be a patriot.” By July 2002, it bothered me a good deal. Free-floating patriotism seemed like a direct measure of our free-floating anxiety.
Take the British for contrast. The British have a love of their country that is profound. They can revile it, tell dirty stories about it, give you dish on all the imperfects who are leading the country. But their patriotism is deep. In America it’s as if we’re playing musical chairs, and you shouldn’t get caught without a flag or you’re out of the game. Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It’s as if we’re a three-hundred-pound man who’s seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and yet every three minutes he’s got to reaffirm the fact that his armpits have a wonderful odor. We don’t need compulsive, self-serving patriotism. It’s odious. When you have a great country, it’s your duty to be critical of it so it can become even greater. But culturally, emotionally, we are growing more arrogant, more vain. We’relosing a sense of the beauty not only of democracy but also of its peril.
Democracy is built upon a notion that is exquisite and dangerous. It virtually states that if the will of the populace is freely expressed, more good than bad will result. When America began, it was the first time in the history of civilization that a nation dared to make an enormous bet founded on this daring notion—that there is more good than bad in people. Until then, the prevailing assumption had been that the powers at the top knew best; people were no good and had to be controlled. Now we have to keep reminding ourselves that just because we’ve been a great democracy, it doesn’t guarantee we’re going to continue to be one. Democracy is existential. It changes. It changes all the time. That’s one reason why I detest promiscuous patriotism. You don’t take democracy for granted. It is always in peril. We all know that any man or woman can go from being a relatively good person to a bad one. We can all become corrupted, or embittered. We can be swallowedby our miseries in life, become weary, give up. The fact that we’ve been a great democracy doesn’t mean we will automatically keep being one if we keep waving the flag. It’s ugly. You take a monarchy for granted, or a fascist state. You have to. That’s the given. But a democracy changes all the time.
4
The fear that waved the flag in every hand was our nightmare of terrorism. Nightmares tell us that life is absurd, unreasonable, unjust, warped, crazy, and ridiculously dangerous. Terorrism suggests that your death will have no relation to your life, as if your death will also produce an identity crisis.
Implicit in our attitude toward our own end is that, for most of us, there is a logic within it. We spend much of our lives searching for that logic. We live in a certain manner. We act out some of ourvirtues and vices; we restrain others. From the sum of all those actions and abstentions will come our final disease. That is our assumption, at least for most of us. It can even be seen as a logical conclusion. We pay with our bodies for the sins and excesses of our minds and hearts. It is almost as if we want it that way. Our psyches are jarred, even tortured, by absurdity, and confirmed, sometimes soothed even, by a reasonable recognition of consequence.
Terrorism, however, shatters this equation. The comprehension of our death that we have worked to obtain is lost. Our ability to find meaning in our lives is lost.
5
DOTSON RADER : So, do you hate terrorism?
NORMAN MAILER : I hate it; I loathe it. Since I believe in reincarnation, I think the character of your death is tremendously important to you. One wants to be able to meet one’s death with a certain seriousness. To me, it is horrible to be killed without warning. Because you can’t prepare yourself in any last way for your next existence. So your death contributes to absurdity. Terrorism’s ultimate tendency is to make
Take the British for contrast. The British have a love of their country that is profound. They can revile it, tell dirty stories about it, give you dish on all the imperfects who are leading the country. But their patriotism is deep. In America it’s as if we’re playing musical chairs, and you shouldn’t get caught without a flag or you’re out of the game. Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It’s as if we’re a three-hundred-pound man who’s seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and yet every three minutes he’s got to reaffirm the fact that his armpits have a wonderful odor. We don’t need compulsive, self-serving patriotism. It’s odious. When you have a great country, it’s your duty to be critical of it so it can become even greater. But culturally, emotionally, we are growing more arrogant, more vain. We’relosing a sense of the beauty not only of democracy but also of its peril.
Democracy is built upon a notion that is exquisite and dangerous. It virtually states that if the will of the populace is freely expressed, more good than bad will result. When America began, it was the first time in the history of civilization that a nation dared to make an enormous bet founded on this daring notion—that there is more good than bad in people. Until then, the prevailing assumption had been that the powers at the top knew best; people were no good and had to be controlled. Now we have to keep reminding ourselves that just because we’ve been a great democracy, it doesn’t guarantee we’re going to continue to be one. Democracy is existential. It changes. It changes all the time. That’s one reason why I detest promiscuous patriotism. You don’t take democracy for granted. It is always in peril. We all know that any man or woman can go from being a relatively good person to a bad one. We can all become corrupted, or embittered. We can be swallowedby our miseries in life, become weary, give up. The fact that we’ve been a great democracy doesn’t mean we will automatically keep being one if we keep waving the flag. It’s ugly. You take a monarchy for granted, or a fascist state. You have to. That’s the given. But a democracy changes all the time.
4
The fear that waved the flag in every hand was our nightmare of terrorism. Nightmares tell us that life is absurd, unreasonable, unjust, warped, crazy, and ridiculously dangerous. Terorrism suggests that your death will have no relation to your life, as if your death will also produce an identity crisis.
Implicit in our attitude toward our own end is that, for most of us, there is a logic within it. We spend much of our lives searching for that logic. We live in a certain manner. We act out some of ourvirtues and vices; we restrain others. From the sum of all those actions and abstentions will come our final disease. That is our assumption, at least for most of us. It can even be seen as a logical conclusion. We pay with our bodies for the sins and excesses of our minds and hearts. It is almost as if we want it that way. Our psyches are jarred, even tortured, by absurdity, and confirmed, sometimes soothed even, by a reasonable recognition of consequence.
Terrorism, however, shatters this equation. The comprehension of our death that we have worked to obtain is lost. Our ability to find meaning in our lives is lost.
5
DOTSON RADER : So, do you hate terrorism?
NORMAN MAILER : I hate it; I loathe it. Since I believe in reincarnation, I think the character of your death is tremendously important to you. One wants to be able to meet one’s death with a certain seriousness. To me, it is horrible to be killed without warning. Because you can’t prepare yourself in any last way for your next existence. So your death contributes to absurdity. Terrorism’s ultimate tendency is to make
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