What's So Great About America

by Dinesh D'Souza

  But they do have the power to disrupt and terrify the people of America and the West. This is one of their goals, and their attack on September 11, 2001, was quite successful in this regard. But there is a second goal: to unify the Muslim world behind the fundamentalist banner and to foment uprisings against pro-Western regimes. Thus the bin Ladens of the world are waging a two-front war: against Western influence in the Middle East and against pro-Western governments and liberal influences within the Islamic world. So the West is not faced with a pure “clash of civilizations.” It is not “the West” against “Islam.” It is a clash of civilizations within the Muslim world. One side or the other will prevail.

  So what should American policy be toward the region? It is a great mistake for Americans to believe that their country is hated because it is misunderstood. It is hated because it is understood only too well. Sometimes people say to me, “But the mullahs have a point about American culture. They are right about Jerry Springer.” Yes, they are right about Springer. If we could get them to agree to stop bombing our facilities in return for us shipping them Jerry Springer to do with as they like, we should make the deal tomorrow, and throw in some of Springer’s guests. But the Islamic fundamentalists don’t just object to the excesses of American liberty: they object to liberty itself. Nor can we appease them by staying out of their world. We live in an age in which the flow of information is virtually unstoppable. We do not have the power to keep our ideals and our culture out of their lives.

  Thus there is no alternative to facing their hostility. First, we need to destroy their terrorist training camps and networks. This is not easy to do, because some of these facilities are in countries like Iraq, Iran, Libya, and the Sudan. The U.S. should demand that those countries dismantle their terror networks and stop being incubators of terrorism. If they do not, we should work to get rid of their governments. How this is done is a matter of prudence. In some cases, such as Iraq, the direct use of force might be the answer. In others, such as Iran, the U.S. can capitalize on widespread popular dissatisfaction with the government.9 Iran has a large middle class, with strong democratic and pro-American elements. But the dissenters are sorely in need of leadership, resources, and an effective strategy to defeat the ruling theocracy.

  The U.S. also has to confront the fact that regimes allied with America, such as Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, are undemocratic, corrupt, and repressive. Indeed, the misdoings and tyranny of these regimes strengthen the cause of the fundamentalists, who are able to tap deep veins of popular discontent. How do the regimes deal with this fundamentalist resistance? They subsidize various religious and educational programs administered by the fundamentalists that teach terrorism and hatred of America. By focusing the people’s discontent against a foreign target, the United States, the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan hope to divert attention from their own failings. The United States must make it clear to its Muslim allies that this “solution” is unacceptable. If they want American aid and American support, they must stop funding mosques and schools that promote terrorism and anti-Americanism. Moreover, they must take steps to reduce corruption, expand civil liberties, and enfranchise their people.

  In the long term, America’s goal is a large and difficult one: to turn Muslim fundamentalists into classical liberals. This does not mean that we want them to stop being Muslims. It does mean, however, that we want them to practice their religion in the liberal way. Go to a Promise Keepers meeting in Washington, D.C., or another of America’s big cities. You will see tens of thousands of men singing, praying, hugging, and pledging chastity to their wives. A remarkable sight. These people are mostly evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. They are apt to approach you with the greeting, “Let me tell you what Jesus Christ has meant to my life.” They want you to accept Christ, but their appeal is not to force but to consent. They do not say, “Accept Christ or I am going to plunge a dagger into your chest.” Even the fundamentalist Christians in the West are liberals: they are practicing Christianity “in the liberal way.”

  The task of transforming Muslim fundamentalists into classical liberals will not be an easy one to perform in the Islamic world, where there is no tradition of separating religion and government. We need not require that Islamic countries adopt America’s strict form of separation, which prohibits any government involvement in religion. But it is indispensable that Muslim fundamentalists relinquish the use of force for the purpose of spreading Islam. They, too, should appeal to consent. If this seems like a ridiculous thing to ask of Muslims, let us remember that millions of Muslims are already living this way. These are, of course, the Muslim immigrants to Europe and the United States. They are following the teachings of their faith, but most of them understand that they must respect the equal rights of others. They have renounced the jihad of the sword and confine themselves to the jihad of the pen and the jihad of the heart. In general, the immigrants are showing the way for Islam to change in the same way that Christianity changed in order to survive and flourish in the modern world.

  Whether America can succeed in the mammoth enterprises of stopping terrorism and liberalizing the Islamic world depends a good deal on the people in the Middle East and a great deal on us. Fundamentalist Islam has now succeeded Soviet communism as the organizing theme of American foreign policy. Thus our newest challenge comes from a very old adversary. The West has been battling Islam for more than a thousand years. It is possible that this great battle has now been resumed, and that over time we will come to see the seventy-year battle against communism as a short detour.

  But are we up to the challenge? There are some who think we are not. They believe that Americans are a divided people: not even a nation, but a collection of separate tribes. The multiculturalists actually proclaim this to be a good thing, and they strive to encourage people to affirm their differences. If, however, the multiculturalists are right in saying that “all we have in common is our diversity,” then it follows that we have nothing in common. This does not bode well for the national unity that is a prerequisite to fighting against a determined foe. If the ethnic group is the primary unit of allegiance, why should we make sacrifices for people who come from ethnic groups other than our own? Doesn’t a nation require a loyalty that transcends ethnic particularity?

  Of course it does. And fortunately America does command such a loyalty. The multiculturalists are simply wrong about America, and despite their best efforts to promote a politics of difference, Americans remain a united people with shared values and a common way of life. There are numerous surveys of national attitudes that confirm this,10 but it is most easily seen when Americans are abroad. Hang out at a Parisian café, for instance, and you can easily pick out the Americans: they dress the same way, eat the same food, listen to the same music, and laugh at the same jokes. However different their personalities, Americans who run into each other in remote places always become fast friends. And even the most jaded Americans who spend time in other countries typically return home with an intense feeling of relief and a newfound appreciation for the routine satisfactions of American life.

  It is easy to forget the cohesiveness of a free people in times of peace and prosperity. New York is an extreme example of the great pandemonium that results when countless individuals and groups pursue their diverse interests in the normal course of life. In a crisis, however, the national tribe comes together, and this is exactly what happened in New York and the rest of America following the terrorist attack. Suddenly political, regional, and racial differences evaporated; suddenly Americans stood as one. This surprised many people, including many Americans, who did not realize that, despite the centrifugal forces that pull us in different directions, there is a deep national unity that holds us together.

  Unity, however, is not sufficient for the challenges ahead. America also needs the moral self-confidence to meet its adversary. This is the true lesson of Vietnam: Americans cannot succeed unless they are convinced that they are fight
ing on behalf of the good. There are some, as we have seen, who fear that America no longer stands for what is good. They allege that American freedom produces a licentious, degenerate society that is scarcely worth defending. We return, therefore, to the question of what America is all about, and whether this country, in its dedication to the principle of freedom, subverts the higher principle of virtue.

  The central themes of American life can be seen in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. The protagonist is typically American in that he has invented his own identity: James Gatz has become Jay Gatsby. On the surface, Gatsby is a great American success story, yet Fitzgerald also portrays a darker side— Gatsby fabricates his credentials, he hangs out with shady figures, and his wealth has probably been acquired illegally. Moreover, Gatsby is a man of questionable judgment: he loves a woman, Daisy, who is vain and callous. He foolishly thinks that his great wealth can buy her affections and somehow erase the past. These are typical American illusions, and Gatsby pays a high price for them—he ends up dead in the swimming pool.

  Even so, Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s hero—he is truly the “great” Gatsby—because he represents the magical self-transformation of the individual in a new kind of society. And in Fitzgerald’s view he is redeemed by the magnitude of his aspirations. There is “something gorgeous about him,” “some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” and an “extraordinary gift for hope.” Gatsby’s life is a reminder of the astonishment and wonder with which the first Dutch sailors beheld the new world, a world that signals the fulfillment of “the last and greatest of all human dreams.”11 Fitzgerald’s conclusion is that America still holds out that kind of promise. He implies, and I agree with him, that there is something unexpected, turbocharged, and exhilarating about living in such a society. It is simply more fun than living elsewhere.

  So what about virtue? The fundamental difference between the society that the Islamic fundamentalists want and the society that Americans have is that the Islamic activists seek a country where the life of the citizens is directed by others, while Americans live in a nation where the life of the citizens is largely self-directed. The central goal of American freedom is self-reliance: the individual is placed in the driver’s seat of his own life. The Islamic fundamentalists presume the moral superiority of the externally directed life on the grounds that it is aimed at virtue. The self-directed life, however, also seeks virtue—virtue realized not through external command but, as it were, “from within.” The real question is: which type of society is more successful in achieving the goal of virtue?

  Let us concede at the outset that, in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Thus we should not be surprised that there is a considerable amount of vice, licentiousness, and vulgarity in a free society. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom is simply an expression of human flaws and weaknesses. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amidst the temptations that a rich and free society offers, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen. The free society does not guarantee virtue any more than it guarantees happiness. But it allows for the pursuit of both, a pursuit rendered all the more meaningful and profound because success is not guaranteed: it has to be won through personal striving.

  By contrast, the externally directed life that Islamic fundamentalists seek undermines the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in self-directed societies, it is almost nonexistent in externally directed societies because coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this, because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue: it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue. And once the reins of coercion are released, as they were for the terrorists who lived in the United States, the worst impulses of human nature break loose. Sure enough, the deeply religious terrorists spent their last days in gambling dens, bars, and strip clubs, sampling the licentious lifestyle they were about to strike out against.12 In this respect they were like the Spartans, who—Plutarch tells us—were abstemious in public but privately coveted wealth and luxury. In externally directed societies, the absence of freedom signals the absence of virtue. Thus the free society is not simply richer, more varied, and more fun: it is also morally superior to the externally directed society. There is no reason for anyone, least of all the cultural conservatives, to feel hesitant about rising to the defense of our free society.

  Even if Americans possess the necessary unity and self-confidence, there is also the question of nerve. Some people, at home and abroad, are skeptical that America can endure a long war against Islamic fundamentalism because they consider Americans to be, well, a little bit soft. As one of bin Laden’s lieutenants put it, “Americans love life, and we love death.” His implication was that Americans do not have the stomach for the kind of deadly, drawn-out battle that the militant Muslims are ready to fight. This was also the attitude of the Taliban. “Come and get us,” they taunted America. “We are ready for jihad. Come on, you bunch of weenies.” And then the Taliban was hit by a juggernaut of American firepower that caused their regime to disintegrate within a couple of weeks. Soon the Taliban leadership had headed for the caves, or for Pakistan, leaving their captured soldiers to beg for their lives. Even the call of jihad and the promise of martyrdom could not stop these hard men from—in the words of Mullah Omar himself—“running like chickens with their heads cut off.” This is not to say that Americans should expect all its battles against terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism to be so short and so conclusive. But neither should America’s enemies expect Americans to show any less firmness or fierceness than they themselves possess.

  Although much of America is immersed in Rousseau’s ethic of authenticity, there are sizable segments of the culture that have not been infiltrated by it. The firefighters and policemen who raced into the burning towers of the World Trade Center showed that their lives were dedicated to something higher than “self-fulfillment.” The same can be said of Todd Beamer and his fellow passengers who forced the terrorists to crash United Airlines Flight 93 in the woods of western Pennsylvania rather than flying on to Camp David or the White House. Authenticity, thank God, is not the operating principle of the U.S. military. America’s enemies should not expect to do battle against the Starbucks guy. The military has its own culture, which is closer to that of the firefighters and policemen, and also bears an affinity with the culture of the “greatest generation.” Only now are those Americans who grew up during the 1960s coming to appreciate the virtues—indeed the indispensability—of this older, sturdier culture of courage, nobility, and sacrifice. It is this culture that will protect the liberties of all Americans, including that of the Starbucks guy.

  As the American founders knew, America is a new kind of society that produces a new kind of human being. That human being—confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future oriented—is a vast improvement over the wretched, servile, fatalistic, and intolerant human being that traditional societies have always produced, and that Islamic societies produce now. In America, the life we are given is not as important as the life we make. Ultimately, America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible the good life, and the life that is good.

  America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world. By making sacrifices for America, and by our willingness to die for her, we bind ourselves by invisible cords to those great patriots who fought at Yorktown, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima, and we prove
ourselves worthy of the blessings of freedom. By defeating the terrorist threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism, we can protect the American way of life while once again redeeming humanity from a global menace. History will view America as a great gift to the world, a gift that Americans today must preserve and cherish.

  NOTES

  PREFACE

  1 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 144–51.

  CHAPTER ONE

  1 “Notes Found After the Hijackings,” New York Times, 29 September 2001, B-3.

  2 John O’Sullivan, “Volatile Ideas That Bombs Can’t Destroy,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 October 2001, G-1.

  3 Nada El Sawy, “Yes, I Follow Islam, but I’m Not a Terrorist,” Newsweek, 15 October 2001, 12.

  4 Hendrik Hertzberg and David Remnick, “The Trap,” New Yorker, 1 October 2001, 38.

  5 Joseph Lelyveld, “The Mind of a Suicide Bomber,” New York Times Magazine, 28 October 2001, 50.

  6 “Don’t Count on Muslim Support,” The American Enterprise, December 2001, 11.