Empire of Illusion Ch. 5: In Conclusion, We’re Doomed
We’ve reached the end of Empire of Illusion. Throughout the previous chapters, Chris Hedges has argued that Americans have retreated into a fantasy world that denies the grim realities the country now faces. Here, in the concluding chapter, he performs an autopsy on those grim realities. Spoiler alert: we’re screwed.
To sum up as best I can: “oligarchs, corporations, and a narrow, selfish, political and economic elite” have hijacked the government and looted the treasury; the country’s physical infrastructure is crumbling to ruins; the $700 billion defense budget is draining the nation’s resources; the old standard of living will never return; the American Empire is collapsing; the culture has been degraded and reflects the cruelty of imperialism; democratic participation is only open to those whose way has been greased by corporate lobbyists; finally, the corporate mass media has no interest in telling us how bad things are, but focuses on superficial, empty gossip. It’s a shame the book didn’t come with a complimentary razorblade.
Transplanted Lawyer has touched on the main problem I have with the last chapter, which is that Hedges piles up a number of issues in a way that would suggest there’s some prime mover behind all of these problems, without really showing that there is one; it reads like a conspiracy theory with no conspiracy. T.L. also argued that Hedges is suggesting things are so bad that we’re doomed unless a strong government intervenes. However, I rather think that Hedges could just be saying, “Things are so bad that we’re doomed”. Period.
Certainly he’s saying the American Empire is doomed. I hear this idea quite often on the progressive left- American dreams of global omnipotence have hollowed out the culture at home in a manner familiar with late empires. And there is quite a stark gap now between what American military power might accomplish and what many people seem to think is possible. Moreover the country doesn’t have its books in order, nor is anyone in office willing to get them in order. And it’s been this way for decades.
Another interesting wrinkle to the chapter- and another increasingly prevalent idea on the progressive left- is that the America of old, while imperfect, was superior to what we have now, but alas has almost certainly been lost forever. It’s interesting because it’s a narrative of decline and not a program for progress. Sometimes it’s suggested, and I think Hedges implies this here, that the downfall of America by greed and hubris was fairly inevitable, given the profound limitations of human nature. Again, this is rather straightforward cultural conservatism.
By this account, militarism, economic decline and the rampant greed of ragnarok capitalism have created a nation that imports more than it exports, whose mass culture is insipid, whose leaders are beholden to an oligarchic business elite, whose police and military have entirely too much power, and where the standard of living is declining for all but a few- basically a banana republic.
The wreckage of this has been financial but also cultural. Another idea now common among progressives: the loss of community. It’s absolutely fascinating to me to hear progressive friends openly yearning for those lost, collective structures of meaning that once embedded the individual in his community and provided a narrative that shaped his life and provided psychological stability. They are, politically, to the left, but many of them, and Hedges too I think, would fit in well on the Front Porch Republic. Nostalgia might just arise during economic downturns. But the fact that many of these ideas are beginning to transcend political ideology is just cause for considering them seriously.
The porch reminds me of one area where I think Hedges has a major blind spot- for a book that focuses on media and the dissemination of information it’s surprising that he makes almost no mention of the Internet. He tells us that the truth is never spoken in the corporate news media- but aren’t more people going online to get the news for just that reason? Similarly, his discussion of misogynist pornography ignored the fact that the fastest growing demographic of porn consumers are women, who now make up 1/3rd of the market, as a result, again, of the internet. And aren’t many people fleeing cable now that they can watch the rare good program online?
I’m not as pessimistic as Hedges, but I think jeremiads like this serve a useful function: by refusing to pull any punches, they’re like a flare in a foggy night, beckoning towards those other people who are dissatisfied with the state of things. Even though we disagree on much, I’ve already started to think of certain incidents in my own life- a class I had where they only wanted to talk about shopping, a party where the discussion never strayed far from Tiger Woods cheating on his wife, a friend who, totally unprompted, commented, “I can’t stand how trivial everything is now”- as Hedge moments. I think he is on to something, although I’m not sure just what it is. If so, other people have likely noticed the same thing, which is cause for optimism. Cultures change by the generation. If American culture really is so shallow and chimerical at this moment, I await the inevitable backlash.
We’ve been in worse shape before, and it’s not really impossible to scale back government and end the enmeshment with big corporations — we just need the will to do it. The biggest lie in history is that people are powerless against the oligarchy — we can topple protected power.Report
@Mike Farmer, Yeah, and to be fair to him, Chris Hedges says a few things along those lines. It’s just that, as Transplanted Lawyer says, he’s extraordinarily vague about it, and ends by telling us that love will conquer hate. It was a bit of a letdown.Report
I also found Hedges’ last several paragraphs extraordinarily weak. Whether as a solution or as a consolation, Hedges wrote what were intended to be beautiful words about love and its power to ennoble the human spirit. While I agree that love does have an ennobling power, the idea that people will continue to love one another seems like amazingly weak ketchup compared to the cultural issues Hedges had just spent tens of thousands of words railing against.
Love also leads to gradations of concern about other human beings, which leads to tribalism. Hedges wants us to not become a collection of tribes but to become an integrated civilization; it takes more than interpersonal love to do that. Genuine, deep love may be a worthwhile consolation in the midst of the awfulness Hedges rails against, but it is not a solution.
Then again, as Rufus pointed out early on in our discussion, Hedges was once a seminarian and maybe he sees some kind of mystical power or the subtle hand of the divine at work through love. I am an atheist, so if he was using that kind of language I may have missed it — and if that is his message, I’ve even less reason to find either solace or solution in it.Report
@Transplanted Lawyer,
Of course on the flip side one may ask, “If what we are doing now isn’t working, ought we try and fix it?” As such we see the popularity of the books like The Secret, The Power of Now, etc. and authors like Dr. Wayne Dryer and Ken Wilber. Being on the post side of Post Modernism maybe in the ebb and flow of Western Civilization we are returning to “love”. I don’t know, but I do know we currently excel in presenting our ideological differences with anger. Of course holding hands and singing Cum Bye Ya probably isn’t the answer either.Report
So, if you find out that the world is made up of meat loaf, write an unwieldy book stating that they said there was going to be filet available.
Got it.
I’m wondering how much of this decline the very presence of Hedges’ book indicates.
The book itself should at least provide material for an appendix, I’m thinking.Report
@Will H., It’s admittedly a bit sensationalist for a book decrying sensationalism.Report
With as much psuedo swiftian satire as I can muster, I have to say what this country needs is an honest Huey Long.Report