The United States of Anger

The United States of Anger
By Gavin Esler
Michael Joseph. 344 pages. £17.99
ISBN 0 7181 4235 7

Gavin Esler is the chief North America Correspondent of the BBC and has travelled widely over the US, interviewing many people in the course of reporting to the UK. Are the United States Angry? Why are they angry?

He says: 'This book is an account of how the rules of American life have changed profoundly in the 1990s, upsetting the foundations most Americans have taken for granted in the past 50 years. One result is that the US government is now routinely blamed by many of its citizens for every ill which befalls them ... from the alligator in the pond of their vacation home to the apparent moral, social and cultural decline they see all around them.' (Why the alligator in the pond? One of the strengths of this book is the wealth of illustrations from travels round the States. The alligator in question was a protected species in a pond near a holiday home. As far as the lady was concerned, its disturbing presence was the government's fault.)
For 50 years the Americans have had an enemy, the evil of communism. In Esler's words: 'This book is about a simple paradox. America has conquered the world, and yet Americans have found little peace'.
In the past the American dream could be summed up in two beliefs. 'These two beliefs, almost amounting to an American creed, are that if you work hard you will make it in America, and that each generation will do better than its parents.'
These truths no longer hold. The economists may tell Americans that inflation is down, employment up and taxes lower. But at the grass roots it does not feel like that. Whose fault is it? Not the Communists. Not God's, but the Government's.
American society is riddled with conspiracy theories: about Pearl Harbour, the death of JFK, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the Oklahoma bombing. The Americans have seen the 'Arms for the Contras via Iran' secrets revealed and therefore tend to say: 'Well, we have good evidence that there might be a government cover up.' The X-Files are an expression of a popular belief rather than a cause of conspiracy theory. Those who have tried to watch the convoluted plots on British TV will know that behind them is the belief that 'They would say that - wouldn't they?'

Moral majority

Of particular interest is the way that the 'moral majority' of the American Christian right comes into the picture. Esler quotes Augustine as saying that belief precedes understanding. He goes on to use that as a paradigm of how unreasoning belief overcomes rational thought. I think this can be shown to be a false antithesis, but Esler may be right in thinking that there are Christians who take it wrongly to disastrous effect. He says 'The angriest voices are those who believe American society is in profound decline. Some of these voices are distressingly familiar and uniquely American. They are the preachers and prophets of the religious Right who, almost since the foundation of the United States, have complained that the end is nigh and who, in the 1990s, have declared a cultural and religious war on their fellow Americans'.
There seems to be a slight contradiction in the argument when he quotes Karl Popper as saying: 'The conspiracy theory of society ... comes from abandoning God, and then asking 'Who is in his place?' but at the same time pin-pointing the evangelical Right as those who are hung up on what seems to us outrageous conspiracy theories.
And the Right are very powerful. They can get their people out to vote. At the last Presidential election only half the eligible voters in the USA voted. That is, over 100 million stayed away. Clinton was elected on a minority vote. 'Evangelicals made up a quarter of the American population, including many black Americans. Those evangelicals who described themselves as conservative and politically active - the Christian right - amounted to less than 5%. And yet by volume level, and degree of divisive political activity, the Christian right has emerged as one of the most powerful forces of anger in American politics, frequently but incorrectly claiming to speak for the majority of American Christians through organisations like the 'moral majority' .... It is a voice stridently against the Clinton administration, intolerant of all dissent, and unshakeable in pursuit of its obsessions.'

Conspiracy theories

Esler describes the Rev. Pat Robertson as 'a stirrer of the pot of anger in America's angry society, a propagator of the most bizarre conspiracy theories, but whose book The New World Order is a bestseller'.
At the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King there is a brass plaque which says: 'They said to one another, 'Behold, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him .... and then we shall see what will become of his dreams.' To believe the Government killed Martin Luther King seems a mild obsession compared to some of the others.
In the speech that JFK never gave at Dallas he was going to say: 'We cannot expect that everyone .... will talk sense to the American people. But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense.'
Where does this leave the UK? What happens in the US often follows on here. We too have our conspiracy theories.
Despite clear statements in accounts of the time, some people believe that Churchill knew about the Coventry blitz but let it happen to preserve the secrecy of the code-breakers. The history of the code-breakers denies that, but it still goes on being said. However, this seems mild compared to believing that Clinton planned the Oklahoma bombing in order to give the government a chance to bring in Draconian laws against the militia groups of the right. But there are radio stations and web sites in the USA which propagate many such statements.
It was Senator Joe McCarthy who said 'How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster?'. It seems the witches are back under another name. There are people in America who believe that the 'pot-smoking, draft-dodging, womanising' President, who is being demonised in some quarters, is the one responsible for America's ills.
Readers of EN will know that there are American Christians who are not like that, but Esler has not met Don Carson or visited the Westminster Seminary. Esler does not paint a picture of complete gloom. He has an account of a splendid black minister in Houston, Texas who is bucking the trend. This is a fascinating book, worthwhile for anyone who wants to know what is going on in parts of American society.

The United States of Anger

Moral majority

Conspiracy theories

John Marsh

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