Posted by
James Frank Solís on Friday, August 04, 2006 7:21:23 PM
I have heard yet another liberal caller to a talk show, whine about how the world, especially the Muslim world, is coming to hate us.
One of the things I don’t like about the left is that they seem to be those who’ve never really suffered any real hardships in life. The way they worry about how much the world hates us leads me to believe that when they were children their parents saw to it that they lived in a world in which everyone loved them, or had the good sense to pretend to do. I know several liberals very personally (I won’t say in what capacity, of course); and when they were young a crisis was something like finding out you were moving to a different school district and weren't’t going to be able to try out for cheerleader. I’m not kidding.
There is another possibility. When I was a child there was always an “in” crowd. And they spent their time doing nothing more, really, than trying to impress each other. Of course, in doing this they had decided not to bother about impressing the “out” crowd. Now, in impressing each other the “in” crowd had to meet or exceed some strange standard, which always mystified me (even after I succeeded in getting “in”). The number one concern was what “people” will think. Looking back (as I have had hundreds of occasions to do in the 23 years since I graduated high school) it occurs to me that, in worrying about what “people” would think, we had decided that the “out” crowd were not people, at least not in any sense that mattered to us. And—this is important—the distinction between the “in” and the “out” was completely arbitrary, as was the standard used to judge between the two. It was, therefore, a meaningless distinction which was treated, nevertheless, as if it were a rosetta stone.
As is common with people who either have never been hated (or did not know that they were) or who are accustomed to meeting the expectations of “people,” the left is ill-equipped to cope with America being hated. When aware that we are hated they want to know, “What did we do to make them hate us?” It’s easy to understand why. When they were in school and “people” hated them it was because they had failed to meet that mysterious standard of “in-ness.” Perhaps the cause of the odium would elude them until they got home and realized (darn it!) they had worn Levis to school instead of Jordache. Or perhaps they missed the In Crowd Memo which clearly stipulated that Izod shirts were now “out” and Ocean Pacific was “in.” Horrors! In that world, “in” people hate you for a reason; and it’s always a good one.
After high school, these people went into another relatively safe world; and it, too, is a world with two crowds, the “in” and the “out.” I mean, of course, the university. (I went into the Army, something I had wanted to do since I was a little boy.) And then, after university, these people went into those things that seem to attract more liberals than conservatives, journalism and the arts. In the news business and in the movie business we have, again, those who are “in” and those who are “out.” And if someone hates you, you can know that it’s because you failed to meet some standard imposed by those who are “in” (ask Bernard Goldberg).
Sadly, this safe, little biosphere, with its controlled conditions, does not prepare its inhabitants for a fact of life in the world of hard-knocks. Sometimes people don’t like you, for no good reason; and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I remember well, a conversation with my dad about this, back when I was still in high school. I had finally (O, happy day!) made it into the “in” crowd, only to discover that one of the bigger fish didn't’t particularly care for me. I was certain I could remedy this, if only I could figure out why this person hated me. But, after weeks of investigation, I could not discover the reason. Whatever it was, it was a mystery to all. The only thing that anyone knew was that he hated me; no one knew why.
My dad, being quite the discerning guy, asked me one day what I was so preoccupied with. When I explained the problem to him, he told me what I think is one of the most important things he ever did tell me. “Son, you’re going to find as you get on in life, that you are going to meet people who just don’t like you. For some reason—maybe they don’t even know what it is—they just don’t like you. Sometimes, people just rub each other the wrong way. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Do the things that you need to do, and try to do them morally. That’s all you can do; it’s all you have control over. And you will probably have to ignore those who don’t like you. Some of them may actually change their minds about you. Most probably won’t. Forget about them, otherwise they will control you to your own harm. Do what you need to do. And, as much as you can, try to make sure it’s the right thing.”
In a lot of ways, liberals are a lot like high school students. They’ve identified the “in” crowd and want so much to be in it, or to remain in it. To be hated—no matter what the reason, if there really is one—is the worst thing in the world. (Unless, of course, we’re talking about being hated by the “out” crowd.) To be hated requires hand-wringing, and pacing back-and-forth, trying to discover the reason why they hate us so we can change whatever is amiss.
The Muslim world hates us. It must be something we did to them, stealing their oil, invading Iraq, whatever. What it cannot be is just that, by the standards of the Muslim world, we’re just decadent, the cesspool of decadence compared to the freshly cleaned toilet bowl of Muslim decadence. It cannot be that the Muslim world looks at us and sees what liberals see when they look at conservatives: evil incarnate. And this, not because of anything we’ve ever done to the Muslim world, but just because we are, by virtue of not being Muslim, evil incarnate, a cesspool of iniquity. Frankly, I don’t understand the hand-wringing about the fact that the Muslim world hates us. They hate us, so they blow up stuff; and we have to wonder why they hate us. A few wacky pro-life activists blow up a few abortion clinics. Any hand-wringing there? I didn't’t see any.
The Europeans hate us. So what? I’m inclined not care. There just are some people whose hatred of you should make you proud to be you. There are some people whose hatred of you demands an answer to the question, “Am I willing to do what would be necessary to change their minds about me?” I will be concerned that the French don’t like us, when Jacque Chirac goes on French TV and weeps to the French that I, James Frank Solís, do not particularly care for him. It is particularly galling to me to listen to Europeans lecture us—us!—about our imperialism. These are nations whose behavior in their own imperialist and colonial days make us look like the kid that got picked on by the bully, instead of the bully. And world opinion was a bit easier to manage in their day, because in their day their opinion was world opinion. Well may they lecture us on imperialism: they know all about it.
The left wring their hands and moan about the fact that no one likes us. They have no greater purpose in life than to dissociate themselves, as Shelby Steele would put it, from our supposed imperialist and militarist past. And, apparently, if we are destroyed in the process of this great dissociation, that’s okay: better we should perish than that people, whose opinions we care about for reasons that still elude me, think that we are just being imperialist and militaristic. Just like back in high school: better to wear those girlie-looking Jordache jeans, no matter how much more comfortable the Levis are, than to suffer the derision of the “in” crowd.
That’s the problem with the left. The world they grew up in just did not prepare them for the world as it is. In their world, someone who hates you can always be appeased. It’s just a matter of wearing the right clothes, going to the right parties, liking the right movies, having the right friends, kissing the right—never mind. Their world did not prepare them for a world in which that person who hates you cannot be bought, cannot be appeased, because the only thing that will make him happy with you is attending your funeral.
The left needs to believe that America is the problem, because the alternative is unthinkable. The alternative is to acknowledge that the world really, really is just that bad, that people really, really are so bad that they will hate you for no other reason than that it pleases them to do so. Just like their caricature of the fundamentalist Christian, shutting himself off to science because it conflicts with the tenets of his faith, the left deny the world as it is because it conflicts with the tenets of their own faith. This is not the world they were taught to believe in. Like the fundamentalists’ attacks on “science,” the left’s attacks assault both the truth of the message and those who offer the only rational response to that message.
The message is: I hate you, and I will kill you. The only rational response is: Not if I kill you first. An adolescent response—the liberal response—is: What can I do to make you like me?
In the big scheme of world affairs, the left is still in high school. They still believe that the world is really like that. They haven’t noticed that Harris and Klebold have entered the school building, armed. They are still worrying about being accepted by the “in”crowd, while Harris and Klebold are preparing to take them out.
The only thing for us to do is take my dad’s advice and do what we need to do. The world may hate us, but perhaps not always. The world may never acknowledge what we’ve done, or thank us for it. But it’s the right thing to do. Whether they hate us or not.
Perhaps we should start talking to the left the way our parents talked to us when we were teenagers: If the world told us to go jump off a cliff should we do so?