By Kevin ReichThe Daily Northwestern
I grew up being told by my parents that I was lucky to be born in 1985. By age 15, they had already lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassinations of JFK and MLK. The Cold War did not look so good. They were scared shitless. After I turned 16, the Twin Towers imploded and my parents never mentioned my good fortune again. Luck runs out. Half a century later and not much has changed. Americans are still scared shitless.
When I saw Rob Jackman’s Jan. 17 column, “Torture Has Its Place,” I quickly thumbed through the paper to read what I thought would be a tantalizing look at Jackman’s obscure sex practices. The moral grounds of torture aren’t worth mentioning, but I learned one thing: Jackman is a ‘fraidy cat, preaching caution over rationality.
Jackman seemingly comes from a camp that markets American overreach. For him, America is the world’s moral compass, and we’re now screaming that we’re OK with torture. Anything that isn’t fully American is unduly evil.
When I was little, I was afraid of the oak trees in my backyard. Now we’re all afraid of the mean, mean Middle East. Wherever that may be. I heard Robert Gates wants to send more troops to Afghanistan. Rumor has it that everyone there carries a gun. Everyone and everything’s a terrorist, out for Christians. Now that’s scary. Rob, have you left your apartment? I heard it was Islam Awareness Week. Be sure to wash your hands..
Here in America, caution dictates a Middle East agenda. We hate the place because we don’t understand it. We’ve transposed a bipolar Cold War into a war on Terror. It’s the West and the East. The “civilized” and the “barbaric.” I recently was sent an e-mail with the number of Arabic and Muslim winners of the Nobel Prize. It oddly implied that Arabs and Muslims were a people less inclined to higher thinking and intellectual fortitude. What it didn’t note is the Nobel Prize is a Western one; it favors the more “civilized” West.
Edward Said got it all wrong. We think America is the woman, and all we can do is wait to be raped by the brutish East. As a result, fear is masked by false masculinity. We repudiate convictions of fear by bolstering a larger military and sending more troops to the East. We’re so scared we’re speechless. When I can’t think, I fight. Fighting is for idiots who have lost their faculty for discourse. Fighting gives us reason to believe we’re not afraid. It’s self-assurance for the wusses.
As a society, we’re more anxious than ever. Constant fear means constant nervousness. We’re learning just how inexperienced we are. There are more “unknown unknowns” now than in my parents’ 1967.
We’re actually the barbaric ones, Rob. Americans love to torture what they hate. We precautiously ensure safety by slaying the dragon in his lair and heading into the Western sunset.
We use our fists because we’re speechless. But be brave, Rob. Talk to the monsters under your bed. They might talk back.
Communication junior Kevin Reich can be reached at [email protected].
