Change
5
7
2.
Michael Wigglesworth—A Brief Biographical Overview
10
3.
The Day of Doom—A General Introduction
12
4.
4.1.
4.2.
Introducing American Values: The American Jeremiad
An Introduction
The Jeremiad in Present-Day American Culture
14
14
16
5.
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
The Day of Doom—A (quasi-) Jeremiad
Jeremiads Identify Problems
Jeremiads Identify Turning Points
Jeremiads Call for Reform, Repentance, or Renewal
18
18
20
22
6.
6.1.
6.2.
6.3.
6.4.
6.5.
6.6.
6.7.
Classifying Sinners in The Day of Doom
Hypocrites
The Reliers on Works
The Presumptuous
The Misguided
The Spiritually Lazy
The Uninformed
Summary
27
27
29
30
32
33
34
36
PART 2: DECLINE IN PRESENT-DAY US—A JEREMIAD RECONSTRUCTED
37
SETTING THE SCENE
38
7.
7.1.
7.2.
7.3.
7.4.
7.5.
38
39
41
42
43
44
Introducing American Values: The American Dream
Puritan Origins
The Declaration of Independence and Its Influence
Upward Mobility
Equality
Homeownership
8.
8.1.
8.1.1.
8.1.2.
8.1.3.
Is There an American Decline?
American Supremacy
Hard Power
Soft Power
Relative Power
CLASSIFYING SINNERS IN PRESENT-DAY US
46
47
49
52
54
56
9.
9.1.
9.2.
9.3.
9.4.
“Saying So, Don’t Make It So”—Hypocrisy
The Right to Bear Arms
The US Is a Greenhouse
“For As Long As I Am President”
Relevance to The Day of Doom
57
57
59
60
64
10.
10.1.
10.2.
10.3.
Loosing Track of the Right Path—The Misguided
Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous
The Missing Middle
Relevance to The Day of Doom
66
66
67
72
11.
11.1.
11.2.
11.3.
11.4.
“An Age of Denial and Narcissism”—The Presumptuous
The Myth of American Exceptionalism
Fighting “a War for Civilization”
“There Isn’t a Child in India [Asia] that Wouldn’t Come to America”
Relevance to The Day of Doom
74
75
79
80
82
12.
12.1.
12.2.
12.3.
“This Country’s Going to [...] Take Care of It”—The Reliers on Works
Hurricane Katrina
The BP Oil Spill
Relevance to The Day of Doom
85
85
86
89
13.
13.1.
13.2.
13.3.
Inconsistency with American Values—The Spiritually Lazy
“America Doesn’t Torture”
The Rise of the Disposable Worker
Relevance to The Day of Doom
92
92
94
96
14.
14.1.
14.2.
14.3.
“We Are Becoming a Stupid Country”—The Uninformed
Hate Crimes
Science Fair vs. Super Bowl
Relevance to The Day of Doom
98
98
101
105
Conclusion
106
BIBLIOGRAPHY
109
FIGURES
Figure 1:
Voting Share in the World Bank.
48
Figure 2:
Comparison of Economic Mobility.
49
Figure 3:
The Global Debt Clock.
50
Figure 4a:
Hate Crimes in the US in 2010.
98
Figure 4b:
Hate Crimes in the US in 2010.
99
TABLES
Table 1:
Classes and Groups of Sinners.
36
Table 2:
Comparison of Debts.
50
Table 3:
Public Opinion about the US.
53
Table 4:
Problems Facing the US.
55
Table 5:
CO2 Emissions in 2007.
59
Table 6:
Perceived Power of Major US Societal Entities.
61
Table 7:
Honesty/Ethics of Lobbyists.
63
Table 8:
Pisa Study.
102
Table 9:
Comparison of Sins: Past and Present.
107
Awake, awake, O Sinner, and repent,
And quarrel not, because I thus alarm
Thy Soul, to save it from eternal harm.
(Wigglesworth, “A Postscript Unto the Reader”)
Thou hangest over the Infernal Pit
By one small thread, and car’st not thou a whit?
(ibid.)
1
Introduction
The analysis in this thesis is a progressive one. It starts with explaining different ideas
and concepts of Puritan New England and the society’s spiritual decline,
which prompted the Puritan minister, Michael Wigglesworth to write The Day of Doom.
Then it takes up the very same concepts of sin and decline as defined by Wigglesworth
and applies them to present-day United States1, reconstructing a jeremiad in order
to analyze whether the US is in a state of decline or not.
This thesis consists of two parts, the first part of which forms the basis and
serves as the theoretical background the second part is built on. First, there
is a definition of the two most important concepts applied throughout this thesis,
sin and decline. Then there follows a short historical overview of Puritan New England
as well as an introduction to Puritan society, the Puritan belief system and the changes
therein, which are necessary for a thorough understanding of Wigglesworth’s poem and
this thesis as a whole. Having set the historical frame, the author of The Day of Doom,
Michael Wigglesworth is introduced, a short biographical overview of his life is given
and his reaction towards changes in society is explained. This serves to facilitate the
understanding about what prompted him to write The Day of Doom, the characteristics
and content of which are outlined in the next chapter. Tied to the peculiarities of the
poem is also its use as a political tool, and while the following chapter on the American
jeremiad first of all outlines what a jeremiad constitutes of, it ultimately also shows how
Wigglesworth’s poem can be classified as a jeremiad and thus fits into the political
genre as well. As the last chapter in the first part of this thesis, six groups of sinners are
identified in The Day of Doom, which, together with the concept of the jeremiad,
serve as a framework for the second part.
The second part of this thesis starts with introducing the American Dream,
because although the concepts and values it implies date far back to Puritan
New England, they still influence American society today. Also, a basic notion of the
concept of the American Dream will facilitate the general understanding of whether the
US is in decline or not and serve as a bridge to the next chapter which provides
an overall introduction to the current state of the US and how its status has changed
1
Henceforth, the United States will be abbreviated with US or U.S. respectively.
2
over the last couple of years. The main part in the second half consists of the
reconstruction of a jeremiad. Using the framework from the first part of this thesis,
examples for sinful behavior in present-day US are provided and classified according
to the six categories of sinners identified in The Day of Doom. This analysis will then
offer a possible answer to the question whether the US is in decline or not, and it will
show that the concepts underlying sins in Puritan New England and present-day US are
the same, if with different outcomes, and that it is thus possible to take up
The Day of Doom, a (quasi-) jeremiad for Puritan society, and reconstruct a jeremiad
about present-day US.
3
Defining Terms
‘sin’
The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘sin’ as “an immoral act considered to be a transgression
against divine law,” and as “an act regarded as a serious or regrettable fault, offence,
or omission.”
‘decline’
The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘decline’ as “a gradual and continuous loss of strength,
numbers, or value,” such as in “a civilization in decline.”
Throughout this thesis the terms ‘America’ and ‘(the) Americans’ are used
synonymously to mean ‘the United States of America’ and ‘citizens of the United States
of America’ respectively.
4
PART 1: DECLINE IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND—THE HISTORICAL BASIS
This part of the thesis aims to enhance the understanding of what prompted
Michael Wigglesworth to write The Day of Doom, why it became to be so popular and
was also used as a political tool. First, there is a short introduction to Puritan
New England in order to set the scene, followed by a biographical overview
of Michael Wigglesworth and his motivation to write The Day of Doom. Second, there
is an overall introduction to the peculiarities of the poem and why it classifies as
a jeremiad. Finally, decline and sin in Puritan New England are defined by classifying
the sinners pictured in Wigglesworth’s poem into six categories.
5
1.
The Puritan Belief System
In order to understand The Day of Doom, and how it can be seen as a reaction towards
the decline in society, it is necessary to have a basic understanding of Puritan life,
most importantly their Puritan belief system. The subject is far too complex in order
to provide an in-depth explanation of the religious conventions in seventeenth-century
New England in this thesis. Therefore, merely an insight on certain aspects connected to
The Day of Doom is provided so as to facilitate the understanding of
Michael Wigglesworth’s work. The description of certain conventions of Puritan life
thus may not be complete and may not reflect all aspects of Puritan society. 2
Describing the Puritans as ‘pious’ would almost be an understatement;
as Perry Miller has pointed out, piety “was foolishness and fanaticism to their opponents,
but to themselves it was [the key to] life eternal” (The New England Mind 5).
Truly, if there was one primary goal the Puritans had, it was reaching a state where they
would be allowed into heaven and live for eternity. The only way to achieve this goal
was to live in a ‘social covenant’ with God, which obliged them to obey the rules
of God, no questions asked. If one individual did not abide to these laws, this could
result in God inflicting his wrath on the entire community. Thus, whenever there were
earthquakes, thunderstorms or an unusually high mortality rate, it was clear for the
Puritans that this was a sign of God being angry with them (cf. Stannard 41).
God as such was incomprehensible to the Puritans and merely described
as possessing certain attributes, such as “creation, providence, lordship, benignity, mercy,
justice [...] wisdom, will, holiness, liberty, and omnipotency” (Miller, The New England
Mind 12). Therefore, the concept of God was that of a ‘hidden’ one, who revealed
himself partially only in the Scripture and through that he commanded people “of what
ought to be” (Miller 21), i.e. his declared will; and of “what shall be” (ibid.),
i.e. his secret will. No surprise that the Puritans were famous for their literalism.
With no other means than the Bible, which was to them the one and only true word
of God, the Puritans had to take the Scripture literal, or else they would have been left
with no laws at all. No Puritan citizen would have dared to doubt the Bible because for
them the Bible “[was] the inspired word of God[,] it [could not] be questioned, it alone
[was] authority” (ibid. 20).
2
For further reading on the Puritans in general, please refer to the bibliography.
6
Another aspect central to Puritan belief was the conviction of everyone’s innate
depravity of soul. They believed that “men don’t come into the world perfectly innocent
in the sight of God” (Edwards 231) but that because all mankind stems from Adam,
all share with him the burden of the original sin and are unworthy of any salvation.
However, they also believed that their merciful God had selected and predetermined
a few people for salvation. Therefore, convinced of predestination, the Puritans
constantly examined their souls for signs that they were among the chosen ones.
The Puritans at times fought a hard battle because they were constantly torn
between soul (spirit) and body (flesh). Just how torn they were at times can also be seen
by reading Michael Wigglesworth’s diary; excerpts are provided in chapter 23.
According to their belief, God had originally implanted two kinds of principles in men:
the inferior one, called natural (flesh), and the superior one, called divine (spirit).
While the natural principle prompted men to strive for their own good, self-love,
pleasure, honor and other earthly longings, the divine principle was about the spiritual
image of God, the righteousness of men and their holiness and piety (cf. Edwards 233).
The incongruence between the two was termed ‘sin’ and “[t]he gulf between sin and
morality could be bridged only by grace” (Miller, New England Mind 49).
This act of bridging the gap was called ‘regeneration’, “[t]he moment [...]
in which God, out of His compassion, bestows grace upon man” (ibid. 25). But grace was
not something people could actively and directly achieve. Grace was solely awarded
divinely and people could do hardly any more than live as pious as possible, hoping that
some day God would bestow them with grace. The part they could actively contribute to
was called ‘preparation’, the—sometimes life-long—state of preparing for God’s saving
faith/grace. This preparatory phase consisted of various stages and started with
attending the Holy Mass to hear the word of God, knowing the law of God, becoming
aware of what is evil and what is good, reflecting on one’s actions and recognizing
one’s own sins, which would then lead to a state of despair of salvation. Everyone could
reach this state, no matter if one was among the chosen ones or not. Now, however,
only God’s elect would proceed. “God then kindled a spark of faith in their hearts”
(Morgan 68), creating a will and desire to believe. At the same time the receivers
of faith would always fight the battle between doubt and assurance. This miraculous
3
All cross-references to individual chapters refer to chapters of this thesis.
7
working was termed ‘covenant of grace.’ By receiving saving faith, people had entered
into a covenant of grace with God, and this grace helped them in the battle against doubt
and despair, and furthermore enabled them “to cry for pardon and sorrow for sin”
(ibid. 69). Ultimately, grace was the only means that could save them from their
depraved state, eternal ruin and damnation.
As hell and damnation were very real to the Puritans, religious leaders would not
hesitate to make use of vivid descriptions of hell when it suited their purposes.
Therefore, the Puritans were utterly afraid of death and hell, despite—or perhaps even
because of—their strong belief and reliance on God’s mercy. David Stannard
summarizes that their fear of death was
the natural consequence of what to them were three patently true and quite rational
beliefs: that of their own utter and unalterable depravity; that of the omnipotence,
justness, and inscrutability of God; and that of the unspeakable terrors of Hell. (89)
1.1.
Social Change
In the second half of the seventeenth century, there was a noticeable change in society,
which led to decline of piety in Puritan New England. Clerical and political leaders
agreed that the case was desperate and people needed to be led back to the right path.
It was a time that really put the Puritan nation to the test. From 1650 onwards, most
of the founders died and the second-generation Puritans were on the rise, attempting
to continue the work of their fathers. But their faith was not as strong as those of the
first-generation Puritans, and so it seemed that the Puritan faith had died with the
founders (cf. Miller, “Preparation for Salvation” 253). According to David Minter,
this rather desperate situation of the Puritans can be traced back to three major elements:
“the crumbling of their design, the waning of their piety, and the waxing of their prosperity”
(qtd. in Murphy 50). Already in the 1640s the colony’s economy had begun to diversify
through fur trading, as well as fishing, lumber and shipbuilding industries. The colony
soon started trading with Europe and the West Indies, which resulted in an enormous
upswing in economy and led to an increase in wealth. The founders never had this kind
of prosperity in their colony, their mission was solely divine, but now their children
were
provided
with
prosperity
of
a
different
kind—economic
prosperity.
8
A new merchant class was on the rise and religious elites feared for the future of the
colony. Andrew Murphy states that it was
beyond dispute [...] that, [...] generational pressures (including the clamor for land
among the rising generation) and a rising merchant class served to heighten fears
[...] that the collective sense of mission they inherited from their parents was
increasingly endangered” (39).
By the late 1650s, the decline in church membership reached its peak and the Puritan
society was threatened that soon most of its members would be unbaptized. Considering
the fact that Puritan society—and thus also politics—was based on religion and clerical
rule, the falling membership rates represented a serious danger (cf. Morgan 129).
According to Puritan belief, a person could only become a full member of the church
if he was baptized and had received saving faith, a kind of conversion experience.
Prospective members had to prove that they had received saving faith by testifying that
they had experienced workings of grace and then stand a cross-examination by the
clergy (cf. Morgan 62). Unfortunately, if applicants failed this test, they could not
become members of the church and their children could not be baptized. Baptism
of infants was a privilege solely reserved to full members of the church, and since in the
seventeenth century fewer people experienced saving faith, the number of unbaptized
children was rising, while the number of full church members was falling. Thus, the
New England church introduced the Halfway Covenant in 1662. The covenant held
several propositions, the most important one being the fifth:
Proposition 5th. Church-members who were admitted in minority, understanding
the Doctrine of Faith, and publickly [sic!] professing their assent thereto; not
scandalous in life, and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church, wherein
they give up themselves and their Children to the Lord, and subject themselves
to the Government of Christ in the Church, their Children are to be Baptized.
(qtd. in Morgan 130)
The important message was that all the actions prescribed could be performed without
the conversion experience. Thus, people who lacked the experience of saving faith
retained a partial membership which yet excluded them from voting in church affairs
and participating in the Lord’s Supper. Still, the benefits far outweighed the downsides:
they were provided with church discipline, which meant that they could be admonished
or even excommunicated for bad conduct—a regulation that applied to all church
members and thus also offered protection and stability—and, of course, they could have
9
their children baptized (cf. ibid. 131-132). Moreover, their children in return—should
they experience saving faith someday—would become full members of the church.
Surely, the Halfway Covenant has to be reflected upon rather critically as well.
On the one hand, it was a very progressive way of the New England church to sort
of ‘loosen’ its strict rules in order to gain members, but on the other hand, their
generous mercy can be seen as a mere means to maintain power. As Bercovitch has
pointed out, “Puritan scholars have called the Halfway Covenant (1662) the locus classicus
of the orthodoxy’s decline” (63). Around the same time, Puritanism (as a religious belief
system) had shifted more into a political party in the Seventeenth century, so it was
quite convenient that all members of the society constantly prepared themselves for
grace because in doing so, they adhered to the rules laid out by the church (threat
of excommunication, cf. above) and thus, also adhered to the rules of politics. As Perry
Miller argues, the Halfway Covenant, as progressive as it was, was also “a symptom
of the change that came over the Puritan movement as it became concerned more with the
conquest of power than with the pursuit of holiness” (“Preparation for Salvation,” 262).
So the Puritans back then were desperately trying to maintain their power just like the
US now appears to be fighting hard to keep its supremacy.
One who recognized the change in Puritan society and was very concerned with its
decline, was Michael Wigglesworth, a minister and poet.
10
2.
Michael Wigglesworth—A Brief Biographical Overview
Michael Wigglesworth was born on 28 October 1631 in Yorkshire, England, as son
to Edward Wigglesworth, a well-to-do tradesman. As the conditions in England turned
ever more hostile to Puritans, Michael, aged seven, and his parents migrated
to Charlestown in August 1638. Although his family’s means were small, Michael
nonetheless received ministry education and at the age of eight, Ezekiel Cheever,
who has widely been regarded “the chief representative of the colonial schoolmaster”
(“Ezekiel Cheever”) became his teacher. In 1648 Michael Wigglesworth entered
Harvard College, where he excelled at the top of his class and was selected as college
tutor immediately after his graduation in 1651. This was also the time when young
Michael Wigglesworth was most severely affected by doubts about his belief in God
and continuously contemplated all his presumed sins. From this time also dates
Wigglesworth’s journal which is laden with self-doubt and his never-ceasing urge
to relate everything in life to the workings of God. Richard M. Gummere has defined
the journal as a mixture of “religious devotion, self-castigation, and a running account
of his physical troubles” (3) of which he had many because throughout his life,
he suffered from poor lungs and frailty. Edward Morgan, editor of the 1946 version
of The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth, writes in the introduction that “ if worrying
would have saved New England, Wigglesworth would have saved it” (VI). Indeed, the
accounts in his journal are somewhat wailing, so he wrote: “shame devours all my
labours, in stead of admiring god I admire my self. for this I loath my self”4 (Morgan 8),
“I find such unresistable torments of carnal lust or provocation unto the ejection of seed that
I find my self [sic!] unable to read any thing [sic!] to inform me about my distemper
because of the prevailing or rising of my lusts” (ibid. 4), or “[m]y proneness to satisfy my
soul in my study’s or pupils’ progress, or anything without God, is the daily fear of my
soul” (Gummere 4).
Interestingly, although young Michael Wigglesworth was always struggling with
his faith, he was nonetheless a well-respected and well-appreciated teacher and scholar.
In 1655, Wigglesworth moved to Malden, Massachusetts, took office at minister and
married his first of at least three wives, Mary. Often, his frequent illnesses and his weak
voice kept him from performing his full duties as a pastor of Malden and he could not
4
The words in this quote reflect the original text.
11
hold any sermons because his voice would not come out loud enough. It is said that his
bad conscience led him to become active in the community of Malden as a physician
and a poet, so as to compensate for his shortcomings as pastor. In contrast to his earlier
years, the older Michael Wigglesworth was also more in harmony with himself and his
reputation among his congregation further grew. Because he was deeply orthodox and
in line with the original Puritan idea, it troubled him to see how the third generation
of Puritans seemed to decline in Puritan values and grow ever more impious
(cf. Matthiessen; Gummere; Dean Ward). As materialism was on the rise and
spiritualism in decline, he saw himself compelled to call for repentance and write about
Judgment Day, in order to “set forth truth and win men’s souls to bliss”
(Matthiessen 492).
On 10 June 1705, Michael Wigglesworth died at age 74. While there is indeed
some truth in Matthiessen’s claim that “it is easy to make fun of the Puritan [because]
he was so painfully in earnest, so relentless in his pursuit of what he believed to be the truth,
that he becomes for those who are out of sympathy with his aims, a great unconscious
humorist” (491), it must be acknowledged that this humorist is remembered less as
a comical figure but rather as the poet who published The Day of Doom, “the most
popular poem ever written in America” (ibid. 492).
12
3.
The Day of Doom—A General Introduction
The Day of Doom: Or, a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment was
published in 1662 and it quickly became a huge success, selling 1,800 copies within the
first year (cf. “Michael Wigglesworth”), something that any modern-day poet can only
dream of. Its popularity is based on two main reasons: its structure and its subject.
The structure of the poem is very simple as it is written in the ballad form and
consists of 224 stanzas with eight lines each. The hymn meter applied is called
‘fourteener’ and consists of alternating, rhymed lines of eight and six syllables:
Still was the night, Serene and Bright, (8)
when all Men sleeping lay; (6)
Calm was the season, and carnal reason (8)
thought so 'twould [sic!] last for ay. (6)
“Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease, (8)
much good thou hast in store:” (6)
This was their Song, their Cups among, (8)
the Evening before. (6) (Wigglesworth, Day of Doom 15)
Gerhard T. Alexis makes an interesting claim and states that the ‘fourteeners’ used
in The Day of Doom “were really nothing more than a doubling of the 4, 3, 4, 3 stanza
conspicuous in the Bay Psalm Book[, and that] one could sing all of [its stanzas] to York
or some other readily recognized tune with the same meter” (574). Thus, with its jingling
ballad meter, the poem provided a rhythm that made it easy to be memorized.
But the popularity of the poem is also largely based on its well-known topic,
Judgment Day. Presented as a narrative, it recounts the familiar story of the second
coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the reuniting of body and soul, and the
final judgment. Emphasized with vivid imagery, the poem tells the reader about Christ’s
fury with men’s sinful behavior and the separation of mankind into sheep, who go to
heaven and will live in bliss, and goats, who committed various kinds of sins and are
thus sent to hell where they will dwell in endless pain. Being the basis for all life and
society, the Scripture and its stories were well-known and familiar to every good
Puritan. Therefore, the familiar story of the poem, paired with references to biblical
passages, confronted the readers with something they knew well, could relate to and
identify themselves with, but it also gave the poem immense biblical authority and
5
As there are no line numbers given, the numbers provided in the parentheses refer to the stanzas. All
subsequent references to Michael Wigglesworth’s poetry refer to The Day of Doom. Henceforth the title
will be omitted.
13
made certain that “no readers could accuse [Wigglesworth’s] doomsday account of being
sullied by the products of mere human invention” (Hammond 55-56).
In addition, Wigglesworth’s poem certainly had a didactic message for the
Puritans and it can be assumed that he tried to show people what punishment would
await them if they continued their sinful way of life, by pointing out what was to be
considered ‘sinful.’ But he also gave people a taste of what would await the pious who
lived in accordance with Puritan law and the Scripture (which was, back then, basically
the same). In this sense, the poem is at once reassuring and frightening, spanning the
strenuous gap that defined Puritanism, despair and hope. Anxiety and assurance were
both necessary to achieve the didactic goal underlying the poem. As harsh as it may
seem, Wigglesworth needed to make use of fear because he “could not risk provoking
even the slightest sympathy for the damned,” (Hammond 58) or else his didactic mission
would have failed. On the contrary, those who read the poem knew exactly the ‘do’s
and don’ts’ and had “another chance to knock at the door of redemption” (ibid. 62).
With all the vivid images of tormenting hellfires and everlasting pain compared
to blissful dwelling in heaven, The Day of Doom was a powerful means to steer people
back onto the right path, prevent further decline, and restore obedience in society
—both spiritual and political. It can be considered a political tool or even a jeremiad,
which is further explained in the next chapter.
14
4.
Introducing American Values: The American Jeremiad
Alongside the American Dream, there is another powerful concept of American thought
that needs to be mentioned because—just like the American Dream—it originated in
Puritan New England and still heavily influences the way Americans think of
themselves and of their past, present and future: the American jeremiad.
In the first part of this chapter, the origins of the jeremiad as a political genre and
occasional sermon are outlined briefly, a jeremiad’s content is elaborated, and its
significance for Puritan New England is explained. Also, there follows an exploration
of where to find the jeremiad in modern American culture, which also reveals parallels
to the Puritans and shows how the web of the ideas behind various jeremiads has spun
into the present. Furthermore, drawing on the explanations provided in this chapter,
the last part presents The Day of Doom as a (quasi-) jeremiad and offers examples from
the text to support this claim.
4.1.
An Introduction
For a first idea about what a jeremiad actually is, one does not have to look too far.
Already the name ‘jeremiad’ gives a first hint: the name derives from Jeremiah,
a prophet, who claimed that Israel was in decline because it had violated its covenant
with God and drawn upon it his wrath. Jeremiah thus feared for punishment and felt that
the nation was in a deep crisis. Driven by anxiety, he lamented society’s current state,
reminded them of the punishment that might await them if they kept their evil ways,
called for repentance and also held out hope for forgiveness should the people choose
to return to obedience (cf. Murphy 6). The very same thing is done by Wigglesworth
in The Day of Doom.
It is not a coincidence that the very name of the jeremiad links back to the
Israelites. The Puritans in general had a strong tendency to draw parallels between them
and the people of Israel. It is widely claimed among scholars of Puritanism that this
view is rooted in John Winthrop’s evocation of America as “a city on a hill,” an elect
and chosen nation (cf. Murphy 10). While this mainly served as the starting point of an
idea, it evolved over time. As Murphy pointed out, there were additional events in the
15
course of history, which further strengthened the belief of Americans as a chosen
people:
These presuppositions were deepened and strengthened by the events of the 1770s
and 1780s, in which the notion of an American Israel throwing off oppression
in order to take up its national mission settled ever more deeply into American
public rhetoric. This link was only strengthened by the Revolutionary experience,
the great evangelical revivals of the early nineteenth century, and the nation’s first
movements westward. (10)
In addition to the Puritans’ identification with the mission of the ancient
Israelites, there was also a widespread belief in millennialism among the early
New Englanders. This view implied that Christ would return to earth for a thousandyear reign and that, “when New Jerusalem should come down from Heaven America
would be the seat of it” (Bercovitch 72).
However, as Bercovitch so aptly put it: “Where much is given […] much
is demanded” (4) and although the Puritans could feel quite safe considering that they
were ‘the chosen nation,’ and rely that God would be concerned about the welfare
of New England, the analogy to Israel cut both ways and with the chosenness also came
a great responsibility and high expectations in fulfilling the covenant with God.
Additionally, they were constantly afraid of the punishment that might await them
if they failed to live up to these expectations (cf. Murphy 37).
It is hardly surprising then, that the jeremiad established itself as a ritual for
a culture on an errand, which means that the Puritans were very much concerned with
a progressive spreading of faith and “gradual conquest of Satan’s wilderness world
[America] for Christ” (Bercovitch 12). Therefore, the jeremiad was also closely
connected to the growth of the colony and provided the population with a (new)
regional tradition, a purpose which they could engage in, a direction in which to strive,
as well as with a sense of continuity and assurance about their future. At the same time,
the jeremiad also manifested itself as a political genre, offering itself as a tool for
self-criticism and social discipline (cf. Bercovitch 80). It joined politics and piety
together and most often appeared in the form of an “occasional sermon” (Murphy 23)
which was usually delivered at a public event, such as fast days, thanksgiving, elections,
and was thus officially authorized by civil government. As far as the content of these
political sermons, here jeremiads, is concerned, it mostly focused on discourse on grace:
16
[T]he doctrine of grace served as a torture instrument to make them [the New
Englanders] behave. With it, the ministers taught the believer who stumbled
in taking hold of his inheritance about the nature of damnation. In their hands the
covenant became a “halter” to restrain “slippery and unstable hearts,” a “hammer”
with which “the soul can be broken,” an “Image of fear” to make “thee see plainly,
that thou art become the heire [sic!] apparent of hell. (Bercovitch 51)
Most of the time, jeremiads told the story of a society which was no longer able
to conceive of the necessary piety to sustain a ‘city on a hill.’ While it was founded as
a religiously based settlement, the former godly population had degenerated and turned
away from piety towards worldliness. Cotton Mather even put together a list of sins,
among these were: drunkenness, sensuality, luxurious apparel, meager support for
ministers, swearing, dishonor to parents and magistrates, contention, pride in
appearances, religious formality (no spirit involved), as well as covetousness and land
speculation, to name but a few (cf. Murphy 19). Thus, the jeremiad developed a certain
structure. First, it lamented the false dealings with God and betrayal of covenant
promises, then it further condemned the behavior of the young and the overall
ever-present lure of earthly profits and pleasures. Second, it reminded the people of the
wrath of God and his swift and total revenge should they not repent. And finally,
most jeremiads also included a positive outlook, a promise or hope that their course
of fate can still be changed (cf. Bercovitch 4). Since, as mentioned before,
these jeremiads were often recited at public events, even more often at political ones,
they became a powerful political instrument, whose overall aim was to steer people into
a certain direction. Jeremiads presented facts, the state of the nation as it was then
(mostly negative), and ideal, the state of the nation as it could be (positive), and thus
prompted the people to strive for a fulfillment of the ideal so that fact and ideal would
be made to correspond (cf. Bercovitch 61). Through this tension between despair and
hope, jeremiads perfectly fit into the Puritan belief system and had the ability to move
people to social and political action and were also used accordingly (cf. Murphy 12).
4.2.
The Jeremiad in Present-Day American Culture
The jeremiad has managed to persevere through centuries and remains essential to
self-understanding in the US. As outlined before, and as is further explained in the next
part, the American jeremiad has a long-standing tradition:
17
[It’s] appropriation of the language of divine punishment for national offenses,
[the] lament over a perceived decline from America’s virtuous origins, and [the]
marshaling of claims about the past in search of an understanding of the present
and future (Murphy 5)
are far more mainstream and widely spread within American society as one might think.
As Bercovitch explained, the jeremiad is at the same time a moral, religious, economic,
social and intellectual consensus (cf. 176), it ties self-interest to social perfection insofar
as it assigned to nationalism the importance of typology, to progress the assurance that
everything will at least last another thousand years, to free enterprise it assigned grace,
and to contract the absoluteness of a covenant with God (cf. ibid. 141). Only the US has
managed to unite “nationality and universality, civic and spiritual selfhood, secular and
redemptive history, the country’s past and paradise to be, in a single synthetic ideal”
(ibid. 176) which is so aptly described in most jeremiads.
Also, a sense of exceptionalism can be spotted because the errand of the
New Englanders was never purely a material one, such as attaining more innocence,
wealth, land or increasing the benefits of the population; it was always tied to something
greater, namely to the vision that someday “America is to give law to the rest of the
world” (Bercovitch 141). A vision of chosenness that has become true and that still
“accounts for much of the best in America” (Murphy 161), but also, as the second part
of this thesis shows, for much of the worst.
18
5.
The Day of Doom—A (quasi-) Jeremiad
Murphy defined the years between 1660 and 1685 as the time span in which the
jeremiad reached its most highly developed form. As The Day of Doom was published
in 1662, and because its topic and structure allow for the assumption that it might
as well classify as a jeremiad, it is worth taking a closer look. In terms of a clear
definition of what constitutes a jeremiad, there are two definitions whereof the one
by Murphy will primarily be used because it offers a more detailed description and
a better structure than the one by Bercovitch which will be explained at the end of this
chapter. Murphy stated that a jeremiad has to contain three major characteristics:
1.
2.
3.
5.1.
The Jeremiads identify problems that show a decline vis-à-vis the past.
Jeremiads identify turning points.
Jeremiads call for reform, repentance, or renewal. (7-9, italics omitted)
Jeremiads Identify Problems
This might as well be considered the heart of a jeremiad, as most jeremiads open with
a recitation of what is wrong in society and how sinful people’s behavior is, especially
in contrast to the past. Already in the second stanza, Wigglesworth starts to point out
sins:
Wallowing in all kind of sin,
vile wretches lay secure:
The best of men had scarcely then
their Lamps kept in good ure.
Virgins unwise, who through disguise
amongst the best were number'd,
Had clos'd their eyes; yea, and the wise
through sloth and frailty slumber'd.
Like as of old, when men grew bold,
God’s threat’nings to contemn,
Who stopt their Ear, and would not hear
When Mercy warnéd [sic!] them[.] (Wigglesworth, Day of Doom 2-36)
He does not yet go into detail about what kind of sins these people are “wallowing in,”
but he makes clear that they are engaging in behavior that is deemed unfitting of a pious
6
As there are no line numbers given, the numbers provided in the parentheses refer to the stanzas. All
subsequent references to Michael Wigglesworth’s poetry refer to The Day of Doom. Henceforth the title
will be omitted.
19
society that has entered into a covenant with God. Even more so, the state of society
appears to be a rather bad one, as even “the wise” have discarded of their previous
lifestyle and are now counted among the lazy and those whose spirit is weak
(as “frailty” is probably not meant as physically but spiritually fragile). There is also
already a first sense of warning in the third stanza, when Wigglesworth describes the
boldness of men and how they ignored all warnings and threats of impending
punishment. A couple of stanzas later, he also talks of “Atheists blind” (8) who were
brutish and did refuse to accept a God, as well as of “Apostates base and
run-aways” (28) who had forsaken Christ, people who did not profess any kind
of Godliness (cf. 29), “Idolaters, false worshippers,” (30) “Blasphemers […] and
Swearers,” (31) and “Sabbath-polluters” (ibid.) who all desecrated God’s name and
defiled purity. Moreover, Wigglesworth lists “presumptuous men,” (31) “Adulterers and
Whoremongers,” (32) and “Murd’rers and Men of Blood, / Witches, Enchanters, and
Ale-house haunters,” (33) who stood there before God “beyond account” (33).
It is interesting to consider Wigglesworth’s use of “beyond account.” Throughout his
whole poem his words seem well-chosen and thought-through, so it is likely that there
is more to his use of these two words. It is probably indeed valid to suggest that his use
of “beyond account” is supposed to emphasize for the reader that “Murd’rers” and so on
were the most troubling and most often committed sins of his time.
Continuing the search for examples that identify social problems in The Day
of Doom, one also finds enough examples in the middle section of the poem, such as
people who refused Grace and abused light (cf. 60), who had talents given to them by
God but misspent and instead “on their Lust bestow[ed]” (ibid.) them, and again people
who had the boldness and defiance to neglect the time given to them by God,
rejected all means of grace (cf 61) and prized “sinful pleasures and earthly treasures” (63)
much more than all God-given assets. On top of that, “[t]hey would embrace no saving
Grace,” (64) which, as mentioned in previous chapters, was the original and overall
‘duty’ and highest aim for all Puritans.
Wigglesworth then goes into detail and recites the process of how individual
groups of sinners were brought before God and judged with their sins. Having a closer
look at these sinners, one can identify six groups, namely hypocrites, the reliers
on works, the presumptuous, the misguided, the spiritually lazy, and the uninformed.
These groups are dealt with in a separate chapter, nonetheless it is important to point out
that the description of these sinners and their evil deeds of course also counts
20
as ‘identifying problems’ and thus also serves as examples for Murphy’s first
characteristic of a jeremiad, although these groups are not dealt with in detail in this part
of the thesis.
5.2.
Jeremiads Identify Turning Points
In addition to a detailed description of the sins and trend towards decadence in society,
there usually follows an attempt at providing answers to the question why this decline
is happening and when and why the turning point for society to go wrong was
(cf. Murphy 7).
While examples of decline and sinful behavior are extremely explicit in The Day
of Doom and also dealt with at length (the process of judging the individual groups
of sinners), a clear definition of turning points can hardly be observed. These turning
points often intermingle with the sins outlined, such as in “when he stood off’ring his
Blood / […] / They would embrace no saving Grace” (64). Here the first part could
be identified as a certain point in time when (as Christ offered his blood to men)
the mentioned sinful behavior occurred for the first time (people refused to embrace
saving Grace). Another example is “‘One day, one week wherein to seek / God’s face with
all your hearts, / […] / what was your reason / such precious hours to waste?” (110),
which offers the reader a clear reference to days and weeks when the people had the
chance to prove their love to God. But, there are also more explicit hints towards
a certain time, such as this, for example:
You pray’d and wept, you Fast-days kept;
but did you this to me?
No, but for sin, you sought to win,
the greater liberty[.]D(89)
While praying and weeping once again are merely occasions listed, “Fast-days”
is a clear reference to a fixed point in time when men behaved badly.
However, there are also plenty examples which are more implicit. For example,
“‘You that could preach, and others teach / what way to life doth lead, / Why were you
slack to find that track” (71). Once again, the affront is explicit: People did not pursue
their God-given ability to preach and teach others about God’s ways, but the cause lies
D
All quotations that are direct speech in the original text will henceforth be marked with “D”.
21
quite hidden in the first part and only becomes obvious when phrased a little different,
such as when people had the chance to preach and teach, why did they not do it?
Also, “‘Durst you draw near without due fear / Unto my holy Table?” (77), clearly the sin
in this case was that people showed hardly any respect and far too little piousness.
But in order to exhibit this kind of behavior at the table of God, they first needed
to have the chance to come to that table, and in that lies the turning point which might
be put like this: When they had the chance to come to God’s table, they did so without
due respect. Similarly, “‘You nor receiv’d, nor yet believ’d / my Promises of Grace” (85)
might mean: When God promised them Grace, they turned it down. Additionally such
implicit references can be found in:
We had thy Word,’ say some, ‘O Lord,
but wiser men than we
Could never yet interpret it,
but always disagree.D (121)
The sinners’ claim suggests that when, at a certain point in the past, they talked to wiser
men about the Scripture, they did not receive a sufficient answer and thus simply
decided not to adhere to a law that they could not understand. Another example is in
stanza 137:
With chords of love God often strove
Your stubborn hearts to tame,
Nevertheless your wickedness
Did still resist the same.D
Again, Wigglesworth implies that when God offered them love, men nonetheless
rejected it. A similar turning point can be found a couple of stanzas later, in “The man
whose ear refus’d to hear / the voice of Wisdom’s cry” (140). Here God offered wisdom
to men at a specific occasion, but they would not listen. Similarly in stanza 154:
But you, vile Race, rejected Grace,
When Grace was freely proffer’d,
No changed heart, no heav’nly part
Would you, when it was offer’d[.]D
Here, even when God offered them a piece of heaven, people turned it down and further
rejected Grace.
So, instead of referring to specific points of time in the past, Wigglesworth most
often merely hints towards certain occasions where people chose the wrong path.
22
But as Murphy’s definition does not specify any further on how these turning points
should be identified, the references in The Day of Doom suffice to qualify the poem
as a jeremiad.
5.3.
Jeremiads Call for Reform, Repentance, or Renewal
Murphy explained that in addition to all the descriptions of decline and sin, a jeremiad
also needs to provide a call for reform or repentance. It should suggest what needs
to be done in order to change the course of fate. Hence, the jeremiad also has
a consoling function, because through these suggestions certain promises towards
a better life are made, which in return give the people hope for a progress towards the
‘ideal’ as it is represented in the jeremiad (cf. Murphy 6, 9).
The first incident of a call for repentance, but one that also entails hope,
in The Day of Doom is when the goats are separated from the sheep on Judgment Day.
It is worth quoting this passage at length:
At Christ's right hand the Sheep do stand,
his holy Martyrs, who
For his dear Name suffering shame,
calamity and woe,
Like Champions stood, and with their Blood
their testimony sealed;
Whose innocence without offence,
to Christ their Judge appealed.
Next unto whom there find a room
all Christ's afflicted ones,
Who being chastised, neither despised
nor sank amidst their groans:
Who by the Rod were turn'd to God,
and loved him the more,
Not murmuring nor quarrelling
when they were chast'ned sore.
Moreover, such as loved much,
that had not such a trial,
As might constrain to so great pain,
and such deep self denial:
Yet ready were the Cross to bear,
when Christ them call'd thereto,
And did rejoice to hear his voice,
they're counted Sheep also. (22-24)
23
Every stanza here lists reasons why these people are counted sheep and implied in this
reasons are also the suggestions for improvement, what could be done by the readers of
this poem in order to be counted as sheep as well. In the first stanza, those people are
counted as sheep who defended the name of God, who were willing to suffer shame and
even die (martyrs) should their faith in God require it. Clearly, it needs a strong belief
and trust in God to stand great pain and suffering, and Wigglesworth obviously implies
that this is no longer the case in Puritan society. Yet, through showing his readers what
would make them sheep in God’s eyes, he offers them a way of repentance.
Similarly, he suggests that “innocence without offence” would make Christ have mercy
on them, implicitly advising his readership not to offend God any further and return
to a more pious life. In the second stanza, he strikes an even more violent tone, outlining
that people who were chastened (either by others, or maybe even by themselves)
were turned to God (and so could his strayed fellow-settlers), making the pain and
suffering appear a small price to pay, considering the outlook of being counted among
the sheep when judgment comes. Finally, in the third stanza, he emphasizes that, as long
as one is willing to defend the name of God, and would not hesitate to take the cross
from Christ, suffering pain and shame is not necessary.
Surely, being counted among the sheep was already a fair promise and a good
outlook for a deeply religious society, but Wigglesworth continues to describe just how
happy and glorious his readers might consider themselves once they abjured their evil
ways:
All stand before their Savi-or,
in long white Robes yclad [sic!],
Their countenance full of pleasance,
appearing wond’rous glad.
O glorious sight! Behold how bright
dust-heaps are made to shine[.] (26)
In this stanza, Wigglesworth creates a rather strong image, full of meaning. First, there
are the white robes which are promised to the readers. White resembling ‘innocence,’
as if their new clothes would wash them clean of their sins and be a clear sign that their
score was cleared by Christ “their Savi-or” (they are no longer “dust-heaps”).
Interestingly, the concept of ‘pleasure’ and ‘pride,’ (and in stanza 63 also ‘wealth’)
all damned as sin throughout the work (cf. also chapter 1and 4 for what was considered
‘sinful’ in Puritan New England), are now turned around and made perfectly acceptable.
24
Thus, the newly turned innocents may now without fear of punishment indulge
in pleasure and heavenly wealth, and pride themselves with their new robes because
their enjoyments are God-given and no longer considered a sin.
The general tenor of these positive outlooks is one without fear. For example
in stanzas 38, 44 and also 171 when Christ says:
My Sheep draw near, your Sentence hear,
which is to you no dread,
Who clearly now discern, and know
Your sins are pardoned.
[…]
That they of bliss and happiness
might firmly be assur'd.
[…]
God doth such doom forbid,
That men should dye eternally
for what they never did.D
In combination with the suggestions for improvement listed before, these stanzas serve
as additional affirmation for the readers and imply the message: If you are pious,
you will be rewarded and have nothing to fear—even on Judgment Day.
But Wigglesworth also draws on some of the earliest principles of the Puritan
settlers in order to make his poem a more powerful (political) tool. He cleverly evokes
this idea of chosenness when he writes “That they [the sheep] may be (as now you see) /
a chosen Generation” (42) and God tells them “I do save / none but mine own Elect”
(180). Furthermore, he draws on the idea of America as a ruling nation in “That Heav’n
is theirs” (47) and also in stanza 48:
Come, Blessed Ones, and sit on Thrones,
Judging the World with me:
Come, and possess your happiness,
and bought felicity.
Henceforth no fears, no care, no tears,
no sin shall you annoy,
Nor any thing that grief doth bring:
Eternal Rest enjoy.D
Sitting on thrones alongside God and judging all other nations is a fair outlook for
a society in which a sense of election and exceptionalism has always played a role,
and in which the very same goal has continuously moved out of reach due to a loss
of piety. Further evoking images of early colonialism, Wigglesworth writes: “Receive
25
the Crown that’s now your own; / come, and a Kingdom take” (49), which is of course
a fair promise to a colonial nation, who parted with the homeland in order to search for
its own country to rule. As these lines suggest, if men show repentance, renewal will
come about and God will eventually consider the New Englanders fit for the crown and
ready to claim their own kingdom. And if this was not already a more than positive
outlook, this country, so Wigglesworth writes, will not be on earth, but in heaven
“to Heav’n they all ascend” (220), and they will reign alongside God “where face to face /
Jehovah may be seen” (221), “Made Kings and Priests to God […] / […] / [t]here to remain
and there to reign / with him Eternally” (224) forever, without any fears or sorrows
haunting them—the ultimate promise for a society which is constantly torn between
despair and hope.
This analysis has shown that there are incidents of all of Murphy’s characteristics for
a jeremiad to be found in The Day of Doom, and although at times theses examples are
not explicit, certain parallels to the jeremiad cannot be denied.
Now, finally it is also worth taking a look at the definition provided
by Bercovitch. According to him, a jeremiad needs to entail:
[F]irst, a precedent from Scripture that sets out the communal norms; then, a series
of condemnations that details the actual state of the community
(at the same time insinuating the covenantal promises that ensure success),
and finally a prophetic vision that unveils the promises, announces the good things
to come, and explains away the gap between fact and ideal. (16)
Bercovitch’s definition basically covers the same ideas as Murphy’s but is more ‘open’
and less strictly structured as to how promises ensuring success and decline of society
are to be realized. Thinking back to the general introduction about The Day of Doom
it is important to remember that throughout the poem, Wigglesworth used direct biblical
references, presumably to enhance the godly authority of his text, a procedure which
is also reflected in Bercovitch’s definition above. In its description of the sins of people,
the (often very implied) suggestions for repentance, and the promises of eternal life and
reign, The Day of Doom fully coheres with Bercovitch’s definition. The reason why
Wigglesworth’s work is merely considered a ‘(quasi-)’ jeremiad in this thesis is that,
at times, it does not explicitly fulfill Murphy’s criteria for a jeremiad but one has
to uncover implied hints and suggestions. Nonetheless, denying it the status of
26
a jeremiad would be plainly wrong, as there are traces and features which cannot
be overlooked and also Wigglesworth’s presumed motivation for writing the poem
(cf. chapter 4) reflects the purpose of a jeremiad. Moreover, as Murphy pointed out,
there are different kinds of jeremiads, “[s]ome jeremiads lean heavily on imagery
of chosenness and sinfulness; others offer a detailed time line of the nation’s descent into
moral and spiritual decline” (11), in that respect, The Day of Doom certainly belongs
to the first category.
27
6.
Classifying Sinners in The Day of Doom
The following part of this thesis is an attempt to describe the sins that led to decline in
Puritan
society.
Jeffrey
Hammond
has
described
six
classes
of
sinners
in The Day of Doom, and Thomas Long has stated that ten groups of sinners are
addressed. Based on these two concepts, the sins of each group are identified and each
group of sinners is assigned to a certain class. The six classes of sinners are
(cf. Hammond 46):
-
6.1.
hypocrites
the reliers on works
the presumptuous
the misguided
the spiritually lazy
the uninformed
Hypocrites (stanzas 68-91)
Wigglesworth describes two groups of sinners. Though there is no evidence in any
literature, it seems very likely that the first group consists of members of the clergy,
for example ministers, preachers, priests, who did not really have any faith in God but
only pretended so in order to maintain their position. Proof for this assumption can
be found when the hypocrites speak for the first time:
Our powerful teaching, and pow’rful preaching
by thine own wondrous might,
Did thoroughly win to God from sin
many a wretched wight[.]D (69)
Their claim is that they actively spread the word of God and helped others to regain
their faith in God, therefore they can hardly be accused of leading a sinful life.
They continue arguing that they have taken part in the Holy Mass and
Holy Communion and therefore they believed that God had bestowed grace upon them.
Now they can hardly believe that they should be damned:
Of strength’ning Seals, of sweetest Meals,
have we so oft partaken;
And shall we be cast off by thee,
and utterly forsaken?D (75)
28
But Christ makes clear to them that they are unworthy of his blood and body, and that
since they did not take in salvation or grace, they rid themselves even further into
damnation with every bite they took and every gulp they swallowed. Christ refutes their
argument implying that they enjoyed the opportunity to get their share of divinity,
while at the same time what they really wanted were natural, earthly assets:
“Your fancies fed on heav’nly Bread, / your hearts fed on some Lust” (79). Then the
hypocrites are accused of abusing “things ordain’d for good” (80) and judged guilty.
This final charge is especially curious because it might suggest that these clergy men
only held their positions within the church as a cover-up for their real motivations
(earthly pleasures, power), and to finance the very same. Miller also stated that
“ruling not to benefit society but from a lust for power” (New England Mind 41)
was termed sin. Compared to average members of society, people who held a position
within the clergy were usually wealthy and well-respected (no one would doubt the faith
of a minister), so it seems very likely that this was the motivation for their pretense and
hypocrisy.
The hypocrites of the second type freely admit they have sinned, but they also claim
that they believed in God’s mercy and did everything they could to repent their sins and
prepare for salvation. They argue that they kept “Fast-dayes” (82), “pray’d and wept”
(ibid.) and eschewed “lewd ways” (ibid.), and so they thought that their sins had been
forgiven. But again Christ refutes them, claiming that they did not have any interest
in true repentance and their sole motivation for praying, weeping and keeping the laws
of God was to silence their bad conscience:
Your Penitence, your diligence
to Read, to Pray, to Hear,
Were but to drown'd the clamorous sound
of Conscience in your ear[.]D (90)
Once their conscience was cleared and they believed themselves freed of all sins,
they would start indulging anew, knowing that they could always repent.
Here, however, Wigglesworth makes it clear that repentance only for the sake of being
able to commit new sins, is not real repentance and must be punished with damnation
as well.
To sum this up, it can be said that hypocrites are guilty of pretending to be
faithful to God (on the outside) when really they are not (on the inside).
29
6.2.
The Reliers on Works (stanzas 92-106)
This class only consists of one group, namely “Civil honest Men” (92) who are brought
before Christ after the hypocrites. It is worth noting that the emphasis is absolutely
on pointing out that they indeed lived a respectable ‘civil’ life; a life that Wigglesworth
chose to describe almost exclusively with what they were not or did not.
They
“hated
stealing”,
“ne’er
wrong’d
their
Bretheren
[sic!]”,
“No Whoremongers, no Murderers, / no quarrelers nor strivers” (all 92),
no
they
were
“Idolaters,
Adulterers, / Church-robbers [...] / Nor false dealers, nor cozeners” (93). The enumeration
surely serves a double purpose: First it emphasizes what respectable men these civil
honest men were, and second, by describing what they were not, it defines even more
sins, which are not explicitly dealt with in the poem but need to be called to attention
nonetheless.
The initial plea of the civil honest men shows why they can be classified as
‘reliers on their works’: “let our good deeds, we pray, / Find some regard and some reward
/ with thee” (95). They believe that they have done good work only and that this must
now finally gain them some reward. Christ, however, explains to them that people are
not only judged according to their actions, but, more importantly, by what is inside their
hearts. It is not possible to escape damnation if one does not feel true faith or love for
God. Therefore, Christ tells them that “without love all actions prove / but barren empty
things” (100). Also the respective Bible passage for this stanza is unmistakably clear:
“But without faith it is impossible to please him” (King James Bible, Heb. 11:6; italics not
mine).
According to Christ, they wanted to “scale Heav’n’s lofty Wall / by Ladders
of [their] own” (101), the ‘ladders’ being their works, but reaching heaven is only
possible if faith in one’s own work and faith in God are equally strong. So Christ
accuses them of being guilty of one of the seven deadly sins, pride. He argues that they
were so convinced of their own abilities that they did not need God, and “laid [Christ]
aside, / And trampled on [his] blood” (102). Furthermore, it was pride that made them
strive for even greater achievements, so as to increase their good reputation among
society. Miller has pointed out that actions only “become reprehensible the moment they
are practiced for their delectability alone” (New England Mind 41). Since those civil
honest men thrived in appreciation by others, their achievements and self-love
(all connected to pride) were their sole motivation for their works, and thus also their
guilt and cause for their damnation.
30
6.3.
The Presumptuous (stanzas 107-113, 124-129, 130-143, 166-181)
Presumptuousness seems to have been the despicable trait of character a person could
possess, for there are four groups of sinners which can be put in this class: “those who
claim lack of opportunity to repent,” “those who feared prosecution,” “those who plead the
preeminence of God’s mercy,” and “unbaptized, reprobate infants” (all Long).
‘Those who claim lack of opportunity to repent’ argue that they had the intention
of repentance but died unexpectedly and therefore did not have a chance to turn their
plans into action. Christ responds and asks them why they did not use the time that was
given to them, and he continues to wonder why they did not have time for God, if they
even had time for “vain pastime,” “fading joys” or “carnal Pleasure” (all 111).
Surely, they must have known that death may strike at any age, after all, even the Bible
tells them so: “Boast not thyself of to morrow [sic!], for thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). Ultimately, Christ judges them guilty for lack of faith,
repentance, and desire for repentance (laziness, sloth). He justifies his decision
as follows:
Had your intent been to repent,
and had you it desir’d,
There would have been endeavors seen,
before your time expir’d.D (113)
‘Those who feared prosecution’ try to justify their unholy life by explaining that
they lived among foes and therefore did not dare to reveal their love to God, afraid that
they might be despised by the community they lived in, lose their estates—or worse
—lose their lives. They are also deemed guilty because “they loved the praise of men
more than the praise of God” (John 12:43). With a slightly mocking undertone
(so it seems), Christ is astonished that they feared the rage of their community more
than hellfire and damnation, as if men could do more harm than God. Then he passes
judgment upon them:
To please your kin, men’s love to win,
to flow in worldly wealth,
To save your skin, these things have bin
more than Eternal health.
You had your choice, wherein rejoice,
it was your portion,
For which you chose your Souls t'expose [sic!]
unto perdition[.]D (128)
31
Thus, they are guilty of worldliness, their striving for love of others, luxury and the
enjoyment of perishing things, when instead they could have chosen faith and lived
in heaven eternally.
Judging from the Bible passages given in the margins of the poem, ‘those who
plead the preeminence of God’s mercy’ are guilty because they are “contentious, and do
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath [...] [and do]
evil” (Rom 2:8-9). First they flatter God, boasting about how merciful he is and that
surely he cannot enjoy seeing men suffer. Then they try to talk themselves out of their
damnation and ask Christ if it would not bring even greater praise unto the Lord
if he pardoned them, instead of sending them to hell. But Christ refutes them as well
and replies:
God hath no joy to crush or 'stroy [sic!],
and ruin wretched wights;
But to display the glorious Ray
of Justice he delights.
To manifest he doth detest,
and throughly [sic!] hate all sin,
By plaguing it as is most fit,
this shall him glory win[.]D (148)
With this Wigglesworth once more points out that divine justice is unfailing and that
it is better to be known for strict but fair decisions than for pardoning sinners.
The last group of the presumptuous consists of “unbaptized, reprobate infants.”
They ask Christ how they could be judged guilty, when they had never committed any
sin themselves. But the Puritan concept of Original Sin is very clear about this: Since all
mankind are offspring of Adam, all share in his sin and therefore all humans are
naturally depraved. Thus, the infants’ claim, that it was not them but Adam who ate
of the tree, does not help their case at all. As they spot Adam among the sheep,
they exclaim: “Behold we see Adam set free, / And sav’d from his trespass” and then they
wonder if Christ could not pardon them as well, when even “he finds grace before
thy face, / who was the chief offender?” (all 170). This prompts Christ to point out that
Adam is the root of all mankind, and if he had not committed a sin but lived a faithful
life, a lot of good would have happened to mankind and they probably would not have
minded getting their share of prosperity. He thus confronts them:
32
Since then to share in his welfare,
you could have been content,
You may with reason share in his treason,
and in the punishment[.]D (175)
Furthermore, he is offended by their accusation that Adam was freed of his sins,
although he brought to fall all mankind. “Will you teach me whom to set free” (179)
he asks them, and goes on:
You sinners are, and such a share
as sinners may expect,
Such you shall have; for I do save
none but mine own Elect[.]D (180)
Once again, divine authority is very explicitly stressed here as Christ points out that
no one may tell him whom to save, for he alone chooses those who may live with him
in heaven. So, as harsh as it may seem, considering that these sinners are merely infants,
the Puritan belief required them to be damned. “[T]o the Puritan the child was [...] a loved
one polluted with sin and natural depravity. In this [...] he was no different from any other
member if the family or community” (Stannard 59), and therefore the child was not
treated any differently, also not on Judgment Day.
Eventually though, Christ shows mercy and admits that compared to others who
lived longer and sinned all their life, the sins of a mere infant seem comparably small.
Nonetheless, they are guilty of the Original Sin, lack of repentance, and their “desire to
shift the consequences of sin to someone else” (Hammond 48). Since they are mere
infants, they are assigned to “the easiest room in Hell” (181). This judging of unbaptized
infants is perhaps the most explicit reaction to the national decline (especially
the Halfway Covenant) in the poem.
6.4.
The Misguided (stanzas 114-120)
The class of the misguided only consists of one group of sinners: “those who followed
the bad example of their betters or of religious men” (Long). As they plead their case, they
justify their ways by saying that they merely followed the example set out by wiser,
more educated men who “had more ample / abilities” (114). These men were keen on arts
and learning, so this group of sinners concluded that these men must lead a good life,
and thus decided to do as they did. Unfortunately, the life these men lived was not
33
in accordance with the laws of God but full of sin, and by following these men the
sinners also blindly followed them into damnation.
Christ has no pity on them and tells them that the rules of God are laid out quite
clearly, and that every human is equipped with eyes and ears to find the right way
in life, which, if followed with true love and faith, would always steer them in the right
direction. Furthermore, he points out how foolish they were to “choose / vile men to
imitate” (117), when it is a well-known fact that most men are liars who are “[‘i]n word
professing holiness, / in deed thereof deniers” (ibid.), and that true piety cannot
be imitated but needs to come from inside. As Miller has pointed out, piety
“was something that men either had or had not, it could not be taught or acquired”
(New England Mind 5).
Finally, the sinners try once more to get rid of their sins and claim that those
who misguided them are now saved by God, and not damned as they are. Christ replies
that those men whose example they so blindly followed repented their sins and are
therefore saved:
You little car'd, nor once prepar'd
your hearts to seek my face.
They did repent, and truly rent
their hearts for all known sin:
You did offend, but not amend,
to follow them therein[.]D (120)
With this final word of Christ, the misguided are judged guilty of trusting men instead
of God and lacking true piety. They are silenced and their fate is sealed.
6.5.
The Spiritually Lazy (stanzas 121-123, 144-156)
Two groups of sinners constitute the class of the spiritual lazy: “those who plead the
obscurity of scripture [sic!] or disagreement among its interpreters,” and “those who blame
God” (all Long).
‘Those who plead the obscurity of Scripture’ wonder how they, as mere “fools”
(121), could have followed the rules laid out in the word of God, when even men who
were wise did not understand them. In turn, Christ replies that the Bible may contain
hard passages as well, but they never even tried to understand, and what is even more
despicable, is that they did not care to follow the simple, plain rules either:
34
If to fulfil [sic!] God’s holy will
had seemed good to you,
You would have sought light as you ought,
and done the good you knew[.]D (123)
Therefore, they are guilty of laziness, as well as lack of piety and love for God, or else
they would have had more motivation to follow and practice the word of God.
‘Those who blame God’ accuse him of his unalterable laws that bring endless
pain, and that they never really had a chance in the first place because God never
elected them. Furthermore, they say that they do not believe that any member of the
fallen race can obtain true holiness or grace, and that even if they had tried to,
their efforts would have been meaningless to God:
Had we applied our selves, and tried
as much as who did most
God’s love to gain, our busy pain
and labor had been lost[.]D (146)
Christ disagrees and tells them that they are not judged because they were rejected
or not among the elect, but because they broke the laws of God by not striving for piety
and faith. Rather, they chose to pursue “a loose desire” (149) and so it was themselves
who had forced them to hell, not God. Additionally, Christ, referring to the Bible which
states: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
unto you” (Matt 7:7), scolds them for their claim that entrance was refused to them,
when they never knocked on God’s door in the first place. Eventually, they are deemed
guilty because of their laziness in striving for faith and following God’s laws
(rebellion against his laws when pleading their cases), and so Christ passes judgment:
Not for his Can is any man
adjudged unto Hell:
But for his Will to do what’s ill,
and nilling [sic!] to do well[.]D (153)
6.6.
The Uninformed (Stanzas 156-165)
This class only consists of one group, “the heathens” (Long). They argue that they never
knew a God, have never heard of the word of God and thus did not know that they were
laden with Original Sin and that it was their duty to repent. Their only guidance was
nature and nature’s light (in contrast to the glory of God), which is a deep offense
35
towards God, the creator of all life. Thus Christ replies: “‘How came your mind to be
so blind? / I once you knowledge gave, / Clearness of sight, and judgment right” (162),
and indicates that through this knowledge, they could have chosen the right path,
but instead they chose nature. Interestingly, the heathens then seem to turn on nature,
as they realize that it is the reason for their damnation, for they claim:
But Natures Light shin’d not so bright
to teach us the right way:
We might have lov’d it, and well improv’d it,
And yet have gone astray[.]D (161)
Finally, this claim seems to be the one that seals their faith because Christ replies:
You, sinful Crew, have not been true
unto the Light of Nature,
Nor done the good you understood,
nor ownéd [sic!] your Creator[.]D (164)
Therefore the heathens are guilty of several things: their reliance on natural gifts,
their betrayal of nature (surely, if they turn on nature, they might as well turn on God),
and their lack of pursuing faith.
36
6.7.
Summary
As a summary of this chapter, it is useful to once more provide a tabular overview of all
the classes with their groups of sinners and the sins they are guilty of:
Class
Group
Guilt
members of the clergy
Hypocrites
The reliers on works
those who freely admit that they
have sinned
Civil honest men
Those who claim lack
of opportunity to repent
Those who feared prosecution
pretended faith in God
striving for appraisal by others, self-love,
pride in worldly achievements,
trust in themselves rather than in God
lack of repentance, lack of desire
for repentance (laziness, sloth)
worldliness, striving for love of others,
luxury and the enjoyment of perishing
things
The presumptuous
The misguided
The spiritually lazy
Those who plead the preeminence
of God’s mercy
contentiousness, not obeying the truth,
unrighteousness, indignation, wrath,
evilness
Unbaptized, reprobate infants
original sin, lack of repentance,
cowardice/desire to blame someone else
Those who followed the bad
example of their betters
trusting men instead of God, lacking
true piety
Those who plead the obscurity
of Scripture
Those who blame God
The uninformed
The heathens
laziness, lack of piety and love for God
laziness in striving for faith and
following God’s laws, rebellion against
God, blaming God
reliance on natural gifts, betrayal
of nature, lack of pursuing faith
Table 1: Classes and Groups of Sinners.
Most of these sins were also mentioned by Murphy: “[W]orldliness, profanity,
covetousness, swearing, luxury, apostasy, libertinism, Sabbath-breaking, sensuality,
drunkenness, and hypocrisy […] decried the fallen nature of New England society” (27).
Therefore, Michael Wigglesworth’s Day of Doom effectively identifies sins that are
ultimately tied to the decline of Puritan society. These categories serve as a framework
in the next part of this thesis in order to reconstruct a jeremiad about present-day US.
37
PART 2: DECLINE IN PRESENT-DAY US—A JEREMIAD RECONSTRUCTED
The second part of this thesis progresses from Puritan New England into twenty-first
century US. At first, it introduces another important American concept, the American
Dream, as this is necessary for the examples of decline provided and to understand how
these examples represent a decline vis-à-vis the past and truly American values.
After an overview of the American Dream, there follows a general introduction about
decline in US society, how it can be perceived internationally and what proof there
is to even speak of a decline. Finally, this part, and also this thesis, concludes with
reconstructing a jeremiad about present-day US by taking up Wigglesworth’s concept
of sin and decline and finding relevant examples for each of his six groups of sinners
in twenty-first century US.
38
SETTING THE SCENE
7.
Introducing American Values: The American Dream
There has also been the American Dream, that dream of a land in which life should
be better and richer and fuller for everyone, … a dream of a social order in which
each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they
are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless
of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. (James Truslow Adams qtd.
in Etges and Fluck 215)
The American Dream has developed into such a renowned phrase, that it is now
perfectly understood in all parts of the world. The comparison might be a bit clumsy,
but then again not so wrong at all: The American Dream is a little like Coca Cola
—a trademark that is recognized across the globe, and, more importantly, one that
is truly American.
So, while the American Dream as such is a concept everyone has heard of and
most of the people also have an idea of what it is, defining what it is exactly is not so
easy. Of course, the main underlying idea is basically as James Truslow Adams said,
to live a better, richer and fuller life. Yet, what does better, richer and fuller mean?
Over the past, the American Dream has come to embody various dreams rather than just
one fixed dream. The American Dream can mean aspire, explore, blossom, learn, earn,
win, conquer, become rich, be healthy, be happy, be satisfied—the list could
be continued endlessly. As Jim Cullen has pointed out in his book The American
Dream, the basic underlying idea of all American Dreams “assumes that one can advance
confidently in the direction of one’s dreams to live out an imagined life” (10). This idea
has shaped American identity and thus also society. Cullen even suggests that it is the
most immediate trait of American identity and far more meaningful to Americans than
terms such as “‘democracy,’ ‘Constitution’ or even ‘the United States’” (5).
Therefore, it is necessary to explore the development of the American Dream
and its different individual dreams in order to better understand American society and
judge whether the society itself, and with it its values, are in decline or not.
39
7.1.
Puritan Origins
Not only are the Puritans indispensable for American tradition, they were also the first
‘Americans’ to aspire to something better, richer and fuller, and thus the first who
pursued an American Dream. What made the first settlers leave Europe were mainly
religious and resulting political reasons. The pilgrims aboard the Mayflower,
for example, left England and broke from the Anglican Church because they believed
it to be corrupt and in need of reformation. Although they still shared some of the
beliefs and assumptions of the Anglican Church, they nevertheless avowedly broke with
it and were therefore considered ‘Separatists’ (cf. Cullen 14). The founders
of Massachusetts Bay Colony were ‘non-Separatists,’ and still members of the Church
of England. They left out of protest, so to say, and hoped that the members of the
Church back home would finally realize its corrupt state, their undisciplined behavior,
and reform the Church into a more Puritan one (cf. ibid. 15). Here one of the earliest
and most important concepts of the American Dream already becomes apparent: reform.
As Cullen has summarized, what all these early settlers and pilgrims had in common
was “a belief that the world was a corrupt place, but one that could be reformed
[… t]hings—religious and otherwise—could be different” (15). Their strong believe
in a better place, where they could lead their lives according to their own rules and
reform their beliefs, was what made them seek a new home in the first place.
In New England they had the chance to start all over again with a newly reformed
society and create a new life for themselves as well as their children. The idea that one’s
children might have the chance of a better life has persevered throughout the centuries
and is also today a concept that is frequently associated with the American Dream.
Leaving behind Europe and sailing across the Atlantic was of course not an easy
task. The journey was long and troublesome; yet, the early settlers were willing
to gamble everything for the vision they had. Their strong belief in themselves, their
mission and, of course, God, made them live through and master most of the difficulties
they encountered during their journey and early years in the New World. Hence, they
became masters of their own destiny and “accomplished the core task in the achievement
of any American Dream” (Cullen 18). The driving force behind the Puritans’ patience
and determination in terms of their mission can be summarized in one word: liberty.
40
Liberty implies everything that they were after and it was the main impetus that helped
them face and deal with all the dangers and discouragements.
Their resolute determination also surfaced in the way they dealt with native
tribes. Everyone had to follow their lead; toleration of any kind was out of the question.
Those who had other religious beliefs could either join their Protestant system, or were
forcefully converted because “the leaders of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies
planned to be in charge in both sacred and secular realms” (21). Interestingly, this idea
of ruling others or ‘civilize’ others is still very present today, for example former
President George W. Bush’s claim of “fighting a war for civilization” (cf. chapter 11).
However ambitious their original mission, as time went on the Puritans more and
more struggled to keep up their enthusiasm. They were frequently torn between what
they believed to be their spiritual destiny, and what they believed to be their man-made
future. As they descended from the Calvinists, the early Puritans were ‘predestinarians,’
which means that they were convinced that a certain path in life was laid out for them
by God and there was nothing they could do to change it (cf. Cullen 18). Their faith was
sealed. Naturally, this was in stark contrast to their obligation that it was a person’s duty
to take part in making this world a better place (cf. ibid. 19). Second- and thirdgeneration Puritans struggled even more so and as trade relationships with other
countries and colonies were flourishing and a new merchant class emerging, the values
of the community shifted (cf. chapter 1): Now “becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise had
gone beyond an instrument of salvation into being a practical end in its own right”
(Cullen 30), if hard work yielded affluence, this was interpreted as a sign of God’s favor
(cf. ibid. 63). Although values had changed, the main driving force was still
improvement, be it improvement of self, family, society, religious or spiritual matters,
economy or trade relationships. Striving for improvement was of course closely tied
to the Puritans’ concept of the errand, whose ”very concept […] implied a state
of unfulfillment” (Bercovitch 23, italics not mine).
All these values of the early settlers can still be found in American society today.
As Mauk and Oakland have tried to define American identity: “Features such
as restlessness, escape from restraints, change, action, mobility, quests for new experiences,
self-improvement and a belief in potential supposedly constitute typical American
behavior” (14). Tracing these values back to the Puritans, it becomes apparent that
“[l]iberty, equality, and property were not merely civic ideas. They were part of God’s plan.
America, as the home of libertarian principles” (Bercovitch 111).
41
7.2.
The Declaration of Independence and Its Influence
The opening clause of the second paragraph in the Declaration of Independence
is probably the most well-known and the ideas expressed in these lines have often been
called the “source code” (Cullen 36) of the American Dream:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. (qtd. in Cullen 38)
Similar to the American Dream itself, the Declaration of Independence, which was
written in 1776, has not lost any importance until today. Every American child is taught
the Declaration in school and with them is a whole society, which holds on to these
same values. The Declaration is not only a source for the American Dream, but also
influences the way Americans live their lives. Cullen furthermore argues that the
document plays a major role in the decisions Americans make, for example where they
live, which school they choose for their children, what job they have, which car they
drive—virtually every part of American life is somehow tied to the three, probably most
important concepts of US history: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Living a life
that is mainly based in these ideas is also what distinguishes the US most significantly
from other nations, which usually base their decisions in life on their belief in God,
their ancestors, or on what they believe is best for their country. Americans usually
do not do that, to them it seems atypical. Again, it is obvious that the US is a culture
that heavily relies on each individual’s striving to improve; Americans take action,
just as it is written in the Declaration, for them ‘the pursuit of happiness’ is something
they can actively achieve, happiness to them is something that can be realized.
(cf. Cullen 38) Still, the path to happiness is never completed, but rather is the current
state never completely acceptable or satisfying enough, which goes back to the Puritan
idea of the errand and pushes Americans further and further.
In order to achieve their goals and live the credo of the Declaration, people need
certain freedoms. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt thus announced ‘the Four Freedoms’ and
claimed that they were the birthright of every American. These are “freedom of speech,
freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear” (qtd. in Cullen 57).
Seven years later, Harry Truman altered these freedoms and substituted “freedom from
want” and “freedom from fear” with “freedom of enterprise” (Cullen 58). With this
42
change, Truman might have further spurred the American entrepreneurialism and also
rooted the idea of pursuing not only one’s happiness but also one’s business
in American identity. “Americans generally have a belief in individualism and a freeenterprise system, which is supposed to deliver goods and services demanded by the
consumer market” (Mauk and Oakland 9). However positive that might be, there is also
a downside because “[t]he competitive nature of American life creates considerable
disparities of wealth, social inequalities and varying life opportunities” (ibid.). Not only
does the striving for better, richer and fuller at times create an unequal society,
the interpretation of terms such as ‘pursuit of happiness’ also varies and has been
shifting. While in former days ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ often entailed
hard work and never ceasing to strive for more, people nowadays view them more
as an individual fulfillment and being at ease.
However, no matter how the interpretations of the ideas in the Declaration
of Independence are going to shift over time, no matter what people are going to pursue
in fulfillment of their personal American Dream, one thing is for sure: The original
ideas of the Declaration remain the same and they will continue to constitute the
American Dream (cf. Cullen 39, 58).
7.3.
Upward Mobility
Andrew Jackson once said about the US: “We are a nation of self-made men”
(qtd. in Cullen 69). With this he precisely summarized how the US has developed ever
since the first settlers arrived. The basic idea was that anyone could achieve something
in the US and anyone could get ahead, this is what has been called ‘upward mobility.’
Even if one was born poor, one could become rich. Upward mobility defines the classic
theme of the German saying ‘Vom Tellerwäscher zum Millionär.’ In the US it was (is?)
possible, that a boy born in a log cabin becomes president of the United States, as it was
the case with Abraham Lincoln (cf. Cullen 94). The benchmarks defining upward
mobility are, for example, “economic self-sufficiency, a secure and esteemed profession
[…], the leisure to pursue a career in politics” (Cullen 61). As the name suggests,
the ultimate goal is to move up, to strive further, to aspire. The past is only relevant
insofar, as it serves as a measure for future aspirations and resulting success.
43
While striving for personal fulfillment was not an entirely new concept, the idea
of striving for economic success and wealth was. The reason for this can be attributed
to Benjamin Franklin, who often publicly expressed his belief that heavenly and earthly
rewards are basically the same and could both be attained. Just like Franklin,
Andrew Jackson is also referred to as a founding father of the American Dream because
he was born poor, and his success was largely forged by himself, the belief in his
abilities, strength, convictions and his will and determination (cf. Cullen 69).
No wonder he referred to the US as a nation of self-made men, for he was a self-made
man himself.
Tied to this new idea of upward mobility was a new sense of individualism,
a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville. He described ‘individualism’ as a new form
of “secular striving,” thus echoing Franklin and his idea of heavenly and earthly rewards
being the same. Furthermore, Tocqueville defined another credo of American life which
he described as follows: “self-interest rightly understood” (qtd. in Cullen 69).
Meanwhile, the right dose of self-interest has led many people to success and the US
is no longer just a nation of ‘self-made men’ but also of ‘self-made women.’ The most
famous of all is probably Oprah Winfrey, who built her media empire largely
on nothing and is now ranked number one among the twenty richest women
in entertainment with a net worth of $1,500 million (cf. Goldman and Blakeley).
Forbes online writes:
Reared in poor, rural Mississippi, Oprah today is the richest woman
in entertainment and the only black female billionaire […] Today, she pockets
an estimated $225 million annually from TV […] satellite radio, magazines and
other multimedia endeavors” (ibid.).
A dream of upward mobility come true indeed.
7.4.
Equality
Oprah Winfrey is a good example that the principle of the American Dream applies
to everyone. Everyone is eligible for the dream, thus equality underlies it and its
principles extend to everyone. Cullen speaks of different kinds of equalities, such as,
“political equality (the rights of citizens in relation to the government), civil equality
(the rights of citizens in the public sphere), and social equality (the rights of citizens in their
44
personal dealings with each other)” (105). However, equality is easier said than done and
reality often proves the concept of equality wrong. Yet, Americans with their neverceasing optimism have found a way of getting around this problem, namely equality
of opportunity. In short, this means that although the starting points might be different
(i.e. unequal) for some people, the chances of achieving the goal are hypothetically
equal and considered fair. For example, if one is lucky, one might win the lottery; if a
Latina child studies hard, there is nothing that can hold him/her back from attending an
Ivy League University; and if one has enough money, one might fly to the moon.
Thus, the belief in equality has somehow been twisted. Americans have no problem
with accepting states of inequality, as long as there is an outlook to a different,
i.e. better, outcome. Unfortunately, this understanding of equality of opportunity can
also prevent equality from being realized because people might think that as long
as it is possible to have a different (equal) outcome in the future, they do not have
to change the present (unequal) conditions (cf. Cullen 108). Most prominent examples
that suffer from this idea are all kinds of minorities: black Americans, Latinos, as well
as gay and transgender people, but also women, old and poor people. Arguing with the
equality of opportunity, there is no need to create equality now because they all have the
same (hypothetical) chances of becoming the masters of their own destinies.
7.5.
Homeownership
Cullen argues that “[n]o American Dream has broader appeal, and no American Dream has
been quite so widely realized” as the dream of homeownership (136). To fully grasp its
importance in American society, one has to go back to the Puritans once again.
As mentioned before, many of them had left Europe as refugees, religious and political.
In contrast to Spanish, French or Dutch settlers, the English settlers did not only see the
marketable value of the New World, to them it was primarily a new home
(cf. Cullen 138). From this time on, land has always been a valuable asset.
When America was still a frontier state, land was the coin of the time, in contrast
to a welfare state, where money is the measure of all things. The importance of land
during the frontier years makes sense, as it was more easily accessible than money
—not to forget that there was no national currency at the time—and it was mainly stable
and abundant. Just how abundant it was showed the Homestead Act from 1862 which
45
allowed every family or adult male who was—or had the intention to become
—an American citizen to claim 160 acres of land. Settlers only had to pay a small
registration fee and commit to staying there for five years, after these years, the land
that they had occupied would be transferred to them—they would own land, they would
own a home.
Although the US is no longer a frontier state, at least not in geographical terms,
the importance of owning a home has not ceased. As a country that was largely built
on great wages, it enabled its workers to buy big houses and helped them achieve a part
of their American dream. If one looks at suburbia, it is hard to miss that the dream
of homeownership is probably the one that is most widely realized (cf. ibid. 141-145).
It cannot be missed that the American Dream runs through American history like
a red thread, it might even be the red thread that holds American culture together.
While other nations have defined themselves over geography, religion, ancestry,
common history or language, the US is based on a common imagination:
What makes the American Dream American is not that our dreams are any better,
worse, or more interesting than anyone else’s, but that we live in a country
constituted of dreams, whose very justification continues to rest on it being a place
where one can, for better and worse, pursue distant goals. (Cullen 182)
As Laura Bieger argues, the relevance of the American Dream for American society lies
not in the fact that the dream came true for everyone, which seconds the equality
of opportunity principle mentioned before, but rather in the fact that it provides
a collective vision, a silent agreement among all members of society. This vision forms
the basis for the norms, ethics and values of American society and also their social
coexistence (cf. Etges and Fluck 215). Thus it also provides important information
necessary for the understanding for the decline of American society which is introduced
in the next chapter.
46
8.
Is There an American Decline?
It is easy to claim that the US is in decline, especially since there have been many books
and articles about the country’s current state. Also, media provides a pretty good picture
about what is going on: The economy is weak, unemployment rates are high, the former
high quality in education suffers, and the US still struggles with racism and
discrimination. It is hard to miss the conclusion these clues suggest: The US is declining
and experiencing a crisis, not only economically, but also in terms of its values:
“Unübersehbar
ist
die
gegenwärtige
Krise
auch
eine
des
amerikanischen
Selbstverständnisses und damit des Glaubens an einen amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus“
(Etges and Fluck 7).
These claims are not merely based on personal assumptions; a GallUp poll from
February 2011 shows that 72 percent of Americans answered the question “In general,
are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this
time?” (italics not mine) with “dissatisfied.” Only 27 percent said that they were
satisfied with the current situation. The results of this poll are very telling, and the
percentages are by no means an anomaly. In the past, GallUp polls have shown that ever
since 2007, the percentage of Americans who said that they were satisfied with the
situation in their country has not been above 30 percent (cf. Saad, “Democrats Push
U.S. Satisfaction”). Based on these polls, it can be said that Americans are in general
negative about the direction the US is taking. So, obviously there is something wrong
within the US. Yet, the causes that constitute what is wrong with and within the US are
manifold.
However, before focusing on examples of American decline, it might be useful
to ask these questions: How come the US is still considered the most influential country
in the world? How come the US is so powerful? And, most of all, what constitutes its
power?
47
8.1.
American Supremacy
Apart from the belief of exceptionalism, which is inherent to American culture
(cf. chapter 1 and 11), the supremacy of the US has gained an enormous boost after
World War Two. In her article “Das Ende des American Century” Lora Ann Viola
argues that the dominant role of the US is based on, what she calls, the “Grand Bargain”
of World War Two. This bargain entails that most of the countries involved (mainly the
smaller, inferior countries) accept that they only have limited power and influence as far
as international relations and global politics are concerned, and in return the superior
countries—especially the US—take responsibility for maintaining security, order and
peace (cf. Viola 162). After World War Two, this was an extremely good deal for most
of the smaller countries, of which many were severely affected by the war and did not
have the necessary resources, military, economically, and financially, for taking part
in stabilizing a post-war world. Clearly, this gave way to the rise of the US as super
power. In this role it has served as military protector of Europe and Asia and has often
led intervention in times of economic and military crises in other parts of the world,
thus largely promoting world-wide peace.
Furthermore, the US dollar has become the world’s major reserve currency and
thanks to US naval power, international sea routes are largely secured and goods can
be transported safely around the world. In addition to its military and economic
importance, the US has long been the most valuable source for humanitarian, foreign
and development aid and is now only surpassed by the EU which donated $72.3 billion
in 2011, whereas the US donated $30.7 billion (cf. OECD; Viola 162).
Naturally, the power of the US is also reflected in international institutions and
committees, which leads to an unequal distribution of power—the price the rest of the
world pays for the US as economic and military protector. In the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), where the votes of the individual countries reflect their global
economic position, the US holds most votes (16.75 percent) and thus has the most
influence on the IMF, whereas developing countries, such as most African states,
only hold 3.29 percent (cf. IMF). The same holds true for the World Bank; here the US
currently holds 15.85 percent of the total votes and leads the field, as the graph of the
leading twelve nations on the following page shows:
48
Voting Share in percent (after 2010)
15,85
Voting Share in percent
6,84
4,42
4
3,75
3,75
2,91
2,77
2,77
2,64
2,43
2,24
Figure 1: Voting Share in the World Bank. (cf. Economist online)
In the past there have been frequent complaints by other countries with little
influence in the IMF and World Bank. Up until 2010, countries such as China for
example, which is one of the—maybe the—rising economic power and which are
important partners for solving global issues, terrorism and climate change for instance,
had far too little votes in order to participate actively in any decisions. Naturally these
countries cried for a reform. The new voting share in the IMF and World Bank is now
more aligned with a nation’s gross national product. These reforms in the IMF and
World Bank were a first taste of what might be about to come in the future:
The supremacy of the US is going to shrink. The “Grand Bargain” is no longer
applicable because times are changing. The idea behind the “Grand Bargain” was that
the hegemony of the US, and with it all its privileges, apply as long as it is able
to provide collective goods on a global scale. But these days there are two major
changes happening, which render the bargain void. First, as mentioned before, the US
hegemony is going down. Second, other aspiring countries are on the rise, China for
example. The US is now no longer able to keep its side of the bargain, neither is it able
to meet its former standards in terms of promoting global peace, nor provide solutions
for terrorism, climate change, nuclear weapons, humanitarian and economic crises.
Furthermore, the US more and more relies on cooperation with other countries for
a successful foreign policy. For the future this means that the US will have to step down
with their demands and preferences in order to have other countries on its side that are
willing to share “Global Governance” with the US (cf. Viola 168):
America’s traditional allies in Europe—Britain, France, Italy, even Germany—are
slipping down the economic ranks. New powers are on the rise: India, Brazil,
Turkey. They each have their own foreign-policy preferences, which collectively
49
constrain America’s ability to shape the world. Think of how India and Brazil sided
with China at the global climate-change talks. Or the votes by Turkey and Brazil
against America at the United Nations on sanctions against Iran. (Rachman)
Thus, it seems that the American Century is coming to an end; now it is no longer the
US which is the lone super power, but the trend suggests ‘Global Governance,’
where multiple influential countries share responsibilities and votes (cf. Viola 162-163).
In general, the power of a nation can be pinned down to three different forms:
hard power, soft power, relative power (cf. Viola 162). The shrinking supremacy of the
US—and the rise of other powers which is connected to it—can be better understood
when viewed in terms of these three categories.
8.1.1. Hard Power
Hard power is compromised of a country’s economic and military strength. Speaking in
economic terms, the US has seen better times. Nowadays, especially after the financial
crises of the past years, there is a high unemployment rate, slow economic growth and
an increase in national debt. According to Edward Luce, an unemployment rate is not
a good means to measure in economic terms, he rather refers to the economic
participation rate, which was only 58 percent of the total population in 2011, and has
thus clearly fallen (in 2000, it was still 64 percent). The rate now even resembles
a post-war low (cf. Luce 93). The Economic Mobility Project conducted a survey and
found out that in the US, income mobility is very low compared to other industrialized
countries:
Ratio of Relative Mobilty to the US
4,0
3,25
3,0
2,45
2,0
1,0
0,9
1
1,25
1,5
2,6
2,75
Finland
Norway
1,7
0,0
United Kingdom
United States
France
Germany
Sweden
Canada
Figure 2: Comparison of Economic Mobility. (cf. Moran)
Denmark
50
The figure on the last page emphasizes Luce’s claim that “the United States has fallen
to the lowest rate of income mobility in the industrialized world. […] If you are born poor
in Canada, you are more than twice as likely to move up to a wealthier income bracket
in your lifetime than if you are born American” (172).
Moreover, there is a national budget deficit which has increased over the last
couple of years and has now reached 75.1 percent of the gross national product.
While this does not seem too bad compared to the United Kingdom, it is nonetheless
almost five times as much as China’s national debt, which is interesting as China is one
of the rising economic powers.
Figure 3: The Global Debt Clock. (cf. The Economist)
United States
China
United Kingdom
$11,795,981,147,541
$1,364,065,573,770
$2,260,041,803,279
$37,492
$1,025
$35,762
314,675,683
1,330,202,185
63,157,103
Public debt as % of GDP
75.1%
16.0%
91.2%
Total annual debt change
14.0%
17.5%
10.1%
Public debt
Public debt/person
Population
Table 2: Comparison of Debts. (cf. The Economist)
The impact of the current percentage of national debt in the US becomes even clearer
when comparing it to past years. In 2010, the national debt of the US was 55.4 percent
51
(China 16.5, UK 71.2), in 2011 it was 63.5 percent (China 16.2, UK 80.6), and in 2012
it was 68.7 percent (China 15.4, UK 86.9) (cf. The Economist).
In addition to economic problems, the people in the US face major social
disparity, the country’s infrastructure is outdated, the quality of the education system
has suffered and the US is also likely to lose its leading role in terms of new technology.
An example for social disparity is “zip-code Apartheid,” as Edward Luce calls it.
It means that the lower the property values in a certain area are, the less money is spent
on educating children or training workforce (cf. Luce 91). Luce also argues that
“America’s bridges, roads, schools, electricity grid, waterways, rail system, air traffic
network, and levees have dropped to second world level” (134). In 2009, the country’s
infrastructure was analyzed by the American Society of Engineers and only received an
overall grade D. Not a big surprise when considered that the US only spent 2.3 percent
of its GDP that year on infrastructure. As a comparison, the EU spent 5 percent,
China spent 9 percent. To maintain the current state of its infrastructure, the US would
have to spend $450 billion over the next five years (cf. ibid.).
Even more shocking is the fact that the US now ranks twelfth among all nations
in proportion to its young people with graduate degrees; a generation earlier, the US still
ranked number one (cf. ibid. 80). Also, talent has shifted. It is not unlikely that the US
is losing its role as leader in new technologies. As the 2011 Global Talent
Mobility Survey suggests, the top three areas of talent in the US are Health and
Medicine,
Education
and
Training,
Administrative
Support
and
Secretarial
—there is no engineering to be found among the top three, whereas in Asia the top three
areas are Sales; Engineering and Technology; Banking, Finance Services and
Insurances (cf. The Network 15).
Another important factor is that the US is struggling to stay a ‘welfare state’;
a lot of people are retiring, mostly “babyboomers” born between 1946 and 1964, and
in order to cover their retirement pensions, cuts in the military sector will have
to be made (cf. Viola 163). As Gideon Rachman has argued “the U.S. military budget
is clearly going to come under pressure in this new age of austerity” (4-5). If the US’
military presence in the Pacific suffers due to budget cuts, it is very likely that its former
allies in the region, Japan, South Korea and India, will turn on the US, realizing that
it is no longer the former strong partner, and side with China which has put enormous
52
sums of money into the development of missile and anti-satellite technology and is now
actively threatening the US supremacy in the Pacific (cf. Rachman). Joined by former
US allies, China’s influence in the Pacific region would dramatically increase,
and “the Asia-Pacific region—the emerging center of the global economy—will become
China’s backyard” (Rachman).
While the US still maintains the world’s second largest and most modern army,
at least for now, it has not been able to win the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The US army is stationed around the world; about a quarter is stationed in 150
countries. But the soldiers are getting tired. As the Quadrennial Defense Review Report
issued by the Pentagon in 2010 showed, the US will probably not be able to find enough
soldiers for the coming years in order to maintain its current state, let alone expand
its army (cf. ibid.). Less power in the Pacific region and also in other countries
diminishes the US army’s reputation as sole military power. As an anonymous air force
colonel has put it in an interview with Edward Luce: “People forget that America’s
military strength is because of our power. It didn’t cause it” (qtd. in Luce 8).
8.1.2. Soft Power
Soft power implies non-material aspects of political power, such as moral authority and
political legitimacy, as well as the ability to convince others to join a country’s lead
(cf. Viola 164). Soft power is of course also tied to hard power; if the US loses its
economic and military supremacy, it also loses its legitimacy. And the legitimacy of the
US is shrinking. Lora Ann Viola mentions the US’ reaction to the financial crisis,
which the EU did not approve of, and the inability of the US to convince China
to actively take part in helping with a recovery from the crisis. It seems that fewer
countries are listening to the US. In addition, the financial crisis and its effect on the
housing market, as well as the debate on health care, have caused the American Dream
to be more of an illusion and this all contributes to a less convincing, less powerful US.
The inconsistency with its values is an issue that will be dealt with in detail later
in this thesis (cf. chapter 13), but it is important to list some examples here as well.
The way the US treated its prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has not shed
a good light on the US as an exceptional country with high moral standards, and also
within the US racism and discrimination are still a big issue (cf. ibid.).
53
The 2012 National Urban League Equality Index shows that for black Americans the
index is at 71.5 percent, for Latinos it is at 76.1 percent. This means that black
Americans and Latinos still suffer inequalities in terms of income, homeownership,
health insurance and education (cf. Muhammad, “The State of Black America 2012”).
Furthermore, The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy
reported in 2011 that “[f]ifteen percent to 43 percent of gay and transgender workers have
experienced some form of discrimination on the job” and “[n]inety percent of transgender
individuals have encountered some form of harassment or mistreatment on the job”
(Burns and Krehely).
Ever since Obama came into office, the nation’s soft power has gained
a significant boost. As Rachman points out, polls show that Obama is the most
charismatic leader in the world, and in addition “America [still] boasts the global allure
of its creative industries (Hollywood and all that), its values, the increasing universality
of the English language, and the attractiveness of the American Dream” (Rachman).
And yet, a 2011 Harris Poll shows that despite a charismatic Obama and the still
looming lore of the American Dream, people in the US are becoming increasingly
unhappy with the nation’s course:
People feel that…
2011
2010
the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
73%
68%
the people running the country don’t really care what happens to you.
73%
50%
what you think doesn’t count very much anymore.
66%
52%
most people in power try to take advantage of people like you.
63%
53%
they are left out of things going on around them.
41%
37%
the people in Washington are out of touch with the rest of the country.
87%
70%
Table 3: Public Opinion about the US. (cf. Harris Interactive)
Another quadrennial poll from 2009 shows that “41% of the public says the
United States plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader today than it did
10 years ago” and “a plurality (49%) says the United States should ‘mind its own business
internationally’ and let other countries get along the best they can on their own”
(Pew Research). The same study also showed that 53 percent believe that China’s
emerging power is a major threat to the US economy, all of which are clear indications
that the soft power of the US is also declining.
54
8.1.3. Relative Power
Relative power describes a country’s power in relation to other countries. Naturally, this
is also tied to hard and soft power as well. Lora Anne Viola argues that a country’s
contribution to the global economy is a good indicator for relative power (cf. 165).
The Conference
Board’s
Global
Economic
Outlook
2013,
shows
that
the
US distribution of world output is 18.2 percent, that of the EU 20.3 percent,
that of China already 16.4 percent. While these results already give an idea of the
US ceasing economic leadership, it becomes even more apparent when considering the
fact that the US once held 32 percent of the world output (cf. Viola 165). Once more,
China presents itself as the number one rival to the US. This holds true also in terms
of economic growth. As Gideon Rachman points out “[China’s] economy has been
growing at 9 to 10 percent a year … for roughly three decades. It is now the world’s leading
exporter and its biggest manufacturer, and it is sitting on more than $2.5 trillion of foreign
reserves.” In contrast to that, the GDP growth rate in the US was a mere 1.7 percent
in 2011 (cf. The World Bank). Thus, China needs to be taken seriously in terms
of economic competition to the US. With more than four times the population of the
US, it is equipped with a major work force and considering the GDP growth rates
above, the projection by Goldman Sachs that “China’s economy will be bigger than that
of the United States by 2027” (Rachman) seems not too far-fetched. Rachman even
predicts that “[a]t the current pace, China could be No. 1 well before then.”
As of October 2012, media reported that the US and the EU will start
negotiations about a free-trade deal in spring 2013. As the following numbers show,
the US and the EU seem to be acting in concert as far as their trade relations with China
are concerned:
In 2011, Europeans bought three times more U.S. goods ($286.1 billion) than did
the Chinese, and Europeans sold about twice as much merchandise to the U.S.
($368 billion) as they did to China. Investment flows dwarf these figures:
In 2010, U.S. direct investment in the EU reached $1.9 trillion, while the EU’s
share in the U.S. was $1.5 trillion. (The Editors of Bloomberg)
If the US and the EU partner up, they would hold about half of the world economic
output and probably push economy on both sides, create new jobs —“[a]bout 15 million
jobs are [already] directly linked to the transatlantic trade” (ibid.). In light of China’s
55
rising power and US decline, a coalition with the EU comes in handy and might as well
be the best chance for the US to foster its economic position.
After defining the problems of the US in terms of economic and military power, its
moral standards and relation to other countries, it is now interesting to see what
Americans themselves consider the major problems their country is facing at the
moment. A 2013 GallUp poll asked:
What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?
Economy in general
21%
Federal budget deficit
20%
Dissatisfaction with government
18%
Unemployment
16%
Lack of money
5%
Taxes
4%
Guns/Gun control
4%
Ethics
4%
Poor healthcare
4%
Immigration
3%
Education
2%
Judicial system
2%
Crime/Violence
2%
Foreign aid
2%
Lack of respect for each other
2%
Table 4: Problems Facing the US. (cf. Newport)
In addition Luce has pointed out “[i]n late 2011 Congress fell to a historic low of just
9 percent approval. In other words, [there is] decline in public trust for Washington” (185).
Thus, pairing the views of Americans with current international developments and
statistics leaves hardly any doubt about the country’s most pressing problems and about
the fact that the US is definitely in decline—economically, politically, military and also
morally.
56
CLASSIFYING SINNERS IN PRESENT-DAY US
While Wigglesworth is quite clear about the shortcomings of his fellow citizens
in The Day of Doom and a classification of sinners into six groups is easily done,
the case with present-day US is a different one. In a social system as complex as the US,
and in twenty-first century in general, different traits of behavior intermingle and it is
extremely difficult to pin down instances of certain sins and assign them to one category
only. Most of the examples provided in the following part of this thesis overlap and
could be put into another category as well. The aim here was an attempt to choose the
most illustrative examples for each category of sinners and show its ties to The Day
of Doom in the best possible way. Hoping that this will enhance the understanding
a social system as a net, rather than a clear-cut puzzle, overlaps between the individual
categories of sinful behavior are pointed out if necessary.
57
9.
“Saying So, Don’t Make It So”—Hypocrisy
The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘Hypocrisy’ as “the practice of claiming to have moral
standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform.” To illustrate the
concept of hypocrisy in the US, one does not have to look far.
9.1.
The Right to Bear Arms
In 2012, the US saw two of the most tragic mass homicides in its recent history.
On July 20, a masked man entered a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and opened
fire. He killed twelve people and wounded at least fifty-eight, before he was arrested by
the police (cf. Frosch and Johnson). On December 14, another gunman forced his way
into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, shooting twenty-six
people, among them twenty children between ages five and ten, before killing himself
(cf. Barron). Naturally, each of these two tragic incidents has spurred a new debate
on gun control in the US.
In reaction to the Newtown shooting, poll findings already hinted towards
a general trend in the US that called for stricter gun laws. A GallUp poll conducted
in December 2012 found that 58 percent of surveyed people want the gun laws
to be made stricter, 34 percent said that they want them to be kept as they are,
and 6 percent said they should be made less strict (cf. Saad, “Americans Want Stricter
Gun Laws”). While polls as this one show a clear call for reform, the case is still
difficult. Asked the question if they think there should be a ban on the possession
of handguns except by the police and other authorized persons, 74 percent said there
should not be a ban and only a mere 24 percent said there should (cf. ibid.). That is
clearly a hypocritical controversy because on the one hand, polls show that the majority
of US citizens would like to have stricter gun laws and are outraged and shocked
at massacres such as in Aurora or Newtown, yet, on the other hand, only a minority
would favor a general ban on handguns. Why are the Americans so undecided in terms
of gun control?
Again, this behavior can be traced far back, in this case to the Founding Fathers
of the US and the Constitution. The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the
United States defines the carrying of a gun as a constitutional right, it says:
58
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the
people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” (Kiger). The protection of one’s own
personal rights is one of the highest goods in US society, even today. As another GallUp
poll shows, 77 percent of Americans interviewed named “individual freedoms” as the
nation’s highest virtue (cf. Saad, “Americans Consider”). Any politician trying to argue
with that is probably going to have a hard time because 51 percent of Americans
expressed their concern that a potential gun ban would infringe on people’s personal
freedom as outlined in the Second Amendment (cf. Raum and Agiesta).
Interestingly, US Congress already banned handguns once; from 1994 to 2004 the
manufacture and sale of new assault weapons (mainly semi-automatic rifles) was
prohibited. Unfortunately, there is hardly any data as to what effect this ban had
on crime statistics, only a 2007 study by the University of Pennsylvania offers some
insights. Their survey revealed that between 1995 and 2003 gun crimes involving such
banned rifles declined by 17 up to 72 percent in six cities in the US (cf. Kiger).
In March this year, President Obama proposed a new plan for stricter gun
control. This plan includes “expanded background checks, tougher laws against gun
trafficking and straw
purchases, and improving safety at schools”
(Cohen).
With his sweeping proposal, Obama kept what he promised in his Inaugural Address
in January, in which he repeatedly referred to the unsatisfying state of gun control and
claimed that the journey of the US “is not complete until all our children […] know that
they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm” (Wilkie). In the very same
speech, the president also said that being true to the founding principles does not mean
that the whole nation has to agree on every aspect of (public) life, and that it is only
natural that different people interpret terms such as ‘liberty’ in different ways
(cf. Wilkie).
The most feverish proponent of the claim that a prohibition of gun-control would
be an infringement of the rights defined in the Second Amendment is the National Rifle
Association (NRA), which has been the leading gun-lobbyist in the US for over two
decades. While the NRA only has around 4.3 million members, it is one of the major
donators for election campaigns donating in the 2012 election alone $719,596
($634,146 to Republican candidates) and thus has indeed a word to say in US politics
—even if only indirectly. Most notoriously, after the Newtown shooting, the NRA
59
proposed that more guns would result in less crime, thus further feeding into the public
debate on gun control (cf. Kiger). The NRA suggested a “National School Shield
Emergency Response Program” (Castillo) which implied that all schools should
be staffed with specially trained (and armed!) security personnel to protect the children.
But just like the NRA’s “good-guy shoots bad-guy” strategy has its opponents among
Americans, so does Obama’s plan. At the moment, it looks like a tie: Support for gun
control has dropped since December (cf. Cohen) and there are still enough influential
people and groups in the US who think that more guns can enhance safety
(cf. Raum and Agiesta).
Perhaps, Connecticut may serve as a model in terms of gun control.
On 3 April 2013, the Connecticut Senate voted on what is considered the strictest guncontrol bill in the US. It requires background checks for gun sales, bans magazines
holding more than ten bullets, and raises the age limit for purchasing a gun to twenty
one (cf. Udoma; ORF). Despite Connecticut’s example, for now, the US remains
a nation of guns, and no other country is as heavily armed as the US.
“The U.S. comprises 5 percent of the world's population, but owns between 35 and
50 percent of the world's civilian firearms” (Kiger), which amounts to a total
of 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles, and 86 million shotguns (for 314 million
residents in 2012) and makes a rate of about 97 guns per 100 people (cf. ibid.).
9.2.
The US Is a Greenhouse
Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have for years now been one of the most
troubling problems today, prompting the United Nations to issue the Kyoto Protocol
in 1997. By 2011, 191 countries had signed and ratified the protocol—the US was not
one of them, and still is not (cf. United Nations). Yet, the US produces a fifth of the
worldwide CO2 emissions, and also its per capita emissions are alarming:
CO2 emissions in 2007
United States
European Union
China
5.7 x 109 tons
3.9 x 109 tons
6.1 x 109 tons
Population
306 M
496 M
1,327 M
World CO2
20%
13%
20%
18.7 tons
7.8 tons
4.6 tons
Total
Per capita
Table 5: CO2 Emissions in 2007. (qtd. in Peer)
60
In 2009, the US co-drafted the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding commitment that
encouraged countries to set goals for the reduction of their emissions (cf. Wynn).
The US estimated to have reduced its emissions in 2020 by 17 percent below the levels
of 2005 (Bianco et al.). Yet, so far fruits of this endeavor can hardly be seen.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the CO 2 emissions
in 2005 totaled in 5.9 x 109 tons; those in 2010 in 5.6 x 109 tons, which resembles not
even half of the estimated reduction by 2020 but merely 6.37 percent. Arguing that it is
the largest single energy consumer in the US, President Obama announced in 2010 that
“the Federal Government will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 28 percent
by 2020” (The White House). As encouraging as it may sound, so far, the US’ promises
to effectively reduce gas emissions have mostly remained empty ones.
9.3.
“For As Long As I Am President”
When Barack Obama won the election in 2008, he announced an ethics reform in terms
of lobbying and said that he would “change the way Washington does business”
(President Obama qtd. in Luce 224) and furthermore, that “[t]he future doesn’t have
lobbyists. They’ll never have as many lobbyists as the vested interests. Never have as many
lobbyists as the past does” (Obama qtd. in Harnden). Apparently though, time has shown
that even Obama is not immune to the lobbyists’ immense power.
Today, ‘lobbying’ mainly implies ‘corruption,’ but it is interesting to reflect that
lobbyists have always been present in US politics, representing goals of so-called
‘special interest’ groups. For example, the oil industry wants looser restrictions
on offshore drilling; the telecommunications industry wants to widen its wireless
network, and so on. To simplify the matter, it can be said that every citizen is actually
part of some ‘special interest’ group because of age, gender, race, occupation, and
religion, to name but a few (cf. Roos). So, in its most basic terms, there is nothing
corrupt about lobbying; it is even defined in the First Amendment of the Constitution
as “the right of the people […] to petition the government for a redress of grievances”
(Roos), and lobbying is one of the means by which people may petition the government.
Even more so, the government relies on lobbying because government officials usually
do not have enough knowledge, or the time to acquire the respective knowledge,
to become experts on the issues that are of immediate concern to different
61
‘special interest’ groups. Therefore, the main function of lobbyists is to advise
government officials on certain topics, draft legislation, as well as fight for consent
of bills in Congress (cf. Roos). While this is all perfectly legal and absolutely necessary,
it cannot be denied that lobbyists are also well paid for advocating certain issues and
so the “[t]otal spending on lobbyists surpassed $3.3 billion in 2011” (Roos).
The money mainly comes from big companies, which then, of course, try to put forward
their interests and overrule those of the average Americans (cf. Roos). Thus, it is the
influence of money which gives a bitter taste to lobbying and makes lobbyists often
balance on the fringe of breaking the law.
And yet, as mentioned before, politics, as well as economy, cannot do without
lobbyists. The following example illustrates how influential lobbying is:
It’s hard to imagine how it makes economic sense for a company like defense
contractor Northrop Grumman to spend $176 million just to bend the ears
of Congressmen. But a quick Google search shows a $189 million contract
awarded to Northrop Grumman in March 2012 for a new cybersecurity system
for the Department of Defense. Then NATO signed a $1.7 billion contract with
Northrop Grumman in May 2012 to build five unarmed surveillance drones.
Good lobbying, it turns out, is a great investment. (Roos)
As a result, by now, a majority of the American public thinks that lobbyists have too
much influence, as a GallUp poll shows:
Perceived Power of Major US Societal Entities
Too much (%)
About right (%)
Not enough (%)
Lobbyists
71
13
8
Major corporations
67
21
9
Banks and financial institutions
67
23
8
Federal government
58
30
9
Labor unions
43
28
24
Government in individual states
34
49
15
Courts, legal system and judges
34
49
14
Organized religion and churches
25
46
24
Municipal or local government
22
53
21
The military
14
53
28
Table 6: Perceived Power of Major US Societal Entities. (cf. Saad, “American Decry”)
62
In the past, the US undertook efforts to limit the lobbyists’ influence and reduce the
potential for illegal activities and bribing. In 1995, government passed the Lobbying
Disclosure Act (LDA) and in 2007 the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act,
both of which offer clear descriptions of what a lobbyist is, and which require lobbyists
who meet the respective criteria to register. However, it has been argued that these laws
define lobbyists in a far too strict and highly specific way, so that there is a lot of room
to avoid the criteria outlined and not be registered as a lobbyist (but still work as one)
(cf. Roos).
This legal loophole has also served President Obama. Although, lobbyists are
not allowed to directly give money to government officials in order to support them,
there is no law that keeps them from throwing fundraising events where friends and
clients of the lobbyists donate money to an elected official (cf. Roos).
As The New York Times reported, at least fifteen of Obama’s ‘bundlers’ (people who
support the campaign using their own money and solicit it from others) during his
re-election campaign were consulting big companies and industries. Because none
of these people were registered lobbyists (four of them had been in the past), the Obama
administration did not break its pledge not to take money from lobbyists (cf. Lichtblau).
However, during his 2008 electoral campaign, Obama’s top ten donors included
big companies such as, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Microsoft,
and Time Warner (cf. Luce 217).
After his re-election, President Obama declared that “[n]o one who had recently
worked as a lobbyist would be allowed to work in the Obama administration. Nor, ‘for as
long as I am president,’ would anyone who had previously worked for his administration
be allowed to lobby it” (Luce 220). And yet, right after the election, the Obama
administration started issuing waivers to former lobbyists, such as William Lynn, who
became deputy head of the Pentagon, and Ashton Carter, who became the Pentagon’s
head of acquisition. Both had been lobbyists for big defense companies in the past.
In total, there were twenty-three waivers issued to former lobbyists (cf. Luce 220).
Among them also David Plouffe, architect of Obama’s 2008 campaign, who “earned
$1.5 million in book, consultancy, and speaking fees, including $50,000 for an address
to members of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian government” before returning to the government
63
as senior White House adviser in 2011 (Luce 222). Furthermore, despite Obama’s
pledge, his administration works closely with lobbyists:
Tim Hannegan, who lists Taser International as a client has been to the White
House more than 30 times under Obama. […] Bill Samuel, lobbyist for the
AFL-CIO, has been by more than 50 times. Michael Taylor, a lobbyist for the
Monsanto corporation, has been 25 times. Former Senator. Chris Dodd, a lobbyist
for the Motion Picture Association of America, has been more than a dozen times.
(Harnden)
The controversy about lobbying in the US government was even spurred further in 2010
when it became public that White House officials had frequently met with registered
lobbyists off-site—meetings that were not officially documented and did not show
in White House reports (cf. Lichtblau).
Hardly surprising then are the findings of a 2012 poll, in which people were
asked how they would describe the honesty and ethics of various professions on a scale
from “very high” to “very low.” Only 20 percent said that for them honesty and ethics
of state governors were “very high” or “high,” 19 percent said the same for lawyers,
14 percent for senators, and a mere 10 percent for members of Congress
(cf. GallUp, “Honesty/Ethics in Profession”). The results for lobbyists are even worse:
Perceived Honesty/Ethics of Lobbyists in the US
Very high
(%)
High
(%)
Average
(%)
Low
(%)
Very low
(%)
No opinion
(%)
2011: Nov. 28-Dec. 1
1
6
27
39
23
4
2010: Nov. 19-21
1
6
29
37
24
4
2008: Nov. 7-9
1
4
27
38
26
5
2007: Nov. 30-Dec. 2
1
4
33
37
21
4
Table 7: Honesty/Ethics of Lobbyists. (cf. GallUp, “Honesty/Ethics in Profession”)
As Obama’s first (and now second) term progressed, it became obvious that his
ethics pledge was a mere cosmetic measure. Critics have argued that “Obama’s White
House gives off just as strong an aura of money as its predecessors” (Luce 222),
the only difference being that while the Bush administration mainly raised money from
doctors, the defense and oil industry, Obama’s supporters are mostly from the financial
sector, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and also lawyers (cf. Luce 222).
For now, it seems that the influence of lobbyists, and the abuse of the very same,
will not cease unless Congress effectively takes action; had it been Obama’s intention
64
to actively reduce the influence of lobbying in politics, he would have taken more
radical measures by now (cf. The New York Times; Luce 222). Perhaps this time
Obama has shot himself in the foot with claiming the moral high ground. As one critic
put it so aptly: “If you are extraordinarily high-minded in your political
pronouncements, then you are bound in the nature of things to be more than ordinarily
hypocritical” (Samuel Huntington qtd. in Luce 224-225).
9.4.
Relevance to The Day of Doom
Drawing on Wigglesworth and the hypocrites he defined in The Day of Doom, the US
can certainly be called hypocritical as well. The following passage, in which Christ
confronts
the
unfaithful
hypocrites,
summarizes
best
how
Wigglesworth’s
understanding of hypocrisy can be related to present-day US.
Thus from your selves unto your selves,
your duties all do tend:
And as self-love the wheels doth move,
so in self-love they end[.]D (917)
The NRA, for example, has mostly economical reasons to oppose a gun
prohibition. If there are fewer guns sold, the NRA will probably suffer financially,
jobs will have to be cut, and also its influence in politics will shrink. Thus it is mainly
(economic) self-interest (self-love) that is the NRA’s main motivation, although they
claim that the securing of constitutional rights, the safety of individuals and children
lie at the heart of their attitude towards gun control. Similarly, all the people who
oppose a gun ban and want to keep their guns but at the same time answered that they
felt “great anger” about what happened in Newtown, and were deeply ashamed that
something like this could happen in a country like America, can be classified
as hypocrites (cf. Raum and Agiesta).
At the same token, President Obama’s handling of lobbyists can also be referred
to as “self-love” (self-interest) because although he initially deemed lobbying
in government unethical, he nonetheless could not turn down the merits of having
lobbyists work for him, which in turn further pushed his career, contributed to his
re-election, and aided him in making politics. Thus, his self-love/self-interest
7
All numbers provided for The Day of Doom refer to stanzas.
65
is successfully defended. What is even more striking in this example is the
government’s official standpoint as represented to the public, i.e. no lobbyists
in government affairs, versus its unofficial breaking of its promise by having lobbyists
work in Washington. Plainly spoken, the government is simply lying to the public,
as is it written in The Day of Doom: “most men are liars, / In word professing holiness, /
in deed thereof deniers” (117).
The US is also professing holiness as far as greenhouse gas emission
is concerned. Although it has frequently promised in public, and to the public,
that it would reduce its emissions drastically, no effective measures can be seen.
Clearly, a reduction of emissions might come with a decrease in terms of comfort,
e.g. less air-conditioning in public buildings, using public transport instead of one’s own
car; and an increase in terms of financial expenditures, e.g. improvement of the public
transport system, making cars more environmentally friendly, and building new
low-emission means of transport.
According to Samuel Huntington, the underlying key fault line in America
is “the gap between the ideals of America’s national creed—based on the values of political
equality—and its reality, which often fails to live up to them” (qtd. in Luce 224).
Luce continues that “During such periods, Americans tended to respond in one of four
ways—with hypocrisy, moralism, cynicism, or complacency. Huntington saw these
tendencies as sui generis, given that America was uniquely founded on a creed rather than
on shared history or ethnicity” (ibid.). While this might serve as a reasonable explanation
why there are frequent instances of hypocrisy to be found in the US, it cannot possibly
be an excuse.
However, until now it seems as if the US is not (yet?) willing to make any cuts
in terms of its self-interests and let its words be followed by actions. If it will be able
to continue this path any longer in the future, only time can tell. Until then, hypocrisy
in the US is (ironically) best described in the words of Mark Twain’s American hero,
Huckleberry Finn: “Saying so, don’t make it so” (qtd. in Luce 281).
66
10. Loosing Track of the Right Path—The Misguided
In this chapter two distinct phenomena of being misguided are explored. While the first
one is primarily concerned with how the representation of celebrities in popular media
influences the self-image of teenagers, the second example deals with the polarization
of the US labor market, which has been going on for the last couple of years.
Underlying these two examples are false beliefs which lead to individuals, or even
a whole economy, being misguided. In the first example it is teenagers who are
misguided by media and celebrities, in the second it is employers (as well as the
government) who are misguided by their own belief that cheaper is better and
a maximum of legroom in terms of employees brings them advantages.
10.1. Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous
“Societies tend to idolize those who bring it pleasure” argues Tony Bouza (17).
Singers, models and movie stars all pleasure society in various ways, but sometimes
at a high price. Not always is the example set by celebrities a good one.
Victoria Beckham,
who
was
among
the
first
to
introduce
‘size
zero;’
Candice Swanepoel, presumed anorexic Victoria’s Secret model; or even actor
Billy Bob Thornton, who publicly addressed his battle against anorexia, are just a few
examples to show how negative lifestyles, prominently featured in media,
affect American society.
According to a study conducted in 2003, 40 million Americans are affected
by an eating disorder (cf. The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness) of some kind,
90 percent of which are women (cf. ibid.). Even more alarming are statistics showing
that “over 1/2 the females between the ages of 18-25 would prefer to be run over by a truck
than be fat” (cf. ibid.). This is quite a drastic number and shows how the importance
of being thin, as promoted by media, influences young girls. Of course, celebrities
represented in the media are not the only reason for eating disorders, because such
diseases can also have ties to genetics, depression, obsession (cf. Conniff Taber).
However, many young girls feel pressured by the rich and the famous. For example,
47 percent of girls in 5th - 12th grade claim that magazine pictures have made them want
to lose weight, and 69 percent agreed that pictures in magazines influence their notion
67
of a perfect body (cf. ANAD). So, even those who did not immediately feel the need
to lose weight when confronted with magazine pictures and articles claimed that it did
change their notion about their own body. Therefore, since teenagers are extremely
susceptible to what is represented in the media, it cannot be denied that young people
are misguided by popular media and a certain body image represented in it.
Thus, as long as media covers stories about such celebrities, they will continue to lead
people the wrong way.
10.2. The Missing Middle
Over the past three decades, the US has witnessed an alarming trend, economic
polarization. This term mainly defines two developments within the US. First, there
is the decline in middle-class jobs which are replaced by either high-skill or low-skill
jobs and which results in a polarization of the labor market. Second, wealthdistributions per se which make it extremely easy for the already-rich to stay wealthy,
while the poorer population has hardly any chance to climb up the economic ladder.
Both developments have led to a “Missing Middle,” meaning, in terms of Luce,
that “the economy increasingly requires people with very high skills or very few” (42)
and the government does little to improve the situation. In the following,
both phenomena are explained in further detail.
JOB POLARIZATION
How does this trend of job polarization reflect in the US job market?
Due to polarization, the US has lately mainly seen the growth of two types of jobs.
First, the upper 10 percent, such as Wall street financiers, managers, Silicon Valley
developers, doctoral engineers as well as physicists. According to Luce, they will
continue to do well because their incomes are measured more globally and not
nationally. Second, there are the low-end service jobs, which due to the polarization,
employ every other educational category. This might be high school dropouts and those
with an undergraduate or vocational degree. These people usually work as janitors, food
preparers, nurses, domestic aids, call center workers, dental assistants, nutritionists.
Luce estimates that their numbers will continue to grow while their wages will remain
the same or even plummet further (cf. Luce 42).
68
There are various reasons for this kind of development. One of them is that more young
people are getting higher education, such as a postgraduate degree, in order to take
high-skill jobs. Additionally, people who are already working in high-skill jobs continue
working longer because their skills are still needed, although these people have already
reached retirement age. Furthermore, young people who might have taken middle-skill
jobs in the past, are now “jumping right into the workforce and taking low-skill jobs”
(Barro), and those already working in middle-class jobs are retiring earlier simply
because there is no longer a demand for their skills (cf. ibid.). In short: Nobody takes
a middle class job. According to Barro “the share of workers in middle-skill jobs has
declined by about 14 percent since 1983” across all age groups.
Two other main reasons for the missing middle in the US job market are,
first, although more young people are getting higher education to take high-skill jobs,
educational attainment can no longer keep up with the high demands of the labor
market, and second, there have been changes within the job market as well.
In the past decades the US labor market has demanded higher-skilled workers,
and during the 1950s and 1960s, educational attainment kept up with this demand but
since the 1970s, numbers in education have been declining while high-skilled workers
are still needed (cf. Autor). The effects have been extremely severe for males.
As a study by David Autor shows:
Between 1970 and 2008, four-year college attainment among white male young
adults ages 25 through 34 rose only modestly, from 20 percent in 1970
to 26 percent in 2008. Remarkably, among white females of the same age range,
college attainment nearly tripled, to 34 percentage points from 12 percentage
points. (6)
This development has led to an inequality in wages and further deepened the gap
between high- and low-skill jobs. While the demand for high-skill workers continued,
and their wages increased, the demand in middle-skill jobs receded, just as the salaries
did. At the same time though, the demand for low-skill workers also increased,
which had a very beneficial effect on their wages, especially in the fields of food
services, protective services and personal care, although their wages, of course, are still
far lower than those in high-skill and middle-skill jobs (cf. Autor 1).
As a direct result from these changes, the US labor market can nowadays
be divided into three broad categories. First, there are high-skill, high-paid jobs such
69
as managerial, financial, technical and professional jobs. To emphasize how these
occupations are tied to education, Autor points out that in “2009, between 45 percent and
75 percent of workers in these occupations had at least a four-year college degree,
and fewer than 20 percent had no college education” (8). Despite the economic crisis,
employment growth in these jobs continuously thrived in the last thirty years.
Second, there are the low-skill, low-paid jobs such as all service occupations within the
three broad fields of food preparation and cleaning service, protective services,
personal care. The US Census Bureau defines service jobs as occupations that
“involve helping, caring for or assisting others” (ibid.) and most people working in these
professions have no post-secondary college education. Interestingly, and this serves
as evidence for the reasons for polarization of the US labor market which have been
outlined briefly before, all these jobs have grown continuously throughout the last three
decades, despite the low wages. Especially occupations in the three major service fields
have practically expanded by double digits in the 1990s and from 1999 to 2007.
Third, there are the middle-educated, middle-paid occupations, involving laborers,
operators, fabricators, office and administrative staff, sales, repair, production, and craft.
Compared to the economic growth in the other two categories, these occupations lag
behind. Not only are these the jobs which are mainly affected by polarization but these
are also the occupations which were hit hardest by the economic crisis with a resulting
decline in employment from 7 to 17 percent (cf. ibid.).
As far as changes within the different sectors are concerned which further thin
out the middle-class jobs, they mainly affect administrative and office jobs.
As Barro has pointed out: “The classic example of a white-collar, middle-skill job
is administrative assistant, and service-sector companies employ a lot fewer than they used
to because computers have reduced demand for secretarial help.” This means that
polarization of the labor market is not only due to, for example, falling educational
attainment, but also because humans increasingly have to compete with computers for
jobs. A more detailed study on this topic is presented in chapter 13.
WEALTH-DISTRIBUTION
There has not only been a growing polarization of the US job market, it appears that the
US government does not put too much effort into improving the situation.
70
Paul Romer, an American economist and professor of economics, has even argued that
“Washington’s
policies
actively
reinforce
the
polarization
in
the
economy”
(qtd. in Luce 72). In order to understand what Romer means, it is necessary to take
a closer look.
When the government actively spends money on economic mobility, it mainly
does so through tax expenditures. This means that people file their IRS
(Internal Revenue Service) returns and claim subsidies. So far, so good. But the
distribution of these subsidies is puzzling: Only about 4 percent (sometimes even less)
of Washington’s subsidies go to the poorest fifth of the population, while about two
thirds go directly to the wealthiest 40 percent of Americans. The simplest explanation
provided by Luce and Romer is that poor people seldom file tax returns and rich people
usually have accountants to do so. As a result, the flow of money in the US is quite
predictable (cf. Luce 172).
The most controversial, and at the same time the largest, subsidy is that of home
ownership. Here as well, rich people are favored because Washington’s mortgage
interest relief subsidy has no upper limits. It is available for all homes, including second
homes, third homes—basically all homes an individual can possibly own. Thus, again
the predictable outcome that the rich profit more than the poor and capture around
four-fifths of Washington’s home-ownership subsidy, while the “bottom sixty percent
of Americans” (Luce 173) only get a share of not even 4 percent (cf. ibid.). For a nation
that still likes to invoke the American Dream as one of its guiding principles,
this handling of subsidies seems very odd. As described in chapter 7 on the
American Dream, the dream of owning a house, independent of social class, was one
of the earliest and strongest ‘small’ dreams that built up what is known as the
American Dream, a guiding principle of the US.
The second largest subsidy is that of work-related tax benefits, for example
health care insurance and retirement savings. As mainly wealthier households with
around $100,000 of annual income can afford these, Washington’s subsidies are again
directed at the upper fifth of Americans8. Furthermore, a large amount of money is set
aside for subsidies for higher education. Considering the costs a family usually has
to face when its children receive higher education, these subsidies do nothing
8
Data on how this has changed through Obama’s health-care reform is not yet available.
71
to improve the situation. On the contrary they make it easier for rich people to graduate,
no matter if they are smart or not, while poorer students mostly have a hard time putting
themselves through college and/or university. Studies have shown that out of all
graduates from America’s 146 universities, three-quarters are from the richest quarter
of American households (cf. ibid.).
Capturing the bigger picture of both the effects of job polarization and unequal
wealth-distribution, Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist, concluded:
What we [America] are on track to becoming is a place where the top tries
to remain wealthy beyond imagination, and the remainder, in one way or another,
are working in jobs that help make the lives of the elites more comfortable
—taking care of them in old age, fixing their home Wi-Fi systems or their airconditioning units, teaching or helping with their kids, and serving them their food.
(qtd. in Luce 44)
SOLUTIONS
In his extensive study about economic polarization, David Autor also provided potential
solutions for the current situations, or at least offered starting points. First, he suggests
that more young people need to be encouraged to take higher education as this would
boost incomes. ‘Boost’ is probably not the right word because a further rise in wages
in high-skill jobs seems not desirable. However, as Autor points out, the demand for
high-skill workers is still there, and with more people getting a college degree,
the college
wage
premium
would
probably
eventually
shrink
and
lead
to a ‘stabilization’ of wages and reign in inequality. Second, Autor emphasizes that the
US government needs to improve K-12 education9, so that more people are prepared
to go on to higher education. He even suggests that the decline in educational attainment
of young males might very well be a sign that K-12 education is not preparing them
well enough for college or university (cf. chapter 14). Third, he points out that the US
government should also foster training and re-training as well as life-long learning
programs for lower-skill jobs as this would on the one hand give a higher value to these
professions and on the other hand also make them more align with middle- and
higher-skill jobs (cf. Autor 29). This seems like a promising strategy which might very
well be able to close the gap between low- and high-skill occupations and recapture
economic mobility for all Americans. Also Josh Barro concurs with David Autor and
underlines that it is absolutely necessary to make higher education more available for
9
‘K-12 education’ is the term used to refer to the sum of primary and secondary education in the US
(kindergarten up to twelfth grade).
72
young adults, and suggests at the same time, to re-train middle-skill workers so that they
do not drop out of the labor force—an important step in tackling unemployment.
Considering the studies that have been conducted in the past about the current
economic polarization and viewing the criticism of economists in terms of America’s
handling of the current situation, it seems as if the public is slowly starting to grasp the
problem and effects of a disappearing middle-class and starting to see that they have
been misguided by false beliefs in profits. Upward/economic mobility is one of the core
values of the American Dream, and the American Dream, after all, is what made the US
the country where everyone could aspire and everyone could achieve wealth and
success. Lately though, it seems the US was led astray by (false) promises of even more
wealth, success and money—unfortunately though, only for a limited number of people.
A majority of people suffers from these wrong assumptions, and these people can only
hope that soon the government will realize that it is on the wrong path.
Luce has pinpointed the importance of America’s middle class perfectly well and
argued that the US depends on and will ultimately stand or fall with its middle class:
There is nothing more fundamental to America’s health than the economic
condition of the majority of its people. The well-being of the middle class
is perhaps the truest measure of an economy’s value. […] When the middle class
is strong America is strong. (Luce 273)
10.3. Relevance to The Day of Doom
In The Day of Doom, the misguided are guilty because they did not recognize that those
whose example they blindly followed did not mean well, at least not in terms of piety.
The sinners, however, profess that they simply thought those men who led them astray
knew better because they had a better understanding of things. Parallels to present-day
US are very evident. For teenagers, clearly celebrities and their way of life seem like
the nonplus ultra and the way to success and wealth. Especially young girls imitate
the lifestyle of the rich and the famous and are led by the false belief that this is the right
way. Severe health-effects show of course that the path they pursue is neither successful
nor healthy.
Similarly, the American Dream and the values it comprises, such as homeownership, economic mobility, upward mobility, are given as ‘the right path,’ from
which the US was also led astray, not of course, by impious people in the literal sense
73
of the word, but by experts who advised government to pursue a certain strategy.
As with all governments, also the US government has to rely on advice from experts,
simply because it is not possible for one government to know every niche in the
economic market perfectly well and know what is best. Thus, it can be argued,
that similar to the sinners in stanza 114 of The Day of Doom, present-day US was also
“misled /[...] / By their example that had more ample / abilities than we,” those with the
more ample abilities being the celebrities or (economy) experts, and ‘we’ being young
people or the US government relying on other people’s advice. The parallels are even
more obvious in relevance to stanza 115:
Such as profess’ they did detest,
and hate each wicked way:
Whose seeming grace whilst we did trace,
our Souls were led astray.
When men of Parts, Learning and Arts,
Professing Piety,
Did thus and thus, it seem'd to us
we might take liberty[.]D
Again, the roles of those who profess to hate “each wicked way,” can nowadays
be attributed to either the celebrities who claim to lead healthy lives, do a lot of sports,
and condemn dieting, or experts to the US government who claim to know what is best
for the people. But their expertise is only “seeming grace,” because what celebrities
claim is frequently very different from what they actually do, and also what experts
claim is best for ‘the people’ is often only best for a certain group (the wealthy,
those with high-skill jobs). And yet, of course, the responsibility is shifted onto
“men of Parts, Learning and Arts” (celebrities, experts) alone, because they claimed
“piety” (i.e. healthy lifestyles, best intentions about helping the government) and are
thus to be trusted and followed. Therefore, it can be concluded that the same false belief
and blind following that doomed the sinners in Wigglesworth’s poem are the very same
that also occasionally misguide present-day US.
74
11. “An Age of Denial and Narcissism”—The Presumptuous
Before providing examples of presumptuousness in present-day US, it is necessary
to define the term ‘presumptuous,’ in order to have a clear understanding of what this
chapter is referring to. Princeton University’s Word Net defines ‘presumptuous’
as “assumptive” and “assuming,” as in “an assumptive person” or “on a subject like this
it would be too assuming for me to decide” (WordNet Search). The Free Dictionary
defines it as “characterized by presumption or tending to presume; bold; forward,”
according to the Oxford Online Dictionary ‘presumptuous’ means “failing to observe the
limits of what is permitted or appropriate,” and Wiktionary expands the definition
of ‘presumptuousness’ to “[g]oing beyond what is right or proper because of an excess
of self-confidence or arrogance.“ To summarize these definitions, it might be best fitting
to use ‘presumptuousness’ to describe boldness, audacity, narcissism and extreme
self-confidence—all attributes that can be traced back to America as a chosen nation
and which are very similar to exceptionalism, which is still one of the core values
of Americanism. Fessenden et al. have described American exceptionalism as a rather
two-sided sword: “[The] belief in a special providence, a destiny that is simultaneously
America’s utopia and its nightmare” (12).
Of course, it cannot be denied that Americans have good cause to be proud
of certain features that are inherent to American culture, such as religious freedom,
free speech and press, ethnic diversity, class mobility, life-improving technological
discoveries and innovations, and also progress in correcting past crimes and do better
(cf. Greenwald). However, there are other nations which can claim the same attributes
for them. In addition, and in reference to Fessenden’s description of exceptionalism
as “nightmare,” it needs to be pointed out that the US also has a rather long list
of negative attributes, for example, genocide, slavery, racism, human rights abuses,
land theft, torture, and war for civilization (cf. Greenwald). Viewing exceptionalism that
way adds a bitter taste to America’s self-proclaimed glory.
Furthermore, the question whether the US is still an ‘exceptional’ nation,
one that is ‘glorious,’ seems inevitable. In an article for Foreign Policy
Stephen M. Walt has argued that America’s claim on exceptionalism is no longer valid
because it is simply a myth. His main ideas are summarized in the next passage and the
75
myths identified also help to understand why exceptionalism as such can be seen
as presumptuousness.
11.1. The Myth of American Exceptionalism
Walt’s main argument is that American exceptionalism relies on the belief that certain
typical ‘American’ values, its political system, as well as its history, are unique and
worthy of admiration and that thus the US is automatically entitled to play a leading role
in the world (cf. Walt). His claim is that the US is so blinded by this belief that they fail
to see reality. To support his argument, he provides and debunks five myths
of American exceptionalism, which are now summarized in the following.
MYTH 1: THERE IS SOMETHING EXCEPTIONAL ABOUT AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM10
It is one of the major believes of Americanism that the role the US plays at the world
stage is superior to others and its responsibilities are considered unique
(among Americans). Tied to this belief in uniqueness is the conviction that it has
to be the US who is taking up special burdens, simply because they are the only ones
capable of handling certain difficulties (cf. Walt). However, Walt argues that the US
is not the only nation who considers itself superior to others in order to impose their
preferences on them. In the past, many other nations also claimed a higher purpose
of some sort, such as the British, who “were bearing the ‘white man’s burden’,”
the French colonialists, who justified their empire with “la mission civilisatrice,” and
also Portugal, who acted along the same lines “promoting a certain missão civilizadora”
(all Walt). Thus, Walt concludes, that the American belief of exceptionalism is in itself
not exceptional at all because the very same concept has been used by other countries
over centuries whenever it suited their purpose and that “[a]mong great powers,
thinking you're special is the norm, not the exception” (Walt).
MYTH 2: THE UNITED STATES BEHAVES BETTER THAN OTHER NATIONS DO
The belief in exceptionalism is often also grounded in the conviction that the US
behaves better than other nations, meaning it is a virtuous nation, does not violate
10
All titles for the myths are direct citations from Walt’s text.
76
human rights or any law at all, promotes liberty and loves peace (cf. Walt). That is all
fair enough, yet it is not entirely true, as Walt points out. Although, the US may not
have acted as brutal as other nations have, its historical record proves that claims about
America’s moral superiority are, more often than not, empty rhetoric. In the past,
the US has fought (and started) numerous wars and killed innocent civilians in fighting
their ‘war on terror.’ As Walt calls to attention: “U.S. drones and Special Forces are going
after suspected terrorists in at least five countries at present,” undoubtedly, some of these
actions might have been necessary to make Americans feel safe and protect the US,
but yet, while no American would hesitate to refer to these actions as morally right and
justified, no one would equally hesitate to consider them presumptuous and morally
wrong if other nations were doing them to the US (cf. Walt).
Furthermore, the US also frequently claims how important human rights and
international law (or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, cf. chapter 9) are,
“but it has refused to sign most human rights treaties, is not a party to the International
Criminal Court, and has been all too willing to cozy up to dictators […] with abysmal
human rights records” (Walt). This behavior, of course, adds up to the abuses
at Abu Ghraib (cf. chapter 13), waterboarding, preventive detention and extraordinary
renditions, as proponed by the Bush administration. As Walt points out, since the
Obama administration has largely kept these policies, they cannot be considered
a “temporary aberration.” Naturally, this shakes up America’s belief in its
exceptionalism and also adds a quite distinctive taste of hypocrisy to the very concept
of exceptionalism as such. Walt argues (as has been done in chapter 9) that hypocrisy
is very prevalent in American society, “whether the subject is possession of nuclear
weapons, conformity with international law[, gun policy, climate protection], or America's
tendency to condemn the conduct of others while ignoring its own failings.” To the very
same extent as this behavior is hypocritical, it is also presumptuous. Sure enough, in the
past American leaders acted according to what they believed to be best for their country,
but they simply paid little attention to moral principles and/or international laws along
the way. So, while it might be a comforting thought for Americans to live in a uniquely
virtuous nation, it is simply not true (cf. Walt).
77
MYTH 3: AMERICA’S SUCCESS IS DUE TO ITS SPECIAL GENIUS
Americans tend to believe that their country’s success and rise to world-power
is directly related to “the political foresight of the Founding Fathers, the virtues of the U.S.
Constitution, the priority placed on individual liberty, and the creativity and hard work
of the American people” (Walt). But in all of these, there was also a considerable amount
of luck involved. When the settlers arrived in America, they were lucky that the country
was rich in natural resources which ensured their survival. They were also lucky that
there were enough navigable rivers to settle at other places, ship goods and maintain
trading relations. They were also lucky that their settlements were founded far enough
away from other great powers and that the indigenous people in America were
technically less advanced and posed no real threat as they were also very susceptible
to European diseases (cf. Walt). Nowadays, the tale goes on. The US has been lucky
over the past years to have had enough resources, monetary and other,
perfect conditions and the right people to develop world-leading innovations.
But lately the focus of genius has been shifting east; the US is no longer as attractive
as it was, neither to companies nor to aspiring individuals. The success of other nations,
for example China, already shows that the US has no longer a universal monopoly
on genius.
MYTH 4: THE US IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST OF THE GOOD IN THE WORLD
It cannot be denied that the US has played a major role in positive international
development. In fact, when considering a few of these developments promoted by the
US, such as “the Marshall Plan, the creation and management of the Bretton Woods
system, its rhetorical support for the core principles of democracy and human rights, and its
mostly
stabilizing
military
presence
in
Europe
and
the
Far
East”
(Walt)
it is absolutely reasonable that Americans like to give themselves credit for that.
Yet, not all good things in the world “flow from Washington’s wisdom,” as Walt puts
it so pointedly. While the US undoubtedly has many things to be proud of, there are
other fields and issues in which the US has long been surpassed by other nations,
for example, gay/lesbian rights, economic equality, criminal justice. All these areas are
better covered in Europe, a fact which Americans often fail to recognize (cf. Walt).
Unfortunately, not seeing things as they really are seems to be a major flaw in the US,
78
as Walt recalls: “Remember when Pentagon planners thought U.S. troops would be greeted
in Baghdad with flowers and parades? They mostly got RPGs and IEDs instead.”11
MYTH 5: GOD IS ON OUR SIDE
When the first settlers arrived in New England, they were convinced that they had
a divine mission conferred upon them. This belief has persevered and forms now one
of the many bases of American exceptionalism. Still today, Americans think that
it is their mission, ordained by God, to lead the rest of the world (cf. Walt).
While it is a valuable trait of society to have confidence in one’s nation,
it might become tricky when the very same nation starts to think it “enjoys the mandate
of heaven […] and cannot fail or be led astray” (Walt); especially, since reality often
proves otherwise. Walt mentions “a decade of ill-advised tax cuts, two costly and
unsuccessful wars, and a financial meltdown, driven mostly by greed and corruption”
as examples of how quickly the privileged position of the US can be lost, God on its
side or not.
With these five myths, the understanding of the concept of exceptionalism as such
should be clearer, and the connection to presumptuousness more obvious.
However, it needs to be stressed that it is not the Americans’ belief in exceptionalism
that is troubling. In an age of persistent unemployment and while winding down two
wars, thinking of themselves as exceptional might be comforting to Americans.
The belief in exceptionalism only becomes a problem when “it leads to a basic
misunderstanding of America's role in the world” (Walt). What results from this belief
in exceptionalism is an attitude pinpointed by Greenwald, that “I [the US] can do X
because I’m Good and you are barred from X because you are Bad” (italics not mine).
Most prominently, of course, this refers to international laws and conducts.
Early in 2013, the Princeton Professor Cornel West called Presidents Nixon, Bush and
also Obama war criminals, claiming that “they have killed innocent people in the name
of the struggle for freedom, but they're suspending the law, very much like Wall Street
criminals” (Greenwald). Stripped of any emotional undertones, what Professor West did
was that he applied the same international laws that hold true for other nations
11
RPG … rocket-propelled grenade.
IED … improvised explosive device.
79
—and by which the US usually judges other nations—to the US itself, with the result
that his conclusion did not particularly please Washington (cf. Greenwald). In his article
“The Premises and Purposes of American Exceptionalism,” Glenn Greenwald explains
that US foreign policy analysts are only permitted to question the tactics of government
and military, for example “[W]ill bombing these places succeed in the goals?”
(Greenwald), or express concern that certain strategies might not be effective,
such as “[D]rones may be ineffective in stopping Terrorism” (ibid.). But they are never,
under any circumstances, allowed to argue that there are moral and legal restrictions
which the US are bound by just like any other nation. In short, analysts may question
tactics, “but never the supreme prerogative of the US, the unchallengeable truth
of American exceptionalism” (Greenwald).
In the following part of this chapter, there are some examples that show to what kind
of presumptuous behavior the belief in American exceptionalism leads, and others that
prove that American superiority is no longer given and a claiming of the very same
is presumptuous as well.
11.2. Fighting “a War for Civilization”
In the past, politicians in the US have frequently justified war in, for example,
Arab countries, as a mission to bring civilization to the people there and thus bringing
a part of the ‘good’ that is America to these countries. In saying so the Americans also
imply that countries in the East are less advanced than the US and thus need some sort
of guidance. It never seems to strike the US that these countries might actually be happy
with their stage of advancement and do not need or want any guidance or help imposed
on them. “When one hears George W. Bush present war on Iraq as a ‘war for civilization’
[...] it becomes clear that the early settler ethos, in which the settlers had a divine mission
conferred upon them, continues to influence [...] American morality” (Salaita, Anti-Arab
Racism 82). Although more than eleven years have passed since the attack on the World
Trade Center, the reaction of the US, which resulted in the ‘war on terror’ and the Iraq
war, is a good example of the presumptuousness in American society. Robert Jewett and
John Shelton Lawrence have found a terminus to describe this kind of behavior; they
refer to it as the “Captain America” complex, which
80
lay[s] out two ways in which American civil religion has shaped American
nationalism. On the one hand, we see throughout American history countless
examples of “zealous nationalism,” in which the nation seeks to impose
its missionary task on other countries—in their words, “to redeem the world
by destroying enemies.” On the other, we find a far different tradition, a “prophetic
realism” that seeks to work for justice alongside other nations with tact and
sensitivity, cognizant of the immense responsibility that comes with such power.
(Murphy 159, italics not mine)
Thus, whichever way of these two, Americans are convinced that it is their “burden [...]
to bring order, justice, security and peace to the world, however much it may cost”
(Forrester 4); they seek appreciation by others and at the same time try to maintain their
supremacy: the US is good, its enemies are evil, they are the scapegoats, they are
to blame (cf. Forrester; Salaita 39-40). With an attitude like that, interference
—be it politically or economically—is always justified, even if it involves death and
killing, because as Steven Salaita argues for the US “American violence, however ugly,
always intends to serve the interests of progress” (Salaita, Uncultured Wars 8).
11.3. “There Isn’t a Child in India [Asia] that Wouldn’t Come to America”
This quote by Amar Goel, founder of KomliMedia and PubMatic, refers to an age when
“America was still number one in everything. Everybody in the world still wanted to be
American” (Goel qtd. in Luce 136), but now times have changed. Studying in the US
is no longer as special as it once was. Edward Luce points out that over 70 percent
of US
PhDs
in
physics
are
now
already
awarded
to
non-US
citizens.
Similarly, America’s ingenuity now faces considerable competition, as over half of US
patents are issued to foreigners (cf. Luce 103).
It seems to be a fact that the US supremacy in economy is shrinking. In the clean
energy sector, for example, it has been estimated that between 2010 and 2015,
the US will be outspent three to one by East Asia (cf. Luce 125). Also, big businesses
‘jump ship’ and (re)locate overseas. In 2003 IBM, for example, had 6,000 employees
in India and 135,000 in the US; in 2012, India had already overtaken the US workforce
and employed 110,000 people. Another example of the shrinking importance of the US
to big businesses is General Electric (GE). Although it is America’s largest
manufacturer, it only has one of its five research and development centers in the US
(near Albany, New York). The other four are located in Bangalore, Shanghai,
81
Rio de Janeiro, and Munich. Even more troubling is that already less than a tenth
of General Electric’s (the ‘all American company’) full-time technologists are employed
in the US (cf. Luce 146).
Among all the Asian companies that pose a threat to American industries, China
is probably the most aspiring one. In Fortune’s last ranking, there were only two
American businesses among the top ten of the world’s largest companies, Walmart
at number one, and ExxonMobile at number three. In contrast, there were already three
Chinese companies among the top ten, Sinopec, State Grid, and China National
Petroleum (cf. Rachman). While economy analysts have long predicted a rise of China,
the US has remained largely untouched by warnings. Rachman argues that one of the
reasons for the American relaxedness in terms of China’s economic rise after the end
of the Cold War is the Americans’ believe that globalization was actively spreading
Western values; to some ‘globalization’ and ‘Americanization’ basically meant the
same. According to Rachman, this understanding is based on two important
misunderstandings:
The first was that economic growth would inevitably—and fairly swiftly—lead
to democratization. The second was that new democracies would inevitably
be more friendly and helpful toward the United States. Neither assumption is
working out. (6)
Not only are these nations, in this context China, not overly friendly towards the US,
but the US increasingly depends on them. About four fifths of the chemical
components in US drugs are imported mostly from China, providing the country with
a significant share in the US food supply. Furthermore, in 2009, Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton, humbly requested the Chinese to keep buying US Treasury Bills
because the US government heavily relies on foreign lending, with which it funds its
military supremacy. Without it, the money and the military, the US would be very
vulnerable. For now, this effectively means that “the war in Afghanistan is [...] being
paid for with a Chinese credit card” (Rachman).
It seems befitting to conclude this chapter with another quote by Amar Goel:
“To overcome a problem, you must first recognize it exists” (qtd. in Luce 137), which is
of course not easy for a nation who is so convinced of itself. So far it seems the US
is just beginning to understand what is going on. It appears as if ‘children in India
82
[Asia]’ are taking advantage of the US, visiting its universities, gaining work
experience, only to return home and outrun the US in the end, while the US, blinded by
its former glory, does not notice.
11.4. Relevance to The Day of Doom
In Wigglesworth’s times, presumptuousness seems to have been the main offense.
Referring to the sins outlined in the chapter 1 and 4, the following also occur
in present-day US: worldliness, striving for love of others, contentiousness,
indignation, and the desire to blame someone else.
When the US fights a war for civilization, the fault for that never lies on the side
of the US. Recalling the infants who are judged in The Day of Doom and who tried
to blame Adam for their fall from grace, a similarity to the US cannot be denied:
“‘Not we, but he, ate of the Tree, / whose fruit was interdicted” (168), meaning that their
offense is Adam’s fault because he ate the apple and thus lay the path to their doom.
Just like these infants are trying to justify their bad behavior by pointing out that it was
someone else’s fault that they were even prompted to sin, one might say that the US,
although it started the war in Arab countries, is not to blame simply because had these
countries not been so ‘uncivilized,’ there would have been no need for the US
to intervene and start a war. In this sense the US shows a considerable amount
of indignation, hoping to justify its intervention.
In addition, starting a war for civilization always also sends a clear signal to the
rest of the world: The US is (still) a strong and powerful nation, which is worthy
of admiration. Thus, it can be argued that military operations are also used to maintain
favorable relationships with other countries, especially those nations who have military
pacts with the US. After all, who would want to have military relations with a country
which appears incapable of fighting a war? Perhaps, this is far-fetched, but at the core
of it lies some truth after all: The US’ war for civilization can also be seen
as a demonstration of military power, so as to show its allies that the US is still
a powerful partner and “[‘t]o use such strife, a temp’ral life / to rescue and secure” (127).
And that, in terms of Wigglesworth, is nothing more but worldliness and striving for
the love of others. Stanza 128 best describes this behavior:
83
To please your kin, men’s love to win,
to flow in worldly wealth,
To save your skin, these things have been
more than Eternal health.D
As far as the US belief in exceptionalism as such is concerned, it is interesting how hard
the US is trying to maintain its reputation and hold on to its former glory which brought
it wealth and power. Also, the denial of any decline as such, might be interpreted
as a sign of fear. Already in Wigglesworth’s poem, it was obvious that for the new
generation of New Englanders, losing their reputation, their wealth and power,
was what they appeared to have feared most:
We holiness durst not profess,
fearing to be forlorn
Of all our friends, and for amends
to be the wicked’s scorn.
We know their anger would much endanger
our lives, and our estates:
Therefore for fear we durst appear
no better than our mates.D (125)
As the belief of a chosen nation is so deeply rooted in American thinking, it is not
a surprise that Americans are still trying to hold on to that thought in times of crisis.
While other nations would be judged and condemned by the US were they to start a war
on another nation simply to ‘bring civilization,’ the US, of course, is the exception.
As a nation chosen by God, surely other regulations must apply, laws can
be transgressed and still God will forgive the US (his chosen nation) in the end:
Others Argue, and not a few,
“Is not God graci-ous?
His Equity and Clemency
are they not marvelous [sic!]?
Thus we believ'd; are we deceiv'd?
Cannot his Mercy great,
(As hath been told to us of old,)
assuage his angers heat?D (130)
The Americans’ overly sense of exceptionalism could already be sensed
in Wigglesworth’s Day of Doom and still holds true for present-day US:
“‘How can it be that God should see / his Creatures’ endless pain” (131). Here the focus
clearly lies on ‘his Creatures,’ his chosen people with the divine mission and thus,
84
the nation with a special status, a nation that can do just about anything because it has
God’s favor and no punishment to fear.
And yet, America has to keep in mind that it is embedded in a global competitive
market, a market that is ever-changing and now maybe even more demanding than ever
before. Sure, the US has its own special qualities; it is (still) far richer and stronger than
most of the other countries in the world, and it is lucky enough to hold a very favorable
geopolitical position. These advantages might help the US in its foreign affairs, but they
cannot ensure that its choices will be good ones (cf. Walt). If the US has really entered
an “age of denial and narcissism” (qtd. in Luce 137), as Amar Goel assumes,
it will probably hinder itself in confronting upcoming challenges. Whichever way the
US decides to take in order to act on these challenges that are facing it, it is now time
to throw off the cloak of exceptionalism and dust itself from former glory.
85
12. “This Country’s Going to [...] Take Care of It”—The Reliers
on Works
A belief inherent in American culture is that of individualism. Americans believe that
if they work hard, their achievements will bring them prosperity (Mauk and
Oakland 232). This, of course, requires more trust in one’s own abilities than in those of
others. The most prominent advocate of this concept of ‘self-reliance’ was Ralph
Emerson Waldo, who influenced a whole nation with his essay Self-Reliance. Harold
Bloom points out that “[b]y ‘self-reliance’ Emerson meant the recognition of the god
within us, rather than the worship of the Christian godhead” (Bloom). For the US,
originally a settler nation, the trust in one’s own abilities and independence from others
was a powerful tool in becoming a world-leading nation. As time progresses and the US
is no longer ‘the lone warrior,’ the (almost) sole trust in one’s own abilities can have
tragic outcomes. This can most explicitly be witnessed when the US is faced with
(natural) catastrophes and its emergency response plan turns out to be rather
self-centered, thus excluding any foreign help which might facilitate the whole process.
In the following part of this chapter, two examples are provided: First, the government’s
response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and then the US’ response to the BP Oil Spill
in 2010.
12.1. Hurricane Katrina
When Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005, it turned out to be the costliest natural
catastrophe in US history and one of the five deadliest hurricanes ever recorded with
estimated 1,833 people dead (cf. Knabb et al.). The aftermath of Katrina was widely
reported, even if at times exaggerated, and yet it is important to have a quick look
at how the chaos that occurred after the hurricane could have occurred and why it took
the government so long to respond properly. The most important thing to mention is that
emergency response in terms of flooding is divided among three branches
of government:
Police, fire, rescue, and emergency medical services have long been provided
by local governments, as well as by volunteer groups and private individuals [...]
[who] are backed up in extraordinary cases by a state’s national guard, which [...]
86
are controlled by the state governor. [...] The national government’s responsibility
after a flood or other disaster is mainly that of a (taxpayer-subsidized) insurance
company. (Congleton 13)
Considering this rather complicated structure, it seems quite fitting to use Congleton’s
term and speak of a “marble cake” in terms of federalism, instead of different ‘layers’
of government. Not surprising then that it took the government several days to respond
properly and effectively to the situation and devastation caused by Katrina.
Nevertheless, when they eventually did, the results were not always comprehensible
to the public. In an interview with Good Morning America former President
George W. Bush responded to the devastation caused by Katrina, expressing his hope
that foreign countries would help and send money, but also said that “this country’s
going to rise up and take care of it” (qtd. in Muhammad). Help was offered, yes, but the
US turned down and vehemently refused foreign help. Allies to the US had offered
$854 million in cash and oil, but as of April 2007, only $40 million has been used for
the recreation of affected areas and support of victims (cf. Solomon & Hsu). Yet even
more tragic was the decision of the Bush government to reject immediate help offered
by Cuba to send 1,586 doctors with 37 tons of medical aid to the affected areas at the
Gulf coast. The official reason for the rejection was that “the United States did not have
full diplomatic relations with Cuba” (Zunes). Admittedly, considering the overall chaos
in the aftermath of Katrina and the complex organization of federal government,
the nation’s inherent concept of individualism and self-reliance can probably not
be blamed alone, but former President Bush’s initial statement makes it unmistakably
clear that it did play a role.
12.2. The BP Oil Spill
Dirty Bird: held over by demand from the Bitch Please menu.
crisp oil-poached duck confit with dirty rice and a mysterious dark goo
($26)
(taken from the menu at Louisiana Bistro, Dauphine Street, New Orleans. February
2012)
When in April 2010, the BP-operated oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank
in the Gulf of Mexico, the US was faced with yet another emergency of epic
proportions. From April 20 until September 19, when the resulting well was finally
declared sealed, around 4.9 million barrels of oil had spilled into the ocean, covering
87
an area of up to 68,000 square miles, which is a size comparable to the state
of Oklahoma. It is now considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history
of oil business (cf. Weber; “On Scene Coordinator Report” 33; John)
Although there were efforts to protect beaches, wetlands and wildlife,
with skimmer ships, burning off the oil, floating booms, and using oil dispersant, a total
of 16,000 miles of coastline along the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
and Florida were affected. Moreover, already six months after the spill over
8,000 animals were reported dead, among these many of which were already considered
an endangered species (cf. Dosomething.org). The criticism that was raised in reference
to the US’ response during and after the oil spill can mainly be summarized in two
major points.
THE US DID NOT USE AVAILABLE SUPERTANKERS
One point of criticism was that the Obama administration refrained from using what
is known as the most effective method in fighting oil spills. This method is basically
a “suck-and-salvage strategy” (Warren) and was successfully used by Saudi Arabia
in 1993 and 1994. When they were threatened with four leaking tankers and three
oil gushers in the Arabian Gulf, a team of engineers, among them American engineer
Nick Pozzy, decided to use the empty oil tankers sitting in the dock to simply
vacuum up the oil from the ocean’s surface. The strategy was successful, swift and very
effective—85 percent of the oil could be recovered that way (cf. Martin).
The same strategy could also have been used in the Gulf of Mexico.
In June 2010, around 538 supertankers were distributed across the oceans. 47 thereof
were merely used for, what is called, “floating storage” (Warren). This phenomenon
is called “contango,” (ibid.) which means that the delivery price of oil exceeds the
market price. In this case it is simply cheaper for oil companies to store their crude oil
in tankers and have them ready to ship whenever the price is right (cf. Warren).
Nick Pozzy explained how the very same strategy could have been used in the
Gulf of Mexico: “All [these supertankers] got to do is come to Texas, in the Gulf, unload
the oil, and then turn around and suck up all this other stuff and pump it onto shore into
on-shore storage” (qtd. in Martin). Although this strategy was recommended to the US
by various experts, the government nonetheless rejected it. Instead, they decided
88
on using chemical dispersants, which were produced by a company in which Obama’s
supporters Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Hathaway-Berkshire, and BP had invested
(cf. Martin). This decision is just another example of how the US rather relies on their
own abilities (their own companies), instead of seeking help from others.
THE US DID NOT USE AVAILABLE FOREIGN VESSELS
Immediately after the oil spill, around twenty-eight countries offered to send vessels and
equipment in order to help fighting the oil and protecting the coastline but most of these
offers remained merely considered. Among these countries offering help were Norway,
Belgium and the Netherlands, which all possess a fleet of advanced oil-skimming ships,
yet they were initially turned down because of the so called Jones Act (cf. Reilly).
This legislation from 1920 requires that all vessels operating on business in US waters
be constructed in the US and sail under the US flag. However, the president of the US
has the right to waive the Jones Act, should there be immediate need. Why President
Obama refrained from doing so, and thus turned down highly-specialized vessels from
Europe which would have done this tricky task easily, remains unclear (cf. Reilly).
Eventually, in June 2010, a company based in Houston, Texas, started cleaning off oil
from the water surface using equipment from the Netherlands:
These sophisticated devices were provided by a Dutch company with years
of experience in such operations, but instead of using the Dutch ships and crews
immediately, when The Netherlands offered help in April, the operation was
delayed until U.S. crews could be trained. (Flakus)
In addition to offering ships, the Netherlands also said it would be ready to help
building sand berms to protect the coastline; this offer was turned down as well, even
though such help was requested from Louisiana at that time (cf. Flakus).
A spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington repeatedly stressed that
“[w]e do not want to change the rules here. We do not want to come in and tell everybody
how to do it” (Floris Van Hovell qtd. in Flakus), hitting exactly the right tones when
implying that the US need not be afraid of other countries infringing on its selfreliance. Throughout the responses to the oil spill, US government had favored
American companies over foreign, yet more readily available, businesses.
Eventually, this might have caused further delays, as Van Hovell pointed out,
“Dutch dredging ships could [have] complete[d] the sand berms in Louisiana twice as fast
89
as the local companies contracted for the work, if [they had been] allowed to do so”
(Flakus). In June 2010, US government eventually used foreign vessels and equipment
in order to fight the oil spill, but critics claim that the time it took the US to decide
might have caused unnecessary damage to some areas along the Gulf coast (cf. Flakus).
These two incidents once again show how the American concept of self-reliance
complicates and delays, not only daily life, but especially emergency responses.
Unfortunately, predictions about the future turned out to be true. Due to the oil spill that
lasted for several months, paired with the slow response and delayed start of clean-up
activities, marine and wildlife habitats, fishing and tourism industries—as well as the
health of citizens in the affected areas—have suffered extensive damages continuing
throughout 2013 (cf. Juhasz; Tangley)
12.3. Relevance to The Day of Doom
In his doomsday poem, Wigglesworth mainly accuses the reliers on works of trying
to reach eternal life by deeds alone, but without true faith. These sinners were
so convinced of doing the right thing that they were blinded and did not see that their
behavior will not lead to eternal life, but quite the contrary:
Your blinded spirit, hoping to merit
by your own Righteousness,
Needed no Savior, but your behavior,
and blameless carriages;
You trusted to what you could do,
and in no need you stood.D (102)
The very same affront can be attributed to present-day US in connection to its handling
of the Katrina aftermath and BP oil spill. When Katrina hit, Cuba was among the first
to respond and offer help, yet it was turned down. Days immediately after the oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico, many European countries, experienced with oil skimming,
offered to send vessels and equipment to the US, and experts in oil catastrophes
suggested to unload supertankers and use them to vacuum the oil off the water surface
but none of their offers was heard. It seems that the US’ sense of self-reliance stood
in the way. Neither did it need Cuba’s doctors, nor Europe’s vessels and equipment,
nor the advice of experts. It appears as if the US does not need help from others at all
90
or is simply too proud to ask for or accept it: “Dead works they be and vanity, the which
vexation brings” (100). Excessive self-reliance is vanity and, as Wigglesworth predicts
in these two lines, often turns the tables for worse. In the case of present-day US, it can
be argued that the result from its vanity and reluctance to accept/ask for help was the
delay in responding to the aftermath of Katrina and the BP oil spill. Both delays were
unnecessary and resulted in more pain for victims and more devastation to the
environment.
It has already been argued before that it were mainly bureaucratic but also
economic reasons why the US delayed its emergency response. When Cuba offered
help, the official reason for rejection was the lack of diplomatic relations.
When Europe wanted to send vessels, the US blamed the Jones Act. However the case,
however fair and sound these regulations might be, in a time of crisis, adherence
to them seems simply wrong:
However fair, however square,
your way and work hath been,
Before men’s eyes, yet God espies
iniquity therein[.]D (98)
Furthermore, Wigglesworth also pointed out that God always sees the ulterior motif
of people’s behavior, and does not cease to remind them of it:
God looks upon th’ affecti-on
and temper of the heart;
Not only on the acti-on,
and the external part.
Whatever end vain men pretend,
God knows the verity[.]D (99)
Leaving God as the ultimate judge aside, this basically means that these men had other
motivations for their deeds than those they claimed. The same holds true for the US
in response to their handling of the help offered by Europe after the oil spill.
Although the official reason was the Jones Act, which very well be true, it has been
claimed that there were other underlying motivations as well. Throughout, the US has
favored American companies over foreign ones (Houston company cleaning off oil
instead of the Dutch). The underlying intent here was probably not to save the coastline,
or else the US would have let the Dutch start with their work immediately, but business
relationships (boosting certain Obama sponsors). Also, while the lack of diplomatic
91
relations served as an explanation why the US did not accept Cuba’s help after Katrina,
the concern of the US was probably not so much rooted in bureaucracy but in its
year-long disagreement with Cuba on various terms, for example Guantanamo Bay.
Cuba especially, has a difficult role in terms of relations to the US. What is implied
in almost everything that connects these two countries is a sense of discrepancy.
The US, fueled by its belief in exceptionalism, views itself as superior to Cuba.
Surely then, the US must be in a really desperate state were it to take help from Cuba.
In return, this would then mean that the US is showing weakness and admitting
(not only to Cuba) that it is not able to handle its problems alone. Not being able to save
face seems to already have been an issue in Wigglesworth’s poem:
Again you thought and mainly sought
a name with men t’ acquire;
Pride bare the Bell, that made you swell,
and your own selves admire[.]D (104)
More often than not, traits in American behavior trace back to its belief
in exceptionalism. A good sense of self-reliance is surely profitable for every nation.
But when a nation accepts that its people and environment are put under stress and
suffer damages simply because its government cannot overcome its pride and still
thinks of the country as an exceptional one able to handle every crisis single-handed,
it might be time for a rethinking of values, of what really counts.
92
13.
Inconsistency with American Values—The Spiritually Lazy
In Puritan times, the spiritually lazy were accused of having lost faith in God, and God
and the Bible per se defined the values of society, therefore it is reasonable to say that
the spiritually lazy did not only lose faith in God but also in their values.
Some of the values in American society today are “self-reliance, individualism,
independence, utopianiasm, liberty, egalitarianism, freedom, opportunity, democracy,
anti-statism […], populism […], a sense of destiny and respect for the law”
(Mauk and Oakland 12). Anxiety and fear of loss might result in insecurity about these
values (cf. Peters 34). ‘Loss,’ of course, can be manifold, such as loss of life,
loss of success or profit, loss of a job, loss of reputation, loss of face. In this chapter two
examples of inconsistency with American values are presented. The first deals with
torture at Abu Ghraib prison and the second expands on the example offered in chapter
10 about the misguided and explains how companies and computers further deepen the
gap in the US labor market.
13.1. “America Doesn’t Torture”
Ted Peters argues that people react to the threat of loss with rage and that all people are
capable of violence and rage because all can experience anxiety; on the contrary,
people who are less anxious are less tempted by violence (cf. 65, 74). The incidents
of torture in Abu Ghraib prison that came to the public in 2004 show what effect it can
have if people are threatened with loss (here for example, loss of face/reputation)
and anxiety—they exhibit violent behavior and forget about their values:
“‘It was un-American,’ Rumsfeld said at the time, ‘And it was inconsistent with the values
of our nation’” (qtd. in Pritchard). In 2005, a year after the Abu Ghraib incidents became
public, a new debate started in the US. In the twenty-first century, the nation that does
hardly ever hesitate to pride itself with how advanced and civilized it is,
was earnestly thinking of ways to legalize torture. Of course, this came at a time when
the outlook for winning the war on terror was already becoming grimmer and chaos was
on the rise in Iraq. While the US government probably thought legalizing torture,
even if only to a certain extent, would provide them with a powerful instrument that
would finally help them win the war on terror, Vladimir Bukovsky wisely refuted this
claim in his article “The Long Shadow of Torture” for The Washington Post.
93
He wrote: “[I]f Vice President Cheney is right and that some ‘cruel, inhumane
or degrading’ (CID) treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war
on terrorism, then the war is lost already.” Furthermore, he points out that America’s
behavior in terms of torture is more than contradictory: On the one hand, the US started
the war on terror to conquer injustice, free the people oppressed by Middle-Eastern
regimes and bring peace and civilization, as well as spread Western values, but on the
other hand, the question arises, what exactly is the US doing when it tortures?
Spreading Western values? Freeing a nation? That seems very unlikely. Bukovsky calls
to attention that
[i]f America's leaders want to hunt terrorists while transforming dictatorships into
democracies, they must recognize that torture, which includes CID, has historically
been an instrument of oppression—not an instrument of investigation or of
intelligence gathering.
Thus, if the US actively engages in torture, it is no better in moral values than the
nations it seeks to free. Besides being a clear case for inconsistency with American
values, torture and especially America’s public attitude towards it, is also a prime
example of hypocrisy. After his first election, President Obama told CBS news reporter
Steve Croft that “America doesn’t torture, and I’m going to make sure that we don’t
torture,” (CBS). That is quite a bold statement when it is nowadays common knowledge
that the CIA has secret prisons all around the world, even in Europe, and mainly follows
its own set of rules and regulations in terms of investigating and interviewing suspects
(cf. Clark).
However, coming back to the values the US represents when it employs torture,
Bukovsky hit the nail on the head when he argued that the US should try to see the
bigger picture. When it endorses torture, of whatever kind, it sends a certain message
out to the world. He argued that countries where torture is still common and where
people are still fighting against it, such as Russia for example, will be among the first
to react and take it as a sanction that there is nothing wrong with torture, when even the
Americans do it. Bukovsky said that he could very well imagine Vladimir Putin say:
“You see, even your vaunted American democracy cannot defend itself without resorting
to torture.” Maybe it would not be too bad if someone really hold up the mirror to the
US and let it see that the values it claims to fight for are way ahead of those it often
represents.
94
13.2. The Rise of the Disposable Worker
Connected to the ‘Missing Middle’ as discussed in the chapter 10, the US has witnessed
a general decline in responsibility in terms of jobs. As Carl Camden, CEO of
Kelly Sevices, a large staffing agency, put it: “There is no such thing anymore as loyalty
in either direction—the company owes you nothing and you owe the company nothing”
(qtd. in Luce 34). This attitude resulted in two main ways. First, companies replace
employees with computers, and second, employers streamline or outsource their
company’s workforce. The decision which of these options to choose is mainly based
on what is cheaper for the company and not on what is best for its employees.
COMPUTERS
Especially during the recent economic crises, rising costs posed a dramatic problem for
employers. Substituting computers for workers has many advantages, such as that
computers are cheaper than ever before and, most importantly, they also save their
employers
work-related
costs,
such
as
health
insurance
for
example.
These developments make it easier for companies to control rising costs because the
costs tied to a computer are quite predictable compared to human workers.
A study conducted by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that over the past
six decades, the real costs for performing a standardized set of computational tasks
declined by a third to about a half. This development means that tasks that were
unthinkable years ago, such as searching online libraries for one specific quotation,
are now extremely cheap and can be done extremely fast—computers save time and
money, who can blame the employers? (cf. Autor 11)
Edward Luce provided a good example about just how fast and time-saving
computers work. He visited two competing steel companies; the first one was a Nucor
plant in the US, with roughly 400 employees and Luce described that it was sometimes
hard for him to spot any human being on that huge plant. Compared to the US mill,
its Indian competitor, Tata Steel, employs around 40,000 people and the plant gives the
impression of a busy market. Yet, statistics speak for themselves: Despite its abundance
of employees, Tata Steel only produces three times as much steel as Nucor,
which means that Nucor “produces more than thirty times as much steel for each of its
95
employees as its Indian competitor,” mainly thanks to computer-assisted technology
(Luce 66).
Besides jobs in large plants, the fields of occupation that are mainly affected
by substitution with computers are middle-class jobs, such as clerical work,
bookkeeping, and repetitive production tasks. These jobs also follow precise,
clear-cut procedures that can be codified and are thus increasingly performed
by machines or alternatively electronically sent to worksites in foreign countries
(cf. “Streamlining/Offshoring”). The outcomes are already showing; in 2012,
only 20 percent of females had a job that classified as office and administrative support,
in 1983 the number was still 31 percent (cf. Barro). Of course, in order for automated
technology to perform certain tasks, people who program the computer are needed,
which in return creates new well-paid jobs. However, the number of new jobs created
by computers does by far not outweigh the jobs that are lost because of it.
In contrast to so-called ‘routine tasks’ are the ‘non-routine’ tasks which cannot
be performed by a computer, simply because they do not follow a predictable
procedure. Such occupations typically include cleaning and janitorial work, in-person
health assistance, grounds cleaning and maintenance, food preparation and serving,
as well as security and protective services. As described in chapter 10, these low-skill
jobs have been thriving in the last three decades and represent one side of the polarized
labor market. Thus, although computers do not actively take jobs away from people
in this case, they still influence the labor market negatively in that they create
an enormous demand for low-skill jobs, i.e. those jobs that cannot be codified,
and further deepen the gap that already separates the US labor market (cf. Autor 12).
STREAMLINING/OFFSHORING
Another strategy employed by companies in order to save costs is streamlining their
businesses through outsourcing or offshoring their work force. Luce pointed out that
many large companies in the US, such as IBM and Microsoft, already have more
full-time but independent contractors working for them than permanent employees
(cf. 34).
The
major
reason
for
this
development
is,
again,
technology.
Through computers it has become extremely easy to codify information and
electronically send it to foreign countries, where the same work can be done by
96
less-skilled persons and for much lower wages—this is the core concept of offshoring.
Tasks that are typically offshored include repetitive assembly tasks in production,
data entry, tax preparation, bill processing (cf. Autor 13). While the offshoring of these
tasks already takes enough jobs away from Americans, the outlook for the future
is hardly any more promising. In various of his articles economist Alan Blinder has
argued that the number of jobs that can be outsourced will further increase.
His argument is as follows: “[a]ny job that does not need to be done in person
(face to face) can eventually be outsourced, regardless of whether the tasks that make up the
job are largely routine, manual, or abstract” (Autor 13). Although some may think that
this vision is still up in the air, more and more US firms already provide customer
support via offshored call-centers, typical examples include credit card companies and
software vendors and the number of companies making use of offshoring will probably
further increase (cf. Autor 13).
Surely, computer technology has brought many advantages to modern civilization.
Yet, the way it takes jobs away from people in the US creates a conflict with American
values. One of the core concepts of the American Dream is upward mobility which
entails, as Cullen has argued, “a secure and esteemed profession” (61), but nowadays
it cannot be denied that this noble age of secure employment is over. As Carl Camden
told Edward Luce, the problem of today is that “[i]f you are smart, entrepreneurial,
and highly educated, the new world offers you more options than ever before”
(qtd. in Luce 33) but if you are not, it seems that former American values are suspended
and your job might be outsourced or taken by a computer, even in a nation in which
secure employment, among others, forms the basis for ethics, norms and values
of society (cf. Etges and Fluck 215).
13.3. Relevance to The Day of Doom
As outlined in the beginning of this chapter, the spiritually lazy in The Day of Doom
were guilty because they had lost their faith in God and thus also in the values that
defined their society. Of course, the values of the US have shifted over time but certain
passages from Wigglesworth’s poem still apply. For example when Christ judges the
sinners and explains:
97
They have their wish whose Souls perish
with Torments in Hell-fire,
Who rather chose their souls to lose,
than leave a loose desire[.]D (149)
This stanza also holds true for present-day US and its ‘war for civilization’ and torture
in Abu Ghraib. America’s behavior in the Middle East can definitely be considered
sinful and inconsistent with values, and in contrast to the striving for high moral
standards, which the US usually claims, it focuses on pursuing a “loose desire,”
namely inflicting revenge on Muslims and Arab countries for the attacks on the
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Failure to meet up with its own high moral standards can also be observed.
While the US originally had all the best prerequisites to become and remain an ‘elect’
nation, chosen by God—so they believed—for a higher mission, they have long since
then faltered and condemned themselves through, speaking in Puritan terms, ‘impious’
behavior. Thus, Christ’s judgment of the Puritan sinners who considered themselves
elect is also befitting for the US today: “‘You, sinful Crew! no other knew / but you might
be elect; / Why did you then yourselves condemn?” (151).
Finally, in terms of how computers and outsourcing influences the US
job market negatively, stanza 155 seems adequate:
You have yourselves, you and none else,
to blame that you must die;
You chose the way to your decay,
and perish’d willfully.D
After all, the decision to produce in foreign countries with lower wages and/or
outsource jobs in order to save money has not been imposed on the US by other
countries. It was the decision of the US alone to ignore the growing polarization of the
labor market for such a long time, and it is also the country itself which is to blame for
endorsing the credo of cheaper and faster is always better. Granted, modern times
require the use of new technologies, everything else would not be beneficial to the
economy either. Demanded by society? Maybe yes. To a certain extent, modern times
and new developments led to “decay” as well. But self-imposed these changes are
nonetheless.
98
14. “We Are Becoming a Stupid Country”—The Uninformed
Being uninformed about a certain aspect can have various outcomes. It can result
in a nation’s students performing poorly on tests and entering, if at all, colleges fully
unprepared; or it can even lead to discrimination and death of others, if spurred
by intolerance and racism. In the following part, two of such outcomes are presented.
The first deals with the most drastic results from uninformedness namely hate crimes,
and the second investigates what is wrong with the US school system and why US
citizens are increasingly becoming less educated.
14.1. Hate Crimes
“Nowhere is the national disease more pronounced than in our determined reluctance
to face the issue of racial justice,” argues Studs Terkel (qtd. in Bouza 276), though, as is
shown in this part of the thesis, this quote needs to be adapted. A nation’s decline,
or disease, is nowhere more pronounced than in its reluctance to provide justice
regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity—in short: justice for all.
The table below provides numbers and percentages taken from the FBI’s crime rate
statistics and shows the most drastic result of hostility towards other people, hate crimes.
Crime
Number of incidents
Chart
20%
42%
19%
Hate crimes in 2010
6,628
19%
Race
Race
Religion
Sexual Orientation
2,797
30%
70%
African Americans
1,958
African Americans
Figure 4a: Hate Crimes in the US in 2010. (cf. FBI “Victims”)
Other
Other
99
Crime
Number of incidents
Religion
Chart
1,253
Anti-Jewish
839
20%
13%
Anti-Islamic
159
Anti-Jewish
Sexual Orientation
67%
Anti-Islam
Other
1,233
15%
Anti-male
homosexuals
Anti-homosexuals
706
339
28%
57%
Anti-male homosexuals
Other
Anti-homosexuals
Figure 4b: Hate Crimes in the US in 2010. (cf. FBI “Victims”)
RACISM
Racism is very prominent in the US, as Bouza points out, the US is “a nation imprinted
with the image of black murderers” (211). Interestingly though, the numbers published
by the FBI in 2010 prove the contrary: Of all people arrested in 2010, only 28 percent
were African Americans—69.4 percent were Whites (cf. FBI “Table 43a”).
Still, African Americans and other racial groups are faced with a lot of hatred.
Of course not always does this hatred end in murder but is it less alarming?
Certainly not. Perhaps, one of the most prominent examples of our time is the story
of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a New Orleans citizen of Syrian decent. His story is now
well-known to the public because of the non-fiction book Zeitoun by author
Dave Eggers, which retells the story of the family’s fate in the aftermath of hurricane
Katrina. When the storm hit the city in 2005, Zeitoun refused to leave New Orleans with
his family, and stayed behind to take care of the house and their business.
During the time after the storm, he had helped several people by rescuing them with his
canoe, bringing them food or calling for help. Shortly after that he was arrested and held
captive for almost a month because he was suspected of being a terrorist
—an assumption solely based on his looks, and the name on his ID; a dangerous
mixture in the aftermath of a storm that thrust the US in (another) national crisis and
brought about all-too-fresh memories of 9/11. When Zeitoun asked the arresting police
100
offers why he was held captive, the only response he got was: “You guys are al-Qaida
[...] Taliban” (qtd. in Pilkington), a clear sign of lack of information. Zeitoun later said
that he felt that “[t]hese guys wanted revenge on us, no matter what” (qtd. in ibid.).
RELIGION
On 5 August 2012, a white gunman opened fire in the parking lot in front of
a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, entered the temple and continued shooting,
killing six people and wounding four (cf. CNN, “Police identify”). The assassinator
mainly targeted men wearing their traditional turban, as one witness told CNN:
“Maybe it’s because the ladies were fortunate enough to dodge it out, but so far most of the
people I’ve heard have been shot and killed were all turbaned males.” This shows how
limited/wrong knowledge can have a tragic effect. Here it reduced a whole religious
group to their head cloth, the turban. As Steven Salaita argues “cultural objects
—headdress, robes, music, prayer beads—are widely appropriated by mass media and made
to signify violence, barbarism, and terror” (Anti-Arab Racism 109). In the mind of the
attacker, turban equaled evil, a clear result of lack of information. As Rajwant Singh,
from the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, points out: “[T]he onus [is]
on politicians, the media, academics and non-profit leaders to educate Americans about
diverse groups and act to lessen this kind of rage” (cf. CNN, “Gunman”).
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Having a sexual orientation other than heterosexual unfortunately still means facing
a lot of trouble. The Westboro Baptist Church, established in 1955 by Pastor
Fred Phelps,
engages
frequently
in
demonstrations
against
homosexuals.
‘Famous’slogans include “God Hates Fags,” “Aids Cures Fags,” or “Fags Burn in Hell,”
to name but a few. Furthermore, they deem homosexuality as “soul-damning, nationdestroying filth” (all qtd. in Kurst-Swanger 174). The Westboro Baptist Church
is of course only one piece in the puzzle that is homophobia. Consider same-sex
marriage for example. Only in six states are same-sex couples allowed to marry;
six states out of 50—that is a long way to go until equality for all is finally achieved
(cf. New York Times, “Same-Sex Marriage”).
101
These three examples give a good impression of how lack of education, or wrong
education, of the public can lead to a lot of grief when in fact proper information could
help create more justice for everyone. The perfect place for the US to seize this
opportunity and educate the public in these respects would be the school system.
But, as is explained in the following part of this chapter, the education system cannot
yet join in the fight for equality because it has its own battle to fight at first.
14.2. Science Fair vs. Super Bowl
A 2010 poll yielded a shocking result: A small majority of American citizens admitted
that they had not realized that humans and dinosaurs never coexisted. A similar survey
found out that about half of US citizens placed the earth at the center of the universe
with the sun revolving around it. And while the US is lagging behind internationally
in math, science and also language proficiency, American sport cracks are celebrated
like pop stars and receive much more attention than the failing school system
(cf. Luce 73). Dean Kamen, founder of Segway, expressed his concern and said
“[w]e are becoming a stupid country, where the kind of thing that most people seem to care
about is what I call the Stupid Bowl” (qtd. in Luce 73).
Unfortunately, Kamen’s concern is more than justified. Studies have shown that
whenever the President of the United States now speaks to the public, his speech
matches the English proficiency of a student in seventh grade, while in the 1960s it was
still directed at twelfth-grade level (cf. Luce 183). In general, studies have suggested
that Americans know less than they knew fifty years ago, for example about 49 percent
are convinced that the US president has the power to suspend the constitution
(which is not true, his actual power is far less), and when asked which country in the
world is the only one to have used nuclear weapons, a majority of the people asked
did not know that the correct answer to that question was the United States (cf. ibid.).
Generally speaking, the overall educational achievement in the US has been
declining. Even in the PISA study conducted in 2009, the US merely ranked average
(500 points being the average):
102
Skill/Country
Points
Math
China
Germany
United States (31st place)
600
513
487
Reading
China
Korea
United States (17th place)
556
539
500
Science
China
Finland
United States (23rd place)
575
554
502
Table 8: Pisa Study. (adapted from Lee)
The study concurs with an earlier survey from 2004, which revealed that the reading
of books between eighteen- and twenty-three-year olds dropped by more than a third
since 1980 and that most of these young people are now only reading one book per year.
Furthermore, the PISA study underscores findings by the National Assessment
of Education Progress (NAEP), which also provided similar results in 2009:
“[O]ne out of three students scored ‘below basic’ on the Reading Test,” “more than
67 percent of all US fourth graders scored ‘below proficient,’ meaning they are not reading
at grade level,” “about 26 percent of eighth graders and 27 percent of twelfth graders scored
below the ‘basic’ level, and only 32 percent of eighth graders and 38 percent of twelfth
graders are at or above grade level” (Student First). As far as math and science is
concerned, the results are similarly grim. An assessment by the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development placed US teenagers 25th out of 30 nations in
math and 21st in science, making it appear unlikely that these young people will one day
be able to compete internationally for jobs in science or engineering (cf. ibid.).
Lately, there has been increasing interest in why the US education system fails
and some reasons can be pinned down. First, the current school system perpetuates the
racial and social-economic status of American society. Low-income children usually
attend urban schools and frequently suffer from the low expectations society has
of them, while parents of middle-class and upper middle-class children take great care
to segregate their children from low-income schools and do the best they can to give
their children the feeling that they are something special. The way this system works,
it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Studies have suggested that while middle- and upper
103
middle-class children normally score similarly no matter where they go to school,
low-income students are heavily influenced by the school they attend and the people
they attend it with. A mixing with middle- and upper middle-class children would have
an extremely beneficial effect on low-income children and prevent the aforementioned
prophecy from coming true. Unfortunately, most middle-class parents do whatever they
can to keep their children out of the ‘bad’ public schools, often even if this involves
moving somewhere else or home-schooling their children, as well as send them
to expensive private schools. Studies have shown that countries with successful
education systems do not lose as many children as the US to private and religious
schools or homeschooling, so it seems likely that this factor plays an important role
(cf. Smith).
Another reason is that teaching is increasingly becoming an undesirable
occupation; when considering the way salaries for teachers are measured in the US,
this is hardly surprising:
According to the Austin American-Statesman the average salary for a high school
sports coach in Texas is $73,000, versus $42,000 for a teacher on any other field
at the same grade. In many schools the athletics director is paid more than the
principal. In some schools the coach goes on to be the principal. […] When a team
advances in the playoffs, the district gets more money.
(Luce 75-76)
In addition to the low payment, parents, convinced that their children are special,
are becoming a nuisance. While more than 25 percent of students drop out of high
school, parents still remonstrate with teachers when their children get C-grades.
Dean Kamen is convinced that this attitude is tied to excessive self-esteem that can
be witnessed among even the youngest students today. Most children nowadays are
being told by their parents that they are exceptional and at school there are various
prizes and competitions so that every child can win some kind of trophy.
Additionally, teachers are urged to let students pass, even if they would actually have
to fail them. Naturally, this does nothing for the children except push their momentary
self-esteem, but it does in no way prepare them for real life after school
(cf. Luce 76, 77, 98).
So while teachers in the US not only face poor payment but also lack of respect
from their students’ parents, countries that usually score high in international tests have
104
a completely different attitude towards their teachers. New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman has investigated in this direction and found out that
[c]ountries like China and South Korea are really recruiting their teachers from
the highest levels of graduating classes [...] [t]eachers are paid like engineers and
scientists, and that’s just not happening here in the U.S. [...] In South Korea,
for example, teachers are treated much like ‘rock stars’ when it comes to pay
as well as status in society. (Lee)
One of President Obama’s big goals was to lead the US education system back
on the right track and “outeducate” and “outinnovate” the rest of the world by 2020
(Luce 80). But unfortunately, there is only a limited amount the president can actively
do to improve the school system. With fifty states and more than fifteen-thousand
elected school districts, the US government’s influence on the national school system
is around 10 percent, which is the percentage that reflects Washington’s annual
contribution of national spending to the US school system (cf. ibid.). Of course,
President Obama is right when he nobly announces that “[w]e need to teach our kids that
it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner
of the science fair,” (Luce 83) but the underlying problem in the US school system is that
of attitude. As long as parents continue to send their children only to ‘certain’ schools,
and as long as sports coaches are receiving more public respect and higher paychecks
than teachers, the school system will hardly improve, “no matter how many good teachers
and good materials are put into [...] schools” (Smith).
Until then, it remains true what Dean Kamen told Edward Luce; the US are
a little like the latter-day Romans, who worshipped gladiators and forgot about their
philosophers and architects (cf. Luce 79). So far, loud voices expressing concern about
this attitude are rare. One of them is a blogger, Thomas, who rightly raises the following
questions and puts them into perspective of the problems the US is facing in the
twenty-first century:
Tell me how throwing a football will help solve our country’s financial problems
and save us from going over the fiscal cliff. Tell me how kicking a soccer ball will
ameliorate our country’s failing mental health system. Tell me how slamming
a tennis serve will solve our country’s foreign face offs in the Middle East. Tell me
how anything related to pure physical achievement will allow our society to make
great strides, or how it will propel our country to prosperity.
Fair point, well made. The answer to these questions is simple: Sports cannot and will
not save the US.
105
14.3. Relevance to The Day of Doom
The uninformed in Wigglesworth consist of heathens whose sin was that they had never
heard of Christ before and therefore did not know how to behave and that they were
required to repent in order to fit into society and ensure its well-being. Of course, for the
present-day US this notion needs to be expanded further but the ultimate goal remains
the same: well-being of the community/society. If people would be better informed
about racism, sexual and religious orientations, much harm could have been saved
because people would probably not have reacted the way they did:
We did not know a Christ till now,
nor how fall’n men be saved [sic!],
Else would we not, right well we wot [sic!],
have so our selves behaved[.]D (160)
“Christ” in this case refers to knowledge about certain social groups and the social
competence related to it. Furthermore, stanza 164 strikes a similar tone and can
be applied to the US and its “uninformedness,” be it in terms of various social groups
or in respect to education in school: “if you in time had known / Your Misery and remedy,
/ your actions had it shown” (164). This implies that if the US had known the outcomes
of their uninformedness, their intolerance towards, for example, Muslims, or their
falling behind in international tests, it would most likely have taken action in order
to defend its standing in the world and done everything to prevent such catastrophic
outcomes from happening.
And yet, as with most other sins as well, it is the US alone that is to blame:
Clearness of sight, and judgment right;
who did the same deprave?
If to your cost you have it lost,
and quite defac’d the same,
Your own desert hath caus’d the smart;
you ought not me to blame.D (162)
A country as advanced as the US has all necessary assets to educate its people socially
and scientifically, but somehow motivation to do so got lost on the way or lost its
importance, similar as the sinners in The Day of Doom lost their God-given “clearness
of sight, and judgment right.”
106
Conclusion
When Michael Wigglesworth wrote The Day of Doom, it was a reaction towards
spiritual decline in Puritan society. As the early settlements in New England had largely
established themselves as thriving communities, trade relations blossomed and
a merchant class was on the rise. But as wealth increased, spirit declined. People lost
piety and worldly treasures became more interesting and often more valuable to them
than adhering to clerical rules and appreciating godly things only. Because the Puritan
community was mainly held together by laws defined by the church and largely
depended on pious people to keep society from wreaking (spiritual) havoc, this posed
a very real threat to the stability of society as a whole. Therefore Wigglesworth wrote
The Day of Doom to call people back to piety. But it was not only a lament over the
spiritual decline of society; it also served as a political tool. With its easy-to-remember
structure, it could be recited by most people and became America’s first bestseller.
In addition to its structure, the poem also applied the familiar image of Judgment Day,
which most people, spiritually in decline or not, could still remember from the Bible.
Given its topic and its frequent direct references to the Bible, The Day of Doom
exhibited immense authority and was thus a welcomed political tool to steer people
back onto the right path. The use of Wigglesworth’s poem as a political tool is further
underlined by its identification of problems, and by its systematic analysis of the
different sins and providing a better understanding of the state of society back then.
Additionally, its lament over the current state in contrast to the past, as well as its call
for repentance and renewal classify it as an American jeremiad. Having its origins
in Puritan New England, the jeremiad is one of the earliest truly political genres, and
has since then been used as a tool for self-criticism and social discipline in times
of decline.
In the past couple of years, the US has often been said to be in decline again.
While it is frequently straying from its values in how it behaves internationally, it, at the
same time, desperately tries to hold on to them, attempting to straddle the widening gap
between what it believes to be and what it is becoming. In doing so, the US is losing its
global superiority and ever more losing its role as the country of The American Dream,
the Promised Land, where everything is possible and everyone can achieve his goals.
107
As has been argued in this thesis, the US is a country that, even in the twenty-first
century, likes to invoke its earliest origins. Its society, each individual’s values and
behavior are still largely defined by the same ideas that originated in its earliest years.
Therefore, the concept of decline and sin that Wigglesworth used to describe his society
can be taken up and applied to US society in twenty-first century as well. In providing
examples for each of Wigglesworth’s six categories of sinners, whose wrongdoings
constitute the decline in society, it can be shown that past and present sins have a clear
connection (cf. table 9 below). While they are separated by around 350 years, their basic
underlying motivations are inseparably tied to the same roots, such as the Puritan belief,
the US as a settler nation, and values incorporated in the American Dream.
Class
Sins in Puritan New England
Sins in Present-Day US
Hypocrites
pretended faith in God
professing to take action, e.g. in terms
of CO2 reduction, gun control,
lobbying, but not have words followed
by actions.
The Reliers on Works
striving for appraisal by others,
self-love, pride in worldly
achievements, trust in themselves
rather than God
excessive self-reliance and
individualism, trust in its own abilities,
mistrust in those of others, turning
down help from other countries at the
expense of its own citizens (Katrina,
BP oil spill)
The Presumptuous
lack of repentance, lack of desire for
repentance (laziness, sloth);
worldliness, striving for love
of others, luxury and the enjoyment
of perishing things; contentiousness,
not obeying the truth, unrighteousness,
indignation, wrath, evilness; original
sin, lack of repentance, cowardice/
desire to blame someone else
belief in exceptionalism, conviction
that the US has a mission to spread
civilization and Western values, the US
as “Captain America,” the US not
adhering to international laws and
conventions because of its self-imposed
specialness, being blinded by former
glory
The Misguided
trusting men instead of God, lacking
true piety
following the wrong role models,
taking advice from the wrong people
at the expense of other citizens,
The Spiritually Lazy
laziness, lack of piety and love
for God; laziness in striving for faith
and following God’s laws, rebellion
against God, blaming God
decline in and violation of American
values, e.g. secured profession,
homeownership, personal freedoms
reliance on natural gifts, betrayal
of nature, lack of pursuing faith
Lack of information about social
groups leading to discrimination and
hate crimes, poor education system,
wrong attitude towards school and
education, placing its focus wrongly
The Uninformed
Table 9: Comparison of Sins: Past and Present.
108
Furthermore by defining sins in present-day US, Wigglesworth’s idea of a jeremiad can
be used to reconstruct a jeremiad about twenty-first century US. Applying this concept
to present-day US adds another interesting aspect to the consideration of decline.
As Murphy has argued:
[E]very American jeremiad […] is a salvo in the continuing battle over the nation’s
identity, the maintenance and continual reinterpretation of the pattern of values,
symbols, memories, myths, and traditions that form the distinctive heritage of the
nation [trying to answer the question]: “Who are we?” (157)
Considering the overall course of actions the US has been taking in the twenty-first
century, a growing disparity between its claimed values and actions cannot be denied.
While most critics have interpreted this a clear sign of decline, it might very well be just
a nation looking for a new identity. In an economic climate that is as challenging as ever
before, with other powerful nations rising up and competing with the US for global
power, the US is having a hard time maintaining its former superiority. Additionally,
the country is also facing national problems, such as job loss, a poor education system,
racism, discrimination and crime, as well as a growing mistrust of its own people
towards the government.
When looking at how the US deals with the internal and external problems
it is faced with, one question remains: “As the richest country in the world, almost
150 years after it became the largest, can America really do no better?” (Luce 280).
Given its tradition which has always led the country and its people to strive and thrive,
it is likely that the US will not rest until it has overcome its problems and successfully
repositioned itself in the twenty-first century. How long that will take, only time can
tell. But it is for sure going to be interesting to watch.
109
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexis, Gerhard T. “Wigglesworth’s ‘Easiest Room’.” The New England Quarterly 42.4
(1969): 573-583. JSTOR. Web. 20 July 2012.
ANAD-National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Discorders. “Eating
Disorder Statistics.” ANAD. National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and
Associated Discorders Inc., 2012. Web. 10 August 2012.
<http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/>.
Autor, David. The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market:
Implications for Employment and Earnings. Washington: The Brookings Institution,
2010. Web. 21 April 2013.
<http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2010/4/jobs%20autor/04_jobs_autor.pdf>.
Bader, Hans. “Obama Blocked Clean Up of BP Oil Spill by Friendly Countries;
International Assistance Blocked by Regulations Obama Had The Authority To
Waive.” Openmarket.org. Competitive Enterprise Institute, 14 June 2010.
Web.
20 April 2013.
<http://www.openmarket.org/2010/06/14/obama-blocked-clean-up-of-bp-oil-spill-by-friendlycountries-international-assistance-blocked-by-regulations-obama-had-the-authority-to-waive/>.
Barro, Josh. “Can Manufacturing Save Us From Job Polarization?” Bloomberg.
Bloomberg L.P., 16 April 2013. Web. 23 April 2013.
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-16/can-manufacturing-save-us-from-job-polarization.html>.
Barron, James. “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in
Connecticut.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 14 December
2012. Web. 2 April 2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementaryschool.html>.
Bercovitch, Sacvan. The American Jeremiad. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1978. Print.
Bianco, Nicholas M. et al. “WRI Report. Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the
United States Using Existing Federal Authorities and State Action.” WRI.org.
World Resources Institute, July 2012. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://pdf.wri.org/ reducing_ghgs_using_existing_federal_authorities_and_state_action.pdf>.
Bible.cc. Online Parallel Bible. The Online Parallel Bible Project. 2004-2011. Web.
3June 2012.
<http://bible.cc/>.
Bieger, Laura. “‘It’s All in the Game’ – David Simon’s The Wire als naturalistische
Krisenerzählung.“ American Dream. Eine Weltmacht in der Krise. Ed. Etges,
Andreas and Winfried Fluck. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag GmbH, 2011.
215-240. Print.
110
Bloom, Harold. “Out of Panic, Self-Reliance.” The New York Times. The New York
Times Company, 11 October 2008. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12bloom.html>.
Bouza, Tony. The Decline and Fall of the American Empire: Corruption, Decadence,
and the American Dream. New York: Plenum Press, 1996. Print.
Bukovsky, Vladimir. “Torture’s Long Shadow.” The Washington Post. The Washington
Post Company, 18 December 2005. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700018_pf.html>.
Burns, Crosby and Jeff Krehely. “Gay and Transgender People Face High Rates of
Workplace Discrimination and Harassment.” Center for American Progress. Center
for American Progress, 2 June 2011. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2011/06/02/9872/gay-and-transgender-peopleface-high-rates-of-workplace-discrimination-and-harassment/>.
Castillo, Mariano. “NRA clear on gun debate stance: arm schools.” CNN-Cable News
Network. Turner Broadcasting Inc., 22 December 2012. Web. 3 April 2013.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/us/connecticut-school-shooting/index.html>.
CBS. “AP:
Obama Unlikely To Seek Torture Charges.” CBS News. CBS Interactive
Inc., 24 March 2010. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-250_162-4613023.html>.
Clark, Josh. “Is there a Torture Manual.” HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks Inc.,
5 March 2008. Web. 2 April 2013.
<http://science.howstuffworks.com/torture-manual4.htm>.
CNN Wire Staff. “Gunman, six others dead at Wisconsin Sikh temple.” CNN-Cable
News Network. Turner Broadcasting Inc., 6 August 2012. Web. 10 August 2012.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/05/us/wisconsin-temple-shooting/index.html>.
CNN Wire Staff. “Police identify Army veteran as Wisconsin temple shooting
gunman.” CNN-Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting Inc., 7 August 2012.
Web. 10 August 2012.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/06/us/wisconsin-temple-shooting/index.html>.
Cohen, Tom. “Obama: ‘Shame on us’ if Newtown doesn’t bring new gun laws.” CNNCable News Network. Turner Broadcasting Inc., 29 March 2013. Web. 3 April 2013.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/28/politics/obama-guns/index.html>.
Congleton, Roger D. “The Story of Katrina: New Orleans and the Political Economy of
Catastrophe.” Public Choice 127.1-2 (2006): 5-30. JSTOR. Web. 30 November
2012.
Conniff Taber, Kimberly. “With model's death, eating disorders are again in spotlight.”
The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 20 November 2006. Web.
10 August 2012.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/world/americas/20iht-models.3604439.html>.
111
Cullen, Jim. The American Dream. A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation.
Oxford University Press: New York, 2003. 3-10. Print.
Dean Ward, John. “Memoir of the Author.” Ed. Wigglesworth, Dean Ward, Mather.
The Day of Doom. New York: American News Company, 1867. Print.
Dosomething.org. “11 Facts About the BP Oil Spill.” Dosomething.org. Do Something
Inc., s.a. Web. 20 April 2013.
<http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-bp-oil-spill>.
Economist Online. “World Bank Reforms Voting Power Structure.” Economist Online.
Economist Online, s.a. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://economistonline.muogao.com/2010/04/world-bank-reforms-voting-power-structure.html>.
Edwards, Jonathan. A Jonathan Edwards Reader. Ed. John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout,
and Kenneth P. Minkema. New Haven: Yale UP, 1995. Print.
EIA-Energy Information Administration. “International Energy Statistics.” U.S. Energy
Information Administration. U.S. Department of Energy, s.a. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=US,&syid=200
5&eyid=2010&unit=MMTCD>.
Etges, Andreas and Winfried Fluck. “Vorwort.” American Dream. Eine Weltmacht in
der
Krise. Ed. Etges, Andreas and Winfried Fluck. Frankfurt am Main: Campus
Verlag GmbH, 2011. 7-12. Print.
“Ezekiel Cheever.” The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An
encyclopedia in eighteen volumes. Ed. A.W. Ward et al. New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1907-1921. s.p. Web. 22 May 2013.
<http://www.bartleby.com/227/1610.html>
FBI. “Table 1: Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Bias Motivation,
2010.” The FBI-Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Federal Government. U.S.
Department of Justice, s.a. Web. 10 August 2012.
<http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/tables/table-1-incidents-offenses-victimsand-known-offenders-by-bias-motivation-2010.xls>.
FBI. “Table 43a: Arrests by Race., 2010. The FBI-Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S.
Federal Government. U.S. Department of Justice, s.a. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/table43/10tbl43a.xls>.
FBI. “Victims.” The FBI-Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Federal Government.
U.S. Department of Justice, s.a. Web. 10 August 2012.
<http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-victims>.
Fessenden, Tracy, Nicholas F. Radel, Magdalena J. Zaborowska (ed.). The Puritan
Origins of American Sex. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.
112
Flakus, Greg. “Dutch say They Could Speed Gulf Oil Recovery with US Permission.”
VOAnews.com. Voice of America, 13 June 2010. Web. 20 April 2013.
<http://www.voanews.com/content/dutch-say-they-could-speed-gulf-oil-recovery-with-uspermission-96341579/119589.html>.
Forrester, Duncan B. Apocalypse Now? Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror. Hants:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2005. Print.
Frosch, Dan and Kirk Johnson. “Gunman Kills 12 in Colorado.” The New York Times.
The New York Times Company, 20 July 2012. Web. 2 April 2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/shooting-at-colorado-theater-showing-batmanmovie.html>.
GallUp. “Honesty/Ethics in Profession.” GallUp. GallUp Inc., 26-29 November 2012.
Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.gallup.com/poll/1654/honesty-ethics-professions.aspx#1>.
Goldman, Lea and Kiri Blakeley. “The Richest 20 Women in Entertainment.” Forbes.
Forbes.com LLC, 18 January 2007. Web. 26 February 2013.
<http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/17/richest-women-entertainment-tech-media-cz_lg_richwomen07
_0118womenstars_slide_2.html>.
Greenwald, Glenn. “The Premises and Purposes of American Exceptionalism.”
The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 18 February 2013. Web.
14 April 2013.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/american-exceptionalism-north-koreanukes>.
Gummere, Richard M. “Michael Wigglesworth: From Kill-Joy to Comforter.”
The Classical Journal 62.1 (1966): 1-8. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2012.
Hammond, Jeffrey A. “‘Ladders of Your Own’: The Day of Doom and the Repudiation
of ‘Carnal Reason’.” Early American Literature 19.1 (1984): 42-67. JSTOR. Web.
25 May 2012.
Harnden, Toby. “Back to the future: Obama promises to change politics and rid
Washington of lobbyists.” Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers Ltd.,
2 November 2012. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226711/US-Election-2012-Barack-Obama-promiseschange-politics-rid-lobbyists.html>.
Harris Interactive. “Harris Alienation Index Jumps Up Considerably to a Level Not
Seen Since the Clinton Years.” Harris Interactive. Harris Interactive Inc.,
13 September 2011. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/m
id/1508/ArticleId/861/Default.aspx>.
IMF. “IMF Executive Directors and Voting Power.” International Monetary Fund.
International Monetary Fund. 24 February 2013. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/eds.aspx>.
113
John. “BP / Gulf Oil Spill - 68,000 Square Miles of Direct Impact.” SkyTruth. Blogger,
27 July 2010. Web. 22 May 2013.
<http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/07/bp-gulf-oil-spill-68000-square-miles-of.html>.
Juhasz, Antonia. “Investigation: Two Years After the BP Spill, A Hidden Health Crisis
Festers.” The Nation. The Nation, 18 April 2012. Web. 22 May 2013.
<http://www.thenation.com/article/167461/investigation-two-years-after-bp-spill-hidden-healthcrisis-festers#>.
Kiger, Patrick J. “10 Big Questions in the U.S. Gun Control Debate.” HowStuffWorks.
HowStuffWorks Inc., 4 February 2013. Web. 2 April 2013.
<http://www.howstuffworks.com/10-questions-in-gun-control-debate.htm#page=0>.
Knabb, D. Richard, Jamie R. Rhome, and Daniel P. Brown. “Tropcial Cyclone Report.
Hurrican Katrina.” National Hurricane Center, 20 December 2005. Web.
22 May 2013.
<http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf>.
Kurst-Swanger, Karel. Worship and Sin: An Exploration of Religion-Related Crime in
the United States. New York: Lang, 2008. Print.
Lee, Kurtis. “Math, Science, Reading Scores Show U.S. Schools Slipping Behind.” PBS
News Hour. MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, 10 December 2010. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/july-dec10/education_12-10.html>.
Lichtblau, Eric. “Obama Backers Tied to Lobbies Raise Millions.” The New YorkTimes.
The New York Times Company, 27 October 2011. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/politics/obama-bundlers-have-ties-to-lobbying.html>.
Long, Thomas. “Doomsday in New England: Michael Wigglesworth and Puritan
Appropriation of Medieval Apocalypticism.” Division of American Literature to
1800 Panel. Modern Language Association, December 2000. Conference Lecture.
Web. 9 July 2012.
<http://community.tncc.edu/faculty/longt/papers/DoomsdayNewEngland.htm>.
Luce, Edward. Time to Start Thinking: America and the Spectre of Decline. London:
Little Brown, 2012. Print.
Matthiessen, F.O. “Michael
Wigglesworth, a Puritan Artist.” The New England
Quarterly 1.4 (1928): 491-504. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2012.
Mauk, David and John Oakland. American Civilization: An Introduction. 5th ed. New
York: Routledge, 2009. Print.
“Michael Wigglesworth.” The Norton Anthology of American History Volume A –
Beginnings to 1820. 7th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. London: W. W. Norton & Company
Ltd., 2007. 217-235. Print.
Miller, Perry. “‘Preparation for Salvation’ in Seventeenth-Century New England.”
Journal of the History of Ideas 4.3 (1943): 253-286. JSTOR. Web. 22 July 2012.
114
Miller, Perry. The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard
UP, 1969. Print.
Moran, Patrick. “Study Refutes Congressman Paul Ryan's Claims About Upward
Mobility.” PR Watch. Center for Media and Democracy, 27 October 2011. Web.
24 February 2013.
<http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/10/11099/study-refutes-congressman-paul-ryans-claims-aboutupward-mobility>.
Morgan, Edmund S. Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea. Ithaka: Cornell UP,
1975. Print.
Muhammad, Jesse. “Overseas Katrina aid rejected by America.” FinalCall.com. FCN
Publishing, 13 June 2007. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3584.shtml>.
Muhammad Islam, Nisa. “The State of Black America 2012.” The Final Call. FCN
Publishing, 15 March 2012. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_8661.shtml>.
Murphy, Andrew R. Prodigal Nation: Moral Decline and Divine Punishment from New
England to 9/11. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
Newport, Frank. “Debt, Gov't Dysfunction Rise to Top of Americans’ Issue List.”
GallUp Politics. GallUp Inc., 14 January 2013. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.gallup.com/poll/159830/debt-gov-dysfunction-rise-top-americans-issue-list.aspx>.
OECD. “Offical Development Assistance – 2012 Release.” OECD. OECD, 2011. Web.
24 February 2013.
<http://oecdwash.org/oda2011/>.
“On Scene Coordinatior Report. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.” usg.com. United States
Coast Guard-Departmen of Homeland Security, September 2011. Web.
22 May 2013.
<http://www.uscg.mil/foia/docs/dwh/fosc_dwh_report.pdf>.
ORF. “Connecticut beschließt bisher schärfstes Waffenrecht der USA.“ News ORF.
ORF Online und Teletext GmbH & Co KG, s.a. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.orf.at/stories/2175122/>.
Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries Online. Oxford University Press, 2012. Web.
11 August 2012.
<http://oxforddictionaries.com/?region=us>.
Peer, Thomas. “Kreisläufe.” Skript zur VO Ökosytsteme und Stoffkreisläufe, University
of Salzburg, s.a. Print.
Peters, Ted. Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1994. Print.
115
Pew Research. “US Seen as Less Important China as More Powerful.” Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press. Pew Research Center, 3 December 2009.
Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.people-press.org/2009/12/03/us-seen-as-less-important-china-as-more-powerful/>.
Pilkington, Ed. “The Amazing True Story of Zeitoun.” The Guardian. Guardian News
and Media Limited, 11 March 2010. Web. 10 April 2012.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/dave-eggers-zeitoun-hurricane-katrina>.
Princeton University “About WordNet.” WordNet. Princeton University. 2010. Web.
20 April 2013.
<http://wordnet.princeton.edu>.
Pritchard, Bill. “A search for values.” The Frederick News. Frederick News-Post
Printing and Publishing, 27 April 2012. Web. 10 August 2012.
<http://www.fredericknewspost.com/archive/article_005672ef-7a82-57b9-9590a37f7d497f76.html>.
Rachman, Gideon. “Think Again: American Decline.“ Foreign Policy. FP Group,
January/February 2011. Web. 23 February 2013.
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/think_again_american_decline>.
Raum, Tom and Jennifer Agiesta. “ AP-GfK poll: After Conn. school shooting, nearly 6
in 10 Americans back stricter gun laws.” AP-GfK. GfK Roper Public Affairs &
Corporate Communications & Associated Press, 16 January 2013.
Web. 2 April 2013.
<http://ap-gfkpoll.com/uncategorized/our-latest-poll-findings-19>.
Reilly, Sean. “Many foreign offers to help with oil spill still hanging, website indicates.”
Blog.al.com. Alabama Live LLC, 19 June 2010. Web. 20 April 2013.
<http://blog.al.com/live/2010/06/many_foreign_offers_to_help_wi.html>.
Roos, Dave. “How Lobbying Works.” HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks Inc.,
19 June 2012. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://people.howstuffworks.com/lobbying.htm>.
Saad, Lydia. “Americans Consider Individual Freedoms Nation’s Top Virtue.” GallUp
Politics. GallUp Inc., 7 January 2013. Web. 3 April 2013.
<http://www.gallup.com/poll/159716/americans-consider-individual-freedoms-nation-topvirtue.aspx>.
Saad, Lydia. “Americans Decry Power of Lobbyists, Corporations, Banks, Feds.”
GallUp. GallUp Inc., 11 April 2011. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.gallup.com/poll/147026/americans-decry-power-lobbyists-corporations-banksfeds.aspx>.
Saad, Lydia. “Americans Want Stricter Gun Laws, Still Oppose Bans.” GallUp Politics.
GallUp Inc., 27 December 2012. Web. 2 April 2013.
<http://www.gallup.com/poll/159569/americans-stricter-gun-laws-oppose-bans.aspx>.
116
Saad, Lydia. “Democrats Push U.S. Satisfaction Up to 27%.” GallUp Politics. GallUp
Inc., 18 February 2013. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.gallup.com/poll/160598/democrats-push-satisfaction.aspx>.
Salaita, Steven. Anti-Arab Racism in the USA. London: Pluto Press, 2006. Print.
Salaita, Steven. “Anti-Arab Racism, American Liberals, and the New Civilian
Terrorists.” The Uncultured Wars. London and New York: Zed Books, 2008. 5-21.
Print.
Smith, Jennie. “America's education system perpetuates the gap between rich and poor.”
Examiner.com. Clarity Digital Group LLC, 31 July 2009. Web. 30 April
2013.
<http://www.examiner.com/article/america-s-education-system-perpetuates-the-gap-between-richand-poor>.
Solomon, John and Spencer S. Hsu. “Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went
Unclaimed.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company, 29 April 2007.
Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801113.html>.
Stannard, David E. The Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture, and Social
Change. New York: Oxford UP, 1979. Print.
Students First. “Statistics About Education in America.” Students First. Students First,
s.a. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/the-stats>.
Tangley, Laura. “Bird Habitats Threatened by Oil Spill.” National Wildlife. National
Wildlife Federation, 17 June 2010. Web. 22 May 2013.
<http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Birds/Archives/2010/Oil-SpillBirds.aspx>.
The Alliance for Eating Disorder Awareness. “Eating Disorder Statistics”. North
Dakota State University, The Alliance for Eating Disorder Awareness, s.a. Web.
10 August 2012.
<http://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/counseling/Eating_Disorder_Statistics.pdf>.
The Conference Board. “Global Economic Outlook 2013.” The Conference Board. The
Conference Board Inc., s.a. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.conference-board.org/data/globaloutlook.cfm>.
The Economist. “The Global Debt Clock.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper
Limited. s.a. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock>.
The Editors of Bloomberg. “EU-U.S. Free Trade Deal Offers Painless Stimulus for
Both.” Bloomberg. Bloomberg L.P., 18 June 2012. Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-17/eu-u-s-free-trade-deal-offers-painless-stimulus-forboth.html>.
117
The Free Dictionary. The Free Dictionary by Farlex. Farlex Inc., 2013. Web.
20 April 2013.
<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/>.
The Network. Global Talent Mobility Survey. The Network: Duesseldorf, 2011. Web.
24 February 2013.
<http://www.the-network.com/recruitment/recruitment-expertise/global-talent-mobilitysurvey/upload/GTMS_Wave3.pdf>.
The New York Times. “So Who’s a Lobbyist?” The New York Times. The New York
Times Company, 26 January 2012. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/so-whos-a-lobbyist.html?_r=0>.
The White House. “President Obama Sets Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Target
for Federal Operations.” Whitehouse.gov. The White House Washington,
29 January 2010. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-sets-greenhouse-gas-emissionsreduction-target-federal-operations>.
The World Bank. “GDP Growth (annual %).” The World Bank. The World Bank Group,
s.a.Web. 24 February 2013.
<http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG/countries/1W?display=default>.
Thomas. “Test Scores Over Touchdowns: When Sports Soil our Education System.”
The Quiet Voice 18. Wordpress, 6 January 2013. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://thequietvoice18.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/test-scores-over-touchdowns-when-sports-soilour-education-system/>.
Udoma, Ebong. “Connecticut lawmakers vote for post-Newtown gun law.” Reuters.
Thomson Reuters, 3 April 2013. Web. 4 April 2013.
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-guns-connecticut-idUSBRE9320TS20130403>.
United Nations. “Status of Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.” unfcc.int. United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2013. Web. 22 May 2013.
<http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/items/2613.php>.
Viola, Lora Anne. “Das Ende des American Century.“ American Dream. Eine
Weltmacht in der Krise. Ed. Etges, Andreas and Winfried Fluck. Frankfurt am
Main: Campus Verlag GmbH, 2011. 159-176. Print.
Walt, M. Stephen. “The Myth of American Exceptionalism.” Foreign Policy. FP Group,
November 2011. Web. 14 April 2013.
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/the_myth_of_american_exceptionalism>.
Warren, Mark. “Nearly 50 Supertankers Are Waiting for BP (on the Cheap).”
Esquire.com. Hearst Communications Inc., 4 June 2010. Web. 20 April 2013.
<http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bp-oil-spill-cleanup-costs-060410>.
118
Weber, R. Harry. “Blown-out BP well finally killed at bottom of Gulf.” boston.com.
New York Times Co., 19 September 2010. Web. 22 May 2013.
<http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/09/19/blown_out_bp_well_finally_killed_at_bot
tom_of_gulf/>.
Wigglesworth, Michael. “A Postscript unto the Reader”. Fire and Ice: Puritan
Reformed Writings. The Poetry of Michael Wigglesworth, Stephen Lawson, s.a.
Web. 6 August 2012.
<http://www.puritansermons.com/poetry/wigg3.htm>.
Wigglesworth, Michael. The Day of Doom. Fire and Ice: Puritan Reformed Writings.
The Poetry of Michael Wigglesworth, Stephen Lawson, s.a. Web. 6 August 2012.
<http://www.puritansermons.com/poetry/doom001.htm>.
Wilkie, Christina. “Obama Inaugural Message To Gun Lobby: Expect Action.”
Huffington Post. The Huffington Post Inc., 21 January 2013. Web. 3 April 2013.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/21/obama-inaugural-message_n_2521609.html>.
Wynn, Gerard. “FACTBOX – What was agreed and left unfinished in U.N. climate
deal.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 20 December 2009. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/12/20/idINIndia-44872920091220>.
Zehr, Mary Ann. “NAEP Scores for 17-Year-Olds Flat Since 1970s.” Education Week.
Editorial Projects in Education, 28 April 2009. Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2009/04/scores_for_17yearolds_flat_sin.html>.
Zunes, Stephen. “Bush Administration Refuses Cuban Offer of Medical Assistance
Following Katrina.” Foreign Policy in Focus. Institute for Policy Studies,
19 October 2005. Web. 11 August 2012.
<http://www.fpif.org/articles/bush_administration_refuses_cuban_offer_of_medical_assistance_foll
owing_katrina>.