A View From Corona #18
Jeremy Lassen | April 10th 2006 at 4:23 pm
“The solitary, steep hill called Corona Heights was black as pitch and very silent, like the heart of the unknown. It looked steadily downward and northeast away at the nervous, bright lights of Downtown San Francisco as if it were a great predatory beast of night surveying its territory in patient search of prey.”
- Fritz Leiber, Our Lady Of Darkness
Dan Simmons has an interesting “story” up on his web site. It uses a lot of imagery from the Internet Time-Traveller myth of John Titor, and overtly refers to Ken Grimwood’s Replay.
In this story, the time traveler from the future spouts a lot of “Islamo-fascist vs the west” propaganda, discounts contemporary worries about Bush’s encroachments upon the constitution, and uses Ancient Greek history as moral justification for the showing ones “enemies” no mercy and no quarter. Basically, it presents a world-view that embraces a world wide cultural conflict between Islam and the West. The same world-view that, incidentally, is embraced by whack-jobs like Osama Bin Ladden
I’ve been a fan of Dan Simmon’s fiction for some time. I know virtually nothing about the man or his politics, and I won’t judge him on the basis of this little “morality tale” or “warning” or “satire”, or whatever his intended meaning might be. But reading it has compelled me to tease out some interesting ideas that have been rolling around in my head for some time: ideas of empire, of fear, and of generational and cultural conflict.
“The End of American Empire,” as a concept, has been on my mind for the last few weeks, every since a dinner conversation with Cheryl Morgan of Emerald City fame. We were talking about the state of British, versus American science fiction, and she commented in passing that Britain (within, and without its SF community) has been coming to terms with its post-empire status for some time, and that the emergence of New British Space Opera suggests a “post” post-empire phase, and that America will soon have to wrestle with it’s own post-empire demons. I’ve long held the belief that the American Empire is in the decline, and the fiscal and foreign policies of the current mis-administration are accelerating this decline to free-fall levels. It seems that Cheryl Morgan, to one degree or another, shares this feeling.
One of the boogey men from Dan Simmons’ “Scary Islamic Futre(tm)” is a Chinese empire, and a resurgent Russian Empire. I’m not entirely sure why these postulations have to be scary… A Russian or Chinese empire is only scary of one believes in American Exceptionalism. Empires do bad stuff to their own people, and even worse stuff to people not of their empire. That’s been true for all of recorded history, and is certainly true of the American Empire. What would be so terribly different about a world dominated by a new “empire.” Science fiction writers have been writing post cold war, and post US dominated futures for years. Hasn’t Simmons been paying attention? There have even been novels detailing futures in which Muslim, and/or Arab cultures become global force — works by John Courtney Grimwood, and George Alec Effinger come to mind. This shit (the end of American Empire, and raise of “Other”) has been in the cultural, and SF mix for over 20 years now. Why are people just now discovering this concept, and what are they so scared of? It seems to me Spain, Britain, Italy, Germany, Japan, and many others have survived the disappearance of their empires.
Whether Dan Simmons really is terrified, or whether he is he engaging in some brutally cynical satire is irrelevant; the fears that his story articulates are the very real fears of his generation, and expressed every day, if not so blatantly, by mainstream media outlets. So why exactly does Dan Simmons’ generation seem so terrified of the end of empire? It seems, that from a Baby Boomer perspective, the end of the American Empire is The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen(tm). Even while that generation has pursued and enthusiastically supported short-sited economic and social policies that can only hasten the end of empire, they are terrified of that end. Empire is all they know. And no matter what their political stripe, they believe, in their heart of hearts, in American Exceptionalism.
For myself, I don’t buy it. During my lifetime, I’m seen a powerful country so controlled by greed and corruption, and fear that it can’t even manage to provide basic levels of health care for its citizens. I’ve seen a nation that excels in imprisoning it’s own people. I’ve seen a populace lulled into a blood thirsty haze by demagogs, and bread-and-circus. There is nothing exceptional about the country I have grown up in, other then it happened to be at the right place, at the right time. By tying its currency to the value of the most important commodity in the world, it has managed to artificially maintain its dominance over said world. This fiscal dominance — this tax of every oil transaction (by way of being the default global currency), is what pays for the U.S.’s hugely inflated “defense” budget, and is what bought the Western cold war “victory” over the Soviet empire.
The first step in the overthrow of American Empire was the formation of the EU. It took 20 years, but those European bankers managed to throw off the chains of American domination, by creating a stable currency by which goods and services, in particular, oil, can be traded internationally. Without a monopoly as the sole global currency to prop up its value, the dollar’s value drops to more accurately reflect the fiscal stability and purchasing power of its issuing country. As the U.S. economy falters, as a result of short sited fiscal policy, it loses its ability to pay for its globally dominant military. When that happens, that military exists solely at the discretion of foreign financiers. China never has to fire a shot. The simple threat of selling off its treasury bonds, which would be catastrophic to the US economy and value of the U.S. dollar, ensures that the U.S. government is subservient to Chinese interests.
Right now, that emerging Chinese empire needs the US Middle class to consume its goods and drive its economy, but global shifts in wealth and purchasing power ensures that this symbiosis is only temporary. The real money is in the emerging middle class of India, and China, which, in a few short years, will have a purchasing power that dwarfs that of US consumers. This demographic and economic shift spells doom for the U.S. fiscal empire. Transnational corporate interests have seen this coming, and have been preparing to abandon ship for some time. They’ve got a soft landing for their corporate reserves, and that soft landing is the EU, and its currency. It’s not for nothing that EU membership requires balanced budgets. Those balanced budgets ensure that the Euro will be inherently more stable then the dollar, and this inherent stability is drawing converts by the day. Iraq was the first to threaten to sell it’s oil in Euros, and Iran is poised to do the same. Anybody see an emerging trend here?
The next blow to American empire was a purely symbolic one. 9/11 was a horrible tragedy, but it was hardly the Pearl Harbor that fear-mongers would have us believe. Half of the American Military might was not destroyed on that day. There is was no empire with the ability to invade our shores. There was only 12 guys with box cutters, and a willingness to murder innocent people. But these men’s horrible success shattered the illusion that America was invulnerable. It was the Tet Offensive, writ large. In military terms, in meant nothing. But as PR, it was a terrible success. It was a text book case of terrorism, and it did exactly what Al Queda hoped it would do.
9/11 allowed a band of radicals and religious fundamentalists to seize control of the U.S., and hasten the empire’s decline. It has encouraged the belief that there is a growing, unavoidable clash of civilizations. Which is bullshit. There can only be a fight if two or more parties show up in the ring. Osama Bin Ladden and his band of whack-jobs have shown up for that fight. The Neocon’s, with their misguided dreams of Pax Americana have shown up. Christian fundamentalists, dreaming of God’s rapturous vacuum cleaner have all shown up. And now, the middle class Baby Boomer of Dan Simmon’s story is exhorting us to show up for this fight, and give no quarter to our “enemies.”
For myself… I don’t buy it. The Perpetrators of 9/11 are criminals who should be pursued and prosecuted like the murderers they are. World courts and international co-operation are the key to minimizing, and preventing terrorist actions. We don’t need to occupy foreign countries to defeat terrorism. We need to address that basic issues that radicalize people. We need to understand Why people are willing to kill and die for symbolic victories. No amount of smart bombs and M-16’s will prevent the radicalization of marginalized, hopeless people. Bombs and guns inevitably make more martyrs, and more hopeless people with nothing to lose.
I think the recent trend of fantasy fiction outselling science fiction reflects a basic anxiety about this End of Empire… about the end of a western dominated world. If Tolkien’s middle earth was a reflection of British Anxiety over its receding and dissappearing empire, then what does America’s mainstream/pop culture internalization of the Middle Earth cycle suggest about it’s own anxieties? When America was fighting and winning the cold war, the future was an exciting thing, filled with possibilities, and Sci-fi was king. The decline of empire has people looking back on the good old days, which in actuality are “the days that never were.”
So… what do YOU fear? Who’s YOUR favorite boogey man? And what does science fiction have to say about the nature of empires in decline? What does history teach us about the lives of people who, through no fault of their own, are born into the end of an empire, instead of its beginning?
I’m looking at Dan Simmons from the other side of the generational gap, and frankly, I’m not too impressed with how his generation has handled the reigns of empire. His “story” speaks about the lives of his grandchildren, and the threats they face, but I’ve got news for Baby Boomers; The lives of your Grandchildren are far more threatened by your own generations actions then they are by “Islamo-fascist.” Baby-boomer monetary debts… The baby-boomer poisons that will be eaten, breathed and drunk for generations to come… Baby boomer’s continued courting of hateful and divisive social policies for short term financial gain… World-wide ill-will that baby boomer foreign policy has engendered: These are the gifts that Baby Boomers have left for their grand children. The baby-boomers gift to its grandchildren is the Bush Administration, which is the culmination, and distillation of the baby-boomer generation’s core values.
I’m certainly not inclined to pay much credence to Boomer-boogey men. Baby Boomers have traded a swarthy Communist for a swarthy Muslim, but they don’t seem to be paying attention to the right group of religious fundamentalists. If the American empire, at the height of its military power, can’t successfully occupy Iraq, why would I believe that an (at this point entirely theoretical and non-existent) emerging Islamic empire can occupy America, and enforce Islamic law upon this country?
I’ve read enough science fiction to be more wary of home grown fundamentalists. The American Taliban, with their perversions of Christ’s teachings… with their hubris… their hate… their repressed sexualities… and their fervent belief in American Exceptionalism… those religious whackos are the ones that scare me most. And, like Al Quiada, they are the ones that have the most to gain from a “global clash of civilizations.” I believe there is a different path into the future, and I hope that America takes it’s collective head out of its collective ass soon, so that this pathway isn’t missed.
Filed in Editorials. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.
