America and Others

America does not have easy access to the exterior world. Both east and west, the next country is thousands of kilometers on the other side of an ocean. To the north and south, separated by abstract borders, are two countries that Americans have always decided to take less than seriously: they see the Canadians as quasi-Americans, who either still speak French or have British accents; and they see the Mexicans as omnipresent supplementary workers, invisible in the US economy, who take work that Americans don’t want to do. Thus, the USA finds itself in a milieu of only itself. The rest of the world appears not as a real world, but as “the show,” mostly admiring, sometimes menacing, but in any case a bit unreal and foreign, from what one can see from afar in the American point of view. The media does not consider the world except as it relates to the USA in this market, this interest, this conflict, this terrorist attack, especially where it involves American troops. Where America has no presence, there is no other world and no other country: to be is to be perceived by the USA (one must never forget that Berkeley taught immaterialism at Providence, Rhode Island in the beginning of the 18th century). America “immaterializes” the rest of the world. It is therefore closed unto itself, like many small countries. In fact, it is a very small country. But that is not immediately apparent, since it is actually very big.

The discussion of the current presidential campaign confirms this malaise. The exterior failure of the Bush government having become clear even inside the country, the principal question, outside of the economic situation (thus also the drop of the dollar, the public deficit, mortgage problems, social inequalities, retirement crises, the health care system,violence in the schools, energy insecurity and ecological threats) revolves around this question: “What do they think of us abroad? ” This actually means: “Why does the world hate us?” From this springs the consensus of the three remaining Presidential candidates that “we need to talk to the others out there.” A fairly large change, viv-a-vis the slogans of previous campaigns. But, having admitted that one can and one must talk with others, it is important to know which ones. McCain, the unorthodox Republican here, but pure orthodox Republican for the rest of the world, applies only to talking to “allies” of the US, even including the idea of listening to them (this opening of spirit says a lot about the recent past, where the first adversaries were already allies, especially the oldest). The two Democratic rivals go even further. Obama sees the need to speak even with “enemies,” real ones who want the skin of the US (Iran, Syria, Hamas, etc.). Careful to not shock too much, Hillary would deign to speak only with “good enemies,” (supposedly China, Fatah, etc.). The idea that one only really negotiates with one’s worst enemies is not a given. In this context, one understands that visiting Heads of State neither trouble nor direct public opinion. Everything leads quickly enough to the unique interrogation: “Do they like us? What do they think of America?” America digests its visitors, it doesn’t learn much about them. The current real popularity of our President (Sarkozy) means only this: we lived long enough to see a French President who doesn’t hate us.

Among rare exceptions the Pope must be acknowledged. No matter which Pope. Because the importance is that he represents “the other” perfectly, an other which America cannot dismiss or reduce to its point of view. Because he represents a rival universality to the universality of the USA, one even stronger than its own. A real, not imagined universality, one that does not defend any empire or any force, thus which the force of empires has never been able to destroy; universality of law, widespread throughout other real countries, other real cultures, real other people, who realize its justice because they want it without restraint. The “catholic” universality that the Pope manifests in his person appears in a certain way to be the true rival of Americans (and it is not just by chance that Washington took a long time to recognize Vatican City, and only under President Reagan),a universality of another order that cannot be backhandedly dismissed. And during the last week, we certainly saw clearly here in Chicago as well as on the east coast, and probably elsewhere also: America was listening, with a real open spirit, to the universal and immaterial foreigner who could tell them something about America that America could not tell itself. But which it could hear. This time American Catholics themselves muted their usual polemics against the Vatican and accepted the severity of the Pope’s judgment on the pedophila crisis within their church. Benoit XVI’s speech seemed not only more important than speeches by McCain, Obama or Hillary, but perhaps the most important of this campaign. The only one who could say that human rights is a masquerade without a transcendental conception of humanity itself, that one cannot export democracy like a product, but that it is created in conjunction with peace and law, that economic development becomes a disaster without a minimum of equality and respect for nature, that religion does not belong to any one group, and that God blesses the whole world. Besides, in ending his last goodbye with the habitual God Bless America, the Pope made evident the ambiguity within: should one translate that as wishful (that God wants to bless America) or as indicative (of course, God blesses America, since it defends liberty in the world)? So from there to a question in the making, a highly political one: why can’t America itself bless God from time to time?

Tocqueville already diagnosed : “The majority lives in perpetual adoration of itself, it is only foreigners or certain experience that can bring certain truths to the ears of Americans. (From “Democracy in America, I, 2,7). The Pope was this foreigner, September 11th and events that followed were the experience. The world hopes that “certain truths” arrive to the ears of Americans. For example, this one: America is only great with other people, never against them and never without them.