Feliz 1984

I originally started writing this blog article with the intention to give a review of Mailer’s book and delve into people’s infatuation with realistic violence. However, that tangent seemed to entirely miss the point of the book. Mailer did not want to write a book that would dramatize violence for the masses to enjoy. That is the job of Tom Clancy or war/action movies (think any film made in Hollywood in the last 20 years…Rambo). Mailer’s book provides a cross-section of the US Military and ultimately, via flashbacks on the men’s past, gives us glimpse into American life. When Mailer writes, ““The natural role of the 20th century man is anxiety” he defines America and Americans with worry. Filling the entire narrative is worry/fear, fear of officers/other enlisted men, fear of being cuckolded, fear of death, fear of war, or combat, and fear of minorities. By setting this observation within the Army, arguably a diverse group of Americans from the beatnik traveler to the high brow New Englander, he is making a general statement not only about the men in World War II that can be applied to our own lives.

Is the general state of Americans anxiety? Probably, I tend to worry a lot about seemingly pointless things. However, I am more concerned with the exploitation of this anxiety to achieve particular aims. I cannot help but throw up a little in the back of my throat when considering American fear with the current Republican Convention, especially Giuliani’s speech. It resembled something out of 1984, a large collection of people standing around booing and yelling, it was a giant “two minute hate.” By using Orwellian Hate rhetoric, for example the constant mentioning of terrorist attacks, the Republicans are using our own fears against us to gain control. They want to present themselves as the comfortable big brother, pun totally intended, who will protect us from the big and dangerous bully. It is a model that has been used, just replace Cold War Russia with Islamic Terrorism and you have a real life Emmanuel Goldstein, this is why I am so attracted to Obama’s politics. He is promoting change away from this dynamic. No longer is “us verses them” relevant. I think here Obama’s experience as a community organizer is very important, regardless of Palin’s claim that it has no responsibility, because it changes this dynamic. Obama politics are ground up, he incorporates community, our thoughts, and our reactions. Obama’s politics are different; he gives us the possibility for change from this old system. Even with my general distrust of post-modernist philosophy, the right verse wrong, yes or no, us verses them, this fear-mongering modernist philosophy that has a strangle hold on Americans must change, we must adapt a different, dare I say a pluralist perspective, method to governing.