The Fall of Modernity - Has the American narrative authored its own undoing?

[applegrove]

February 26, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2006 The American Conservative
The Fall of Modernity
Has the American narrative authored its own undoing?
by Michael Vlahos

"We are losing our wars in the Muslim world because our vision of history is at odds with reality. This is a well-established condition of successful societies, a condition that inevitably grows more worrisome with time and continuing success. In fact, what empires have most in common is how their sacred narratives come to rule their strategic behavior—and rule it badly. In America’s case, our war narrative works against us to promote our deepest fear: the end of modernity.1

A nation’s evolving storyline gives concrete form to an accumulation of success and translates this into an assurance of transcendence. Those that claim to be the grandest societies in their own world inevitably style themselves as empires, not simply as large kingship domains exalted by good fortune but as regnant successors to a universal ideal. Thus the Ottoman vision as successor to the Roman Empire of Justinian, and of the contemporary Hapsburgs as the true heirs of the Western Roman Empire. Thus also Louis XIV, so too the Czars, as sons of Byzantium. This self-styling grows into a collective conviction that the once-national, now-imperial, soon-to-be-universal narrative is not only an inevitable story but is actually coterminous with history itself.

Later, when threats seem to come out of nowhere, society is surprised, affronted, and deeply apprehensive because the presence of such threats symbolically suggests that the narrative might be false. All threats are then mortal threats—not because they put at risk the viability of the society itself but because they threaten the sacred symbolism of history that has become inseparable from national identity. They are a chilling announcement that the story is about to meet a bad end, or worse—be replaced by someone else’s story.

Empires in their later stages therefore see threats not only as physical but also as symbolic, and the symbolic threat is always the more important, for it represents existential value—identity itself—and requires a necessarily existential response. It is not simply the actual threat that must be countered: the experience of meeting the threat must reclaim the divine certainty of the imperial narrative for all to see.

............SNIP"

http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_02_12/feature.html

[applegrove]

1. Even the American Conservative has given up myths.

[Redstone]

2. I'm sorry; I fell asleep after reading the title of the article.

Redstone

[applegrove]

3. LOL!

[Demit]

5. You didn't thrill to prose like "the experience of meeting the threat must reclaim the divine

certainty of the imperial narrative"???

LOL! It is pretty turgid.

[shoopnyc]

4. My take on recent "modernity"

It seems to me that America is at a crossroads with regards to what was known as the "Single Issue Voter". For the 2008 Election, I foresee a much more sophisticated electorate, due to the fact that all candidates, on both sides, do not not fulfill 100% of their respective bases wishes, (which, I believe, to a certain extent, is healthy).

Most recently, this has been most effectively been applied through the abuse of the "wedge issue". This construct became the norm during the rise of the 24/7 news cycle, somewhat holding them together. But the internet has diffused a lot of this, and people have a greater capacity now to look at all sides of any candidate on any side.

My fear is that people that do not follow politics closely will throw their hands up with a "they're all bad" collapse. But I think the situation in Iraq will encourage, shall we say, a more "nuanced" , and complete media coverage of all campaigns. I hope.

[bemildred]

6. A very fancy way to say hubris brings nemesis. nt