This under-reported exposition of how American society operates explains its violence
When the topic of apparent violence is touched, different sides of the political spectrum point to different things as the cause: prison-overcrowding, a culture of exceptionalism, as well as mental illness. But there is a theory that US violence is just habitual, because it has not yet found its footing and build a sort of complex social fabric that would in principle and spirit of conduct be sophistically modern, because they have never evolved their structure, they planted themselves, put up a fence and now they found themselves in the modern world, struggling with navigating an apparatus.
The formation of the United States has been enabled through various forms of violence. On the face of it, the evolution of American society has been straight-forward, more rapid and briefer than the evolution of society and societal norms in other places, hence skipping some ‘necessary’ societal transitions. It has been argued by several writers and historians, that because of historical background, the U.S. does not fully comprehend how to run, to what extent navigate, and its populace struggles to cope with the intricate properties of charting along in a civilized society to this day, because it’s underlying predatory mentality on how to ‘make it’ and where the concept of ‘’hard work’ starts, does even now remain unchanged in the American mind, and at best it is tinly veiled over.
Which is why the country’s laws propose mostly short-circuited, wildly simplistic and plainly unsophisticated solutions to the complex problems that America has today, resulting therefore in arrests for minor transgressions, and of course civil asset forfeiture is also a sign that there are societal problems with how to go about acquiring property, a piece of the American pie for oneself in this era, other than by the means of forcibly taking it over, laying a claim, or planting oneself on the ground somewhere and confiscating it, which is how America as such came to be, rather than developing mutual understanding, for which there’s no patience. They‘re sort of trapped in the reality of the modern era, with the temperament from their past.
Modern society is not so directly assertive, but for everything there’s a process in place. Yet many societal habits in the U.S. today appear like a desperate search for a shortcut to that process of dealing and for less of mitigating nuance.
The underlying mentality is that one should be able to take what they can logistically take, and any bureaucracy that would rein in this mentality of taking ownership by overpowerment is immediately viewed as a problem and as an insult to individual freedom, or the ‘obvious’ superiority of those who take what they can get, acquiring land and power by force of the sentiment that ‘if once wants it, one should get it’ without asking for permission. To imply anything more complex than that is viewed as an unnecessary limitation, but a modern society must exist as a structure that is based on more than winning over others.
With America, there has been no gradual fine-running of manners, or ethics, because historically, in a ‘land of plenty’, no piece of land was developed and cultivated through generations, hence ‘hard work’ in the American psyche starts with certain cultural presuppisitions. And because of its extremely short history in the eyes of the world, a culture of negotiation, social politeness and respect was never fully evolved through generations of social interaction, and hence modern civility seems a bit overwhelming because what has gotten results and has been brewing forever in the U.S as a means of interaction are ‘culturally sanctioned patterns of aggression..’, and the basic need of domination. They are at a loss when navigating the various factors of society that must be followed to get along, and have no patience for the slow, unpredictable path towards building something prominent through one’s life.
Indeed, Americans already came to the land of plenty, and are culturally inclined towards taking what they can take, proclaiming it theirs and getting away with it, for how otherwise, even though it is a largely primitive behavior, much in the spirit of how the European settlers of America had simply taken portions of land that they could clear out by force and put fences around them, making dwelling. If they could find a spot, and make it useful by working it, then to them land is like land, all in it is just America and they are making it output something, so any complaints with regards to that is seen as just a lot of annoying fuss.
With such straight-forward conception of life, they were hence not functioning like a civilized society, then, or now, because that is not how most historical settlers were able to acquire a place they could call home on the continent: It was simply taken by force, not acquired through cooperation, integration, purchase, and definitely not as heritage from relatives in those early days, but instead it has simply been usurped wherever and whenever the settlers wanted, and could defend it. That property was to be owned by those who took it, as that was the way then, and the same thinking prevails today.
American history is often presented in patriotic terms as being a lot of extremely rough conditions and hard work by the early settlers. But compared to much older nations, Americans got an unbelievably easy start, hence skipping perhaps the most formative part of social coexistence, because they acquired private property by exterminating native populations, without this being regarded as a crime, or prosecuted at the time. In that sense, the settlement of America has been extremely cruel by desire and willful design that acknowledged no moral boundaries in pursuit of a new life, but the settlement was not hard, or complicated. The mentality of modern American society reflect this very simplistic nature of building a society based not on politeness and regard for others, but fencing around and getting the best spot, the quickest way.
When Chief Opechancanough had enough of the land-hungry, food-stealing ways of the Jamestown colonists, he attacked their settlements in 1622, killing 347 of them and again in 1644. The colonists reacted with such ferocity that the Indian population in that area was decimated and it never again challenged the English conquest. — Cited: The Deep Roots of American Violence.
America was built on taking things over, but this is not the process anymore, there are no spots to take over anymore and build a life that way, nevertheless Americans still posses this mentality in their affairs and the tension, the struggles apparent in their current society show it.
The case of Cliven Bundy and others like it are a classic example of the directness with which intention and action is practiced in the U.S.
If the intention is to acquire property then the thinking is, in its most crude fashion, to go find and settle a property somewhere, and that is, in fact, how he has cultivated his farm, how he found his spot and planted his feet there, which is almost like he ‘succeeded’, this what making it means in the landscape of America. Not a unique approach, but it’s a view of how the whole culture is essentially ‘stuck’ in that mindset, surprised by need to change.
It is hard to imagine a United States being able to operate its societal and economic system successfully in a more sophisticated way than this.
