I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing American flag-themed apparel, let alone flying the flag in public. I go out of my way to make sarcastic, biting jokes about America’s hypocrisy on national holidays, and scoff at my parents — loyalists to the Democratic Party — when they repeat the well-known bit about how “despite its many flaws, this is still a great nation.”
Yes, I’m a millennial. How could you tell? Like many of my peers, I’m prone to a deadly combination of pessimistic cynicism and utopian idealism. To most of us, the claim that corruption and injustice are bugs and not features of the American Project is a mark of being démodé, in denial of the truth, and insufferably cringe.
Mind you, my brand of millennial idealism is a special one. Just like a snowflake, I am unlike all the others. Being a moderate liberal or conservative was cringe, but so was being a woke SJW (or a far-right anti-woke reactionary). I was determined to be more countercultural than those who postured themselves as the vanguard of the counterculture — thus my attraction to the emerging post-liberal movement. There was something so alluringly “meta” about the narrative that American liberal democracy is problematic not just for systematically barring certain groups of people from accessing its promises, but because the promise itself is a deceptive one. It claims to respect freedom of religion, speech, and local institutions, while in reality it cuts us off from that which is most essential: God, family, and local community.
Of course, it’s very easy to play this game while living in the comfort of a liberal democratic country. “Among the many freedoms enjoyed by citizens in a democracy” writes the journalist Shadi Hamid in his latest book The Case for American Power, “one of the least appreciated is the freedom to panic and assume that the worst is yet to come. This is a right (and luxury) that is generally lacking under dictatorship.”
Hamid highlights that those of us living in liberal democracies have grown “accustomed to expressing either doubt or a kind of ironic detachment about our own success. To say that you love democracy or that you love America,” he concedes, “is to be decidedly uncool . . . I feel uncool just writing this.” Yet he affirms that his book is not about the crisis of American democracy, “because I don’t believe there is a crisis. The only crisis is our inability to see what’s right in front of our very eyes.”
I read Hamid’s words as a personal attack. He calls out the “oikophobia” — borrowing the term Roger Scruton coined to refer to contempt for one’s homeland — of those who hold that “Western civilization has been uniquely evil in its pursuit of colonization and slavery, with the implication that other civilizations have not engaged in such things.” Such an attitude is in part inevitable: the grass is always greener. But part of it is the product of a fetishistic esteem for the exotic “other” endemic among privileged, bourgeois elites who seem to have forgotten that “the founding of any country involves unforgivable acts of violence.”
He goes on to cite the theorists such as Spengler, Burnham, Galbraith, and Lasch that popularized narratives of decline, which continue to appeal to denizens of liberal democracies even decades later because “it is more thrilling to think that the world might be ending than the likelier possibility — that it will be bad, but it won’t be that bad. When democracy seems to be on the verge of dying,” he continues, “we come to see ourselves as resistance fighters and revolutionaries.”
Thus is the “paradox of progress”: “just as things are getting better — perhaps the best they’ve ever been — they can still feel awful. A sense of doom spreads precisely at the pinnacle of success. Instead of satisfaction, a yearning grows. We demand more . . . Once one bar is cleared, we move on to the next.” All this, Hamid asserts, “is good, of course.” So good that we’ve gotten bored. In the absence of war, invent one.
Declinists like myself often have a set of retorts ready to go when people use this to shut down our damning critique of American liberalism. For example, authoritarian regimes may be oppressive, but at least they are not facetious about it, unlike liberal democracies that play nice on the surface while masking their corruption. Yet I find it harder to fall back on my lofty ideas and simply scoff at Hamid as yet another out-of-touch, naive cringelib.
The reality is that declinists — in both our postliberal and woke postcolonial iterations — are fueled by the same impulse to read problems within institutions as symptoms of an incurable disease. Categorically distrustful of institutions and authority, we’re repelled by narratives that aim to “do what we can” to make a flawed system function as well as it possibly can, and instead are attracted — rather, aroused — by narratives of decline and doom.
And I can’t deny that most of us don’t actually intend to do very much to realize any of our ideals. I’m content to harp (or post) about my lofty ideals and rag on the current system for being too compromised to meet said ideals . . . while doing little to nothing (beyond symbolic activism) to build a new system — all the while reaping the benefits of the “problematic” old one. The reality is that we have little interest in putting in the work to construct anything. We’d rather deconstruct — preferably from behind the comfort of a screen. A hashtag, infographic, or photo of myself at a protest will do.
As much as I tried to deny it, the book pricked my conscience: could it be that my convictions are a mere cope for my bourgeois ennui, or worse a projection of my moral immaturity? Perhaps I’m right that America’s problems are feature and not bug, and that it is indeed all going to shit. Either way, Hamid’s book is a provocation to both champions of the American project and declinists to enter into an intelligent, nuanced, and heartfelt debate about our nation’s future. What follows is my personal attempt to grapple with the nagging questions Hamid’s book gave rise to in my own conscience, which I hope might further spark such debates.
When you combine a comfortable upbringing devoid of major friction with that markedly-American brand of moralism borne from our puritanical legacy, it’s inevitable that one would be drawn toward flashy (albeit simplistic) moral banners in order to signal a stance on the right side of history. Furthermore, it’s easier to eat up narratives that have a zero-tolerance attitude toward the “problematic” when, on top of being sheltered from circumstances that bring out how complex and ugly humans can be, we have been fed the moral code that one can be good by virtue of positive intentions. In other words, that we can create a fair, just, and equal society as long as people are trained to mean well. Ultimately, these narratives are appealing because they let us off the hook from having to do the hard labor of working with the reality in front of us. Deconstructing — and posting — is easier than building something new that will last.
This is not to say that none of the social justice causes du jour are legitimate. Take the incredibly real and grave problems that BLM, Occupy, and the campus protests for Gaza attempted to address. One can’t simply dismiss the very real moral outrage driving these movements as mere virtue-signaling or a projection of narcissism. Yet the short-sighted methodologies employed and the reductive narratives fueling them do betray the psychological and moral immaturity of many of their proponents, obscuring the real value of these movements and making it more difficult for the public to take them seriously.
The thing is, if you’re going to take up the call of the prophet and preach about lofty, utopian ideals, you need to first be mature enough to recognize the “log in your own eye” before calling out others. The prophets of yore were less interested in parading their virtues than in waking up their fellow humans to recognize the very sins they knew they were in no way exempt from. The us-vs-them, right-vs-wrong posture obliterates the integrity of the prophetic message. And no, performatively self-flagellating by “checking your privilege at the door” does not count as humbly owning up to your own shortcomings. The prophet banks on walking the walk more than talking the talk. Their greatest rebuke against the decline of the era is to put in the work of building something more virtuous The wildly idealistic co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day, is a clear example of someone whose work spoke for itself
Thus, when condemning the problems of already-existing structures, we must first ask ourselves if we’re doing so to cope with our own unresolved issues, and if we are willing to actually do the work to build something new. If our aversion to the system is merely a projection of our aversion to commitment, hard work, and having to deal with the complexities that are part and parcel of being human, we don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
But allow me to switch sides for a moment and play devil’s advocate. Even if we whiny millennials are just creating ideological causes in order to cope with our psychological fragility, we shouldn’t be dismissed so easily. Maybe America’s problems are really just a bug within an otherwise noble, praiseworthy project. But have you ever considered why America invented the stroad?
Neither a street nor a road nor a highway, a stroad is a worst-of-all-worlds combo that features multiple lanes lined with chain stores and restaurants, parking lots, and devoid of sidewalks. Stroads are emblematic of everything that is wrong with this country: a land that cultivates disenchantment, deracination, atomization, and that promises ever-greater freedom while weakening agency and thus our capacity to live fulfilled lives.
Indeed, Hamid touches on this epidemic of meaninglessness ravaging the nation, despite the “usual metrics” indicating economic growth and technological innovation: “Are Americans necessarily happier or more fulfilled as a result? An epidemic of loneliness, deaths of despair, and a mental health crisis of unprecedented proportions have been ripping through the United States. [. . .] Is this what progress is meant to look like? Is it enough to be the richest and most technologically sophisticated nation?”
Hamid concedes that in liberal democracies, it is extremely difficult to come together around “ultimate questions of what makes a good society and a good life.” But he insists that the fact that we can “disagree on foundational questions” is precisely what gives democracies their vitality. While the American project’s lack of a foundation in a specific notion of the ultimate good may yield “profound individual-level unhappiness and political dysfunction,” this is OK because our system is “remarkably resilient.”
As I expressed in my friendly recent debate with Hamid (alongside theologians John Milbank and William T. Cavanaugh), I fear that not only does this lack of a clear notion of the good set us up for a culture of despair, it also opens the door to abuses of power by people claiming to be champions of “the good.” Could it be that the rootlessness, despair, bureaucratic bloat, and technocratic overreach are the inevitable result of liberal democracy? Perhaps not. But the spiritual suffocation I experienced growing up inclines me to feel that way. And narratives of decline happen to be the easiest way to voice my frustration with the system I believe engendered this climate of spiritual suffocation. Even if I’m going too far in my critique, we cannot afford to dismiss this very real cry that my fellow declinists are attempting so desperately to voice.
I bristle at Hamid’s case for American exceptionalism — specifically for American unipolarity — along the lines of the one upheld by my parents: Despite its many flaws, this is still a great nation that has much to offer the world. Yet Hamid can’t be easily dismissed. First, his argument in favor of American unipolarity is a mildly reluctant one, as he acknowledges that — for those who are more interested in working with reality rather than utopian fantasy — it is only inevitable that one nation will end up in the position of having the most power, and that the U.S. — as the lesser of all evils — is the best to take on this role.
Furthermore, Hamid grapples seriously and sincerely with the many flaws and imperfections of our country, directly addressing issues that both woke de-colonizers and based postliberals frequently cite. It is a comprehensive case, and rather than glossing over objections in a simplistic or reductive manner, he faces them head-on. He roots his argument in appeals to certain universal, pre-political, “non-measurable” yet essential values like “culture, identity, and religion” that transcend the purely pragmatic — often citing religion and the natural law tradition — making it easier to enter into a productive debate — and perhaps even a dialogue — with his ideas.
What makes his arguments even more compelling is his transparency, from the first chapter on, about how his beliefs are intimately tied to personal experience. Take his retelling of how, as Muslim-Americans, his family was impacted by 9/11, his bout with what he calls his “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” and the disclosure of the first and only time he cried about politics.
The fact that this book marks a shift in course from his previous works demonstrates the intellectual and moral hunger driving this work, and his willingness to admit that perhaps he might have “overshot the mark” makes it so that I can’t help but contend with his argument seriously. “I won’t pretend that I’m not still conflicted. Because I am. I continue to question my own belief in American power. [. . .] Has my faith in America been too uncritical?” he asks himself. He claims one of the reasons he wrote the book was “to think through a kind of compromise position that I — and hopefully some of you — can come to terms with.”
Agree or disagree with his conclusion, Hamid’s work here opens up a space for a productive debate, a genuine back-and-forth between skeptics and optimists. It is precisely such conversations that build up the kind of strong civic culture that de Tocqueville — who Hamid cites frequently in the book — argued would be essential to the future of the American project, regardless of where we believe it will end up.
Stephen G. Adubato is an associate editor at Compact Magazine, a professor of philosophy, and the curator of the Cracks in Postmodernity blog, podcast, and magazine. Follow him on X @stephengadubato.
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If you'll pardon a comment from one of the other 7.9 billion people on the planet, I'm not sure how many of us would agree with any concept of the USA as "the lesser of all evils".
You'd have probably got pretty good numbers on that one around mid-1945, perhaps again in the 1960s, but I'd guess that's broadly been on the decline ever since and (with some notable exceptions such as Israel) most countries worldwide now simply have a plain unfavourable view of the US, let alone see any kind of utopian project or aspirational leadership in the stars and stripes. From the outside, the modern US looks more like a rampaging pirate gang which also has access to the most destructive weaponry on the planet.
Still, we do get some pretty good movies, so not all bad, eh?
"Is America Good?"
No. Next question.