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If you’re a user of the social-networking site Facebook, you will be as familiar as I am with the ‘Murica’ meme. The prevalence of this meme is such that lately even celebrities, intellectuals and political figures are making use of its lazy appeal. In case you don’t use social networking, or haven’t otherwise had the pleasure of coming across the slur, the KnowYourMeme database explains it thus: “Murica or occasionally ‘Murika’ is a slang term for America which is used to denote extreme patriotism, coupled with aspects of a redneck or southern American stereotype.”
The cartoon above is a famous expression of this vulgar sentiment. It crudely depicts the mythical America of robotic flag-wavers, mountain dew-soaked knowledge haters, and obese gun-nuts. By the presence of the flag, the image also makes comedy of the country itself, together with everything it stands for, such as the notion of liberty and being grateful for the blessings of capitalism.
I’m getting rather sick of the meme myself. It isn’t fair, valid or reflective of anything beyond the ignorance of those who make use of it. Anti-Americanism of any kind can be refuted very easily by recounting basic realities. .
- Americans are stupid? The United States has been the homeland of 357 Nobel Prize winners. This can be compared to the UK (118 winners) and France (67 winners). If the issue of population size is raised, one can compare the figure against that of India (13 winners) and China (12 winners).
- Americans are lazy? In terms of economic productivity, the US dwarfs the rest of the industrialised world. The GDP per capita in the United States is USD$55, 904, while the GDP per capita in the European Union (its closest economic and political rival) is USD$36,392.
- Americans are unsophisticated? In the related fields of science and technology, America has led the world for more than half a century. The achievements of NASA form the standard to which all other space projects are compared. And just a few blocks away from there, the Texas Medical Centre leads the world in healthcare innovation, providing the most advanced cancer treatment and surgical expertise in the developed world.
One could go on. One could mention the awe-inspiring extent of the modern American Military, with its 15,000+ aircraft, 272+ ships, 40,000+ armoured vehicles and 1,000,000+ fighting personnel. One could recount the heroic acts achieved by said military, such as the routing of Hitlerite racialism, Soviet Communism, and Baathist Arabism, etc… The list of American virtues puts the rest of the world firmly in its shadow, making them seem pathetic, retrograde, undeveloped.
Given that this is so, why then does such low and unrefined anti-Americanism persist? Jealousy? Perhaps, but surely not that alone. My inclination is that a very old sentiment still flourishes in the hearts of all who dwell outside the Western Hemisphere: namely, the idea that the US is fundamentally synthetic, an artifice, an incoherent dustbin of old-world apostates; that it isn’t a real country at all, but a jumble of stolen elites from other lands – lands which can more rightly lay claim to the achievement of their despoiled expatriates. That’s what I think.
This misfiring of the imagination is persuasive enough that many great minds, from Nietzsche to Freud, have found truth in it. Even for these it wasn’t enough to note that America is as old and distinguished an experiment as modern France, Bismarckian Germany and post-Imperial Russia. Rather, such minds have insisted on believing that America arrived out of a clear blue sky sometime in the midst of the first world war, before which it was only a dreamy concept of green prairies and hopping Indians.
In modern times this prejudice is implied by the sarcastic emphasis (in anti-US humour) on specific products like spray-on cheese and the Big Mac Hamburger. These products are brought up because they are themselves chemically enhanced and artificial, much like the world conceives America itself to be. To anti-Americans, the USA is not merely the home of the Big Mac, the USA is a Big Mac. Just as the beef patties once belonged to real, natural cows, but are now so processed and altered as to be illegitimate and fake, so did America’s Germans, Frenchmen and Anglo-Saxons once belong to real, natural countries, but are now so processed as to be illegitimate and fake.
The reality, of course, is very different. German-Americans are not synthetic Germans. They are real Americans. German-American achievements are not German achievements. They are American achievements. America is a real country, as old and legitimate and unique as any other, and with a population that is as native and peculiar to its soil as the Chinese are to China.
D, LDN.
Thank you for clarifying the meaning of this ugly little epithet. It certainly has gained traction during the presidential race. The first time I ever encountered the term was from an American living abroad. I took exception to it’s ugliness and shot back that it was a cheap insult coming from a prejudiced and totally wrong viewpoint. This individual, mind you, was not American born but had acquired US citizenship early in his life (he was born in Trinidad and now residing in Rome). Repeating this epithet, apparently puts him in with the cool crowd of marxists and anarchists in ever so cool and clueless Europe. Thing is, he will never be accepted there unless he condemns the US at every chance. You know, the kind of self-hating American the Euros like. And ‘Murica’ is to blame for nearly every problem in the world and it would be a great act of justice to bring it down. By tagging whole regions, that is, the so-called “Red States” as a bunch of obese, ignorant yahoos, it gives one a certain sense of smug eliteness. It’s cartoonish appeal gives the lazy thinkers a quick all in one summation of where they are coming from, which is to say, that sewer of the hard left. Most of those using it are wannabe outsiders looking for an easy way to gain some cred with the loudmouths on Facebook. It’s meant to alienate those conservative Red Staters and de-humanize them – something Hollywood and Television have been doing for years. He’s probably never even set foot in a Red State. To top it all off, he is black, living in Italy, where his black foreign-ness is way more a liability than it is here in the States. As soon as his novelty wears off, he’ll be viewed as one more black immigrant, ironically being subject to the same knee-jerk prejudice that he likes to project toward the hated USA.
I trace “Murica” back to the Obama strategy of racial division, recalling his provocative 2008 campaign speech in Pennsylvania where, to quote:
“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.”
“They” being you know who.
Now this is in Pennsylvania, an Eastern Blue State, not a Midwestern state as he prefaces in this speech – so much for any notion of geography. AND, never mind that minorities make up a sizable portion of the population in some of the so-called redneck “Red States”. The meme has been established. It’s now open season on the stereotypical old, white, religious conservative, whoever they are.
Pretty shoddy speech coming from a presidential candidate. He wasn’t there to win any votes but to poke a finger in the eye of the mythical Middle “Muican”.
Expect more of this to come in the months ahead.
Peace.
It’s certainly true that Hollywood plays a role in this. The ‘dumb white male’ is a common trope. He’s usually defined by patriotism, conservatism (and other sins).
Perhaps the enemies of America (including people in Europe) want to divide middle America from the coastal regions, thereby destroying the country entirely. Recall the famous ‘Jesusland’ map.
*”Murican”
I have to admit that in the past I have been a party to the “dumb American” trope – though I was unfamiliar with the “Murica” thing. It is an easy stereotype to make as an outsider, and Left Wingers here in Australia employ it as an easy slander at how America’s greatness has diminished over the last couple of decades. I note that reading English press Britons are even more wont to label American culture as inferior to Britain’s.
As NewYawker states it is a sad state of affairs, and insulting to say the least to all Americans of right and left politics. After spending a lot of time in America as an adult (in both blue and red states), I think it is something to laugh off. To make a crude analogy: images of Mohammed offend many more people than this “Family Guy” type cartoon yet there is no suicide attacks because of it. America is the most intellectual country in the world by a long shot. That there are differences in opinion and they are celebrated is a good thing.
Self-hatred of one’s culture is a dangerous trend (in western countries) worldwide. Today in Australia we celebrate our national day: Australia Day. While mainstream media focuses on honours, and everyday people who have made outstanding contributions to society the Left is ashamed. January 26 marks the day that Australia was colonised, being declared Terra Nullius (empty land). The collective guilt that the left wing feels for having dispossessed the original inhabitants overshadows any sense of achievement, and we will see Invasion Day parties around the country. As a descendent with some aboriginal background, I for one am proud that Australia was colonised, despite the genocides of my grandfather’s people and the overt racism that is still rife.
The time for being sorry is over.
The left need to move on and embrace the modern world, otherwise we will see a death form within of our great cultures.
“Self-hatred of one’s culture is a dangerous trend (in western countries) worldwide. Today in Australia we celebrate our national day: Australia Day. While mainstream media focuses on honours, and everyday people who have made outstanding contributions to society the Left is ashamed.” – Very true. You should read ‘Occidentalism’ by Ian Buruma. He takes issue with the West’s habit of judging itself more harshly than it does the rest of the world.