There She is, Myth America!

In his Pulitzer-Prize-winning, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (1955), Hofstadter wrote:

...The American mind was raised upon a sentimental attachment to rural living and upon a series of notions about rural people and rural life that I have chosen to designate as the agrarian myth.¹ The agrarian myth represents a kind of homage that Americans have paid to the fancied innocence of their origins.
...
¹By myth, as I use the word here, I do not mean an idea that is simply false, but rather one that so effectively embodies men's values that it profoundly influences their way of perceiving reality and hence their behavior. In this sense, myths may have varying degrees of fiction or reality. The agrarian myth became increasingly fictional as time went on.

Rick Shenkman finds the flag-worship of our time to be grounded in myth. On July 4^th, 2009, if this is (fair & balanced) myth-unmaking, so be it.

[x HNN]
Why Is The Flag So Important?
By Rick Shenkman

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american answer appeal asked began common congress define democrats effect enough example factor facts flag gave gifted give glasses help history immigrants impulses interested millions music myths narratives nation obama patriotism patterns people percent playing politicians politics poll president reagan recent republicans specific speech symbols think understand voters world x-ray

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In a recent Gallup Poll Americans were asked how they define patriotism. Not surprisingly the familiar divisions of the culture war surfaced in the answers people gave. Democrats, for example, were about twice as likely as Republicans to consider the expression of dissent a sign of patriotism.

What the poll showed is that Americans have as varied a definition of patriotism as they do of freedom. But even more interesting to me as a historian is the common underlying assumption of the members of both parties that symbols like patriotism matter.

Why do symbols like flag pins, much in the news of late, count so much that presidential candidate Barack Obama felt the need to explain why he didn't wear one? [Now he does.] And why do we feel so strongly about the flag that both Democrats and Republicans try to claim ownership of it?
The answer is that myths drive our politics. Less interested in facts than we think we are, we respond most powerfully to politicians when they are using myths. Myths are the sheet music of American politics. Politicians feed them into an all-American player piano, out of which comes what sounds like music to voters' ears.

Behind every good speech a politician gives is one myth or another. Few myths are as powerful as the ones involving patriotism. These make our spirits soar. Politicians like Ronald Reagan, who master the music of the myths of patriotism, create such a strong bond with voters that millions of us are willing to follow them even when we disagree with specific policies they embrace.

Think of all the great moments in Reagan's presidency—when in 1986 he gave his stirring speech on the anniversary of the flood-lighted Statue of Liberty in New York harbor or a year later when he beseeched Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"—and you see at work a maestro playing on our deepest emotional impulses.

Why are we so susceptible to myths? Two factors account for it. One has to do with our specific history as a nation of immigrants. As a people lacking a common ancestry, only our myths unite us. They help define who we are as a people and the values we cherish. Flag myths in particular appeal to us because of our deep-seated fear that our diversity may be a weakness rather than a strength. It's no coincidence that the American infatuation with the flag began in the 1890s when millions of immigrants began arriving. Worried that they would not readily abandon their loyalties to their homeland, old-stock Americans began posting flags in classrooms and asking students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The other factor has to do with the fundamental fact that in our mass democracy the majority does not know enough about politics to engage in a sustained and serious debate about issues. To cite two examples: only 35 percent know Congress can override a veto. Only 30 percent ever knew that William Rehnquist was conservative. And 49 percent think the President can suspend the Constitution. In the absence of facts, myths fill the vacuum. Only when facts become inescapable, as the fact of $4-a-gallon gas has recently, do the voters look up and take notice.

In a world in which myths rule, Republicans have an advantage over Democrats—or have had at any rate since the era of Reagan. He taught Republicans how to use myths to appeal to voters. No Democrat has been similarly gifted in the use of myths (though Obama, who sells his life story as a classic American myth, might be the exception). While Republicans have been playing on our myths, Democrats have been insisting politics is rational—a losing strategy in a nation of voters allergic to facts.

Like them or not, myths are here to stay. So how can you protect yourself? It is not myths per se that get us into trouble. It is our inability to see them. So seeing them is key. It is when we don't that we are then left vulnerable to impulses we neither understand nor recognize. Like stereotypes, the myths shape our thinking in preconceived ways, letting in some facts and blocking others. Myths in effect give us grand narratives to help arrange the unordered events of the world into coherent patterns. These patterns—narratives, if you will—help make the world understandable even if the pattern is false in whole or in part.

What we need in effect, then, is a good pair of X-ray glasses (and the courage to put them on). If we can see the myths, we can deal with them head-on. And we can see them easily enough by putting them in historical context. Only when myths seem to stand outside history are they abstract and overpowering.

So the next time you see politicians wrapping themselves in the flag, figuratively reach for those X-ray glasses. With them in hand you'll be able to see right through whatever patriotic myths politicians are exploiting. Ω

[Rick Shenkman is the editor and founder of George Mason University's History News Network, a website that features articles by historians on current events. An associate professor of history at George Mason University, he can regularly be seen on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Shenkman is a New York Times best-selling author of six history books, including Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History and Presidential Ambition: How the Presidents Gained Power, Kept Power and Got Things Done. His latest book is Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. Educated at Vassar and Harvard, Rick Shenkman is an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter and the former managing editor of KIRO-TV, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. In 1997 he was the host, writer and producer of a prime time series for The Learning Channel inspired by his books on myths. In 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. Shenkman gives lectures at colleges around the country on several topics, including American myths and presidential politics.]

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