The American Creed

While living and traveling in Peru and meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds, I was led to reflect on what might be described as the "character" of the American people. I wasn't forced by my friends and acquaintances to "defend" what it means to be an American; rather, conversations about European politics (Finnish parliamentary elections, the French presidential election, etc.) and Peruvian development inspired me to compare American attitudes toward government, education, and civil society to those of other nationalities. It was an open debate.

My Finnish friends in particular provided me with an interesting set of ideas about government, education, and civil society that stood in contrast to what I think is the predominant "American" view of such things. Finnish students and professionals alike remarked that while their country's very high taxes are at times a personal nuisance and too often mismanaged, the common, public good that those taxes ultimately serve is worth 1) the nuisance, and 2) the effort to reform government to become more fiscally efficient.

The socialist-style Finnish system applies a graduated income tax to its citizens so that the wealthy are responsible for paying more taxes (relative to their income) than the poor and working classes. And to be sure, there's the usual discontent among the middle and rich classes about social welfare -- the perception that many poor and working-class Finns don't do their part in finding gainful employment or in trying not to live off the state. Despite these very real social and economic problems, however, my Finnish friends told me that most well-off Finns continue to believe that it's ultimately a good thing to buttress the country's infrastructure and social networks with their taxes.

Hearing this made me ashamed to be an American. I knew instinctively that such a view of the common, public good was/is utterly foreign to the vast majority of Americans. Perhaps it wasn't always so. Or maybe this has always been the case in a country that prides itself on its individualist ethos and cult of self-determination. What I do know is that the American creed of every man (or: nuclear family unit) for himself was perfected during the Reagan Revolution, the late-'70s to mid-'90s social and political movement that, among other things, valorized private enterprise and unfettered capitalism at the expense of public institutions, social welfare, and, specifically, the very idea that the country's tax burden would be shared by all citizens.

One truly sad result of this long period of dismantling the bonds of our civil society is that many well-off Americans actually feel victimized by the government when it tries to raise their income tax (which of course is modest compared to those paid by citizens in other "First World" countries). Even worse is how well-off Americans tend to feel victimized by the poorest sectors of society -- those who don't earn a living wage, who need to work three jobs to make ends meet, and need I mention "illegal immigrants"? The poor: whom the well-off characterize as morally and culturally deficient leeches, in so many words. The poor: whose socioeconomic poverty is somehow their fault, and theirs only.

It's this cult of victimization that's uniquely American, it seems to me. The well-off Finns have their complaints, sure. But at least many of them are able to distinguish a problem of social inequality (the poor needing help and the state mismanaging the system that distributes "help" to the poor) from a basically personal feeling of resentment, which, as Nietzsche reminds us, is the other face of self-righteousness (the poor are themselves deficient and so offend "me" by taking "my" money).

But why take my word for it? Durham's weekly news magazine The Independent cites this quotation from a recent article in the daily newspaper The News & Observer:

"The last thing I want to do is put more money into education, because I don't want to pay for something I never use."
--Bob Williamson, 46, a childless real estate executive from Wake Forest, quoted in an N&O story about how a majority of Wake County residents who don't have children oppose new taxes to help the schools keep up with growth.

So goes the American creed.

[For: Katri, Maria, Tiia, Lissu, Laura]

Call on Me: London--Lima--Chapel Hill

London, summer 2005: DJ Eric Prydz's "Call on Me" takes Europe by storm and is the dance hit of the summer. Sampling Steve Winwood's 1987 song "Valerie," the song is a foot-thumping blend of catchy beats and memorable lyrical crescendos: "Call on meeeee... Call on me! Call on meeeee... Call on me! Call on meeeee... I'm the same boy I used to be."

The music video for "Call on Me" is equally memorable: an aerobics class workout becomes the site for a hot-and-heavy flirtation between the instructor and the lone male in the room. Curiously, while the girls around him get sweaty and toss their hair, the male remains sweat-free and smiles in a sort of goofy, dazed way. At any rate, the video is probably best known for the pelvic-thrust dance move that the class performs in unison after the first crescendo. The move goes a little something like this: spread your legs apart, keeping them parallel to each other; bend your knees and place your hands on your thighs; and now in this semi-sumo-squatting position, THRUST your hips to the beat of the song. It's that simple!



Though the unremixed version of "Call on Me" runs a little less than three minutes, it becomes an immediate dance sensation throughout Europe and the pelvic thrust becomes a rather popular form of bodily expression in discos for the entire summer of 2005.

Lima, summer (or the northern hemisphere's spring) 2007: At the popular club La Cede in Miraflores, the lone gay-friendly discoteca in Lima (the "gay club" in Miraflores, Downtown, was recently shut down by the district's conservative, evangelical mayor), I grow accustomed to watching music videos of songs the DJ plays during his set. While I'm sure this fusion of song and video has become the norm in dance clubs the world over, I really only experience it for the first time at La Cede. (It's been five years since I was last in Europe.)

Now although La Cede is mind-bogglingly crowded every time I go in there, I generally enjoy its atmosphere, its diverse crowd, and the music/videos the DJ plays -- a sometimes jarring but always fun blend of salsa, reggaeton, and '80s pop. As far as I can tell, the two constants in the DJ's playlist are: "Gasolina" and Erasure's "A Little Respect." And the best part is that the mostly Peruvian crowd knows all the lyrics to both songs. "Oh baby pleeeeease / give a little respect / to-hoo-ooo meeeee!"

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, summer 2007: It's my first sojourn to Chapel Hill, a neighbor city to Durham, since my return to the States. In fact, it's probably my first trip to the Chapel Hill bar scene in over a year. Five of us pack into my friend Bea's two-door, and having to ride on the "hump" in the back seat reminds me a bit of "making do" with transportation in Lima.

Chapel Hill is pretty dead this Thursday night -- perhaps it's post-Memorial Day fatigue. After a quiet spell at the bar Jack Sprat, we go to the dance club The Library, an old favorite of mine from three years ago. Bea, Ignacio, and Darian don't like the scene there and leave within fifteen minutes. Alvaro and I, though, are digging the fact that at least some people are dancing here and so stick around a while longer for a drink.

After a forgettable song by Eminem, the DJ puts on "Call on Me" and those funky aerobics girls appear on the huge TV screen above the dance floor. The students on the dance floor scream in unison -- the song has become a huge dance hit on the college circuit. (Perhaps there's a musical progression/regression to be examined here: from European discos to the U.S. college party scene.)

Without any prompting, girls in their short skirts and boys in their khaki shorts and polo shirts "assume the position": it's the preppy version of the dance. After that first deliciously frenetic crescendo, twenty college kids thrust their pelvises in an orgy of glittery make-up and popped collars.

Alvaro and I are watching the dance floor, and the music video, from a booth ten feet away. At first I make a vague attempt to laugh off the scene in front of us. But then I feel a weird sensation. My feet start tapping the bar stool I'm sitting on. My hand begins to rap the countertop in sync with the song's beat. A smile crosses my face. I love this song!!

But... but then I feel paralyzed. I'm bumping along in my seat, yet I can't muster up the courage to just go to the dance floor and move, let my body go. To be fair, I don't a friend to dance with, and the dance floor is pretty empty overall. Still, I can't help but feel that if this had been Lima, I would have wasted no time in getting my pelvic thrust on.

I mention something to Alvaro about the difference in social relations in bars and clubs between Latin America and the States. We agree that things are less socially awkward and uptight in Latin America, where making eyes at a girl can in fact be a seductive thing and dancing with a guy doesn't mean you're "his" or "with him." Here in Chapel Hill you could sense something almost completely different: friends surely had a great time with each other, but there was very little opportunity for strangers to meet, to dance, to blush, to sing.

The song ends with my not having moved an inch from my seat.

I remember the several nights of dancing I enjoyed at La Cede. I remember joining the tourists, locals, expats, and guides who were dancing the night away at a discoteca in Arequipa.

I finish my beer and wonder how long it will be before I dance like that again.