Paytriotism (1)

Patriotism (pronounced ‘paytriotism’) is very important here. It seems to be important to virtually all Americans, but particularly here. Talking down your country, or even suggesting that America might possibly in some way be slightly less than perfect, is simply not done – it’s a social faux pas on roughly the same level as casting aspersions on the sexual promiscuity of someone’s mother. This is in sharp contrast to the UK, where people talk down the country on an almost daily basis.

For example, when I told people about my intention to move to the US (I prefer ‘move’ to ‘emigrate’ – ‘emigrate’ sounds so final), I was surprised by the frequency of a certain kind of reaction, normally delivered with some passion and direct eye contact, mostly from people like tradesmen, taxi drivers, and the bloke who came to pick up my tub of fence spray after buying it on eBay: ‘I don’t blame you mate – this country’s finished’. I had it again only last week, when a taxi driver in Brentwood asked me where I lived, and received the understandably surprising response of Oklahoma City. ‘I don’t blame you mate – this country’s finished.’ ‘But that’s not why I moved!’ I wanted to exclaim. ‘I’m British! I like Britain, with all its faults! It’s my home! America’s got faults too – as well as some great things, of course. It’s not necessarily better or worse – it’s just different!’ In fact, I just said ‘yeah, right’, in a meekly acquiescent tone. I’m not generally one for getting deeply into conversation with taxi drivers.

You would never, ever get that reaction in the US. A few weeks ago, I was in our local supermarket, standing by the cheese counter, when I heard a man nearby say to his colleague: ‘I don’t think I should buy this cheese. It says ‘made in France’. That’s not very paytriotic, is it?’

As with so many things about living here, at first I couldn’t work out why I had a vague sense of unease about all this paytriotism – the stars and stripes in the front yard, the ‘God bless the USA’ bumper stickers, the man in the supermarket with his doubts about French cheese. Maybe it was just my innate British sense of negativity and slight embarrassment about these matters. I mean, what’s so wrong with loving your country? And America is a great country, no doubt about it, notwithstanding the current, and thankfully soon to be ex-, president’s attempts to wreck it (or more accurately, to stand by open-mouthed while those around him did so). After all, it contains people like Noam Chomsky, Elliott Carter, Philip Roth, Chris Rock, and Suzanne Vega. And Barack Obama. It can’t be all bad.

And then I worked it out. And just after I worked it out, I heard Bill Maher – an American comedian whom I greatly admire (and who should be included in the roll call above) - put it more succinctly and pertinently than I could ever do. ‘All those people who say ‘America’s the greatest country in the world!’ How would they know?’ Absolutely! Have they carried out a comparative study? ‘Well, we checked out Finland, but that fell down on the number of moose per acre, so…’

It really is true that many Americans – often the paytriotic ones – have only the very haziest idea of what exists beyond their borders. Only about 25% of Americans have a passport, and many – including wealthy and educated ones – never travel abroad at any point in their lives. And to some extent, I don’t necessarily blame them. America is absolutely huge, and very varied, and has enough in it to keep most people happy for a lifetime – sun-kissed beaches, snowcapped mountains, beautiful lakes and forests, huge deserts, great cities, fine universities, great art, culture, science, business, sport (well, at least some sports). Americans have complete freedom of speech, movement, and religion; there is lots of space for everyone, the cost of living is low, and the standard of living is high. America is the richest country, and has the mightiest military, in the world. Why would you want to go anywhere else? Why do so many people try to get in?

Whereas British people have to travel outside their country to experience at least some of these things, Americans don’t. But the problem is that, by the same token, there’s no particular reason for them to find out about it either, which makes all the stuff about paytriotism sound rather uncontextualised and insular to me.