The Dissolution of Western Culture

I’m not sure that either of the voices on the talk radio show I was listening to knew where to go. The news story was this: three men in England were killed while trying to protect their business from looters; they were struck by a car and killed.

First, I was sure the target was to be the looters—the no-good, over-entitled, low-class hooligans who just wanted new gadgets and so were raising havoc in one of the most civilized of nations on earth.

However, the men were Muslim, so the conversation turned on a sound bite. A brother of one of the victims was quoted as saying he would find the people responsible for the act and cut their heads from their bodies.

Then the line was, oh, but this is that peaceful religion we hear about. Pure sarcasm. They couldn't defend the victims because of that line from a grief-stricken brother.

Or could they? The conversation turned to the most purchased item in the riot areas: baseball bats. Apparently, the problem--and the selling point of the segment--is the laws against gun ownership in Great Britain: if the men had only had—that is, legally owned—guns, they could have stopped the car. So in an odd way it was about the looters after all and, as far as I can tell, it was a fantasy situation of sorts for a certain type of gun owner to be in: a time and place where they can take things into their own justice-wielding hands and stop that car coming at them.

Except “they” were Muslim, and so the fantasy got muddied.

This talk show also mentioned certain race-based crimes at the Wisconsin state fair, as if both events were part of the growing need for responsible gun-owners in society.

***

Today, I was privy to a multicultural birthday party. Well, the party was really very American: American food, presents, singing “Happy Birthday,” and cupcakes. What was multicultural was the families: one Asian, one Anglo; one Laotian-American, one Dutch-American. No. Two American families of different racial make-up; both immigrants; one third-generation, one first-generation.

However, certain strands of the different families cannot communicate; they absolutely do not “get” each other. One struggles to imagine life elsewhere and names so hard to pronounce. So for him I latch onto a narrative I know he’ll love: one of the women present has recently been reunited with her dear friend after 35 years; she had all but completed her degree in medicine in her home country, but fled before receiving her diploma, lest the communists should detain her. Here, because of language barriers perceived and real, she has been a CNA.

“So you gave up everything for freedom? Of course, I suppose I would too,” he says.

He does love the narrative. Because it speaks of freedom and because it speaks of the greatness of western culture and democracy which has taken her in. This is the narrative of his life, whose brother was killed in Korea, whose ideal it was to join the Army band, who lives on stories of the Navy Seals.

The other strand was mad at me for giving the narrative. For pre-packaging it for his consumption. For the way he made the story about him and his country. For him not understanding so much about the nuance of the situation, of the individual sitting before him. For a lack of respect for otherness, for the greatness that can come from elsewhere and be lost here. For a lack of humility before the gift of country and the diversity that continues to make it strong.

Trying to translate this kind of divide always leaves me at an utter loss for words. (Well, almost.) What makes me really fearful is the larger context. He has said to me earlier in the morning, “Yeah, it’s terrible times we live in, isn’t it? Course it’s kind of exciting, too, to see everything break up like it is. Like those riots. It’s already starting. And it’s coming here—it’s already here. Did you hear about that deal in Wisconsin? It’s here, it’s already here.”