The Fightin' Side Of Me: America's Never-ending Culture Wars
A segmented American public always splits along sociocultural defense lines
America the beautiful is also America the combative country.
Nothing in the United States is settled without a fight. We are born in a land of battle lines drawn by cultural differences, corporate influences and the moneyed class manipulators, with or without adherence to constitutional precepts.
Fighting for our principles, our beliefs and our way of life is a birthright.
The fact that we don’t agree with each other puts our national spirit and conviction to the test. It never ends. It is who we are to ourselves, and to the world that watches us.
These conflicts are not pretty. And ever since our cultural separation into two major tribes after World War II, we’ve become the Ugly Americans to ourselves.
Here’s the Wikipedia definition:
“Ugly American" is a stereotype depicting American citizens as exhibiting loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric behavior mainly abroad, but also at home.
Love It or Leave It: America’s Red, White and Blue Dictum
Despite America being the land of opportunity, when it comes to “getting down to brass tacks”, you only get two choices. Quite the limitation for such an abundant nation.
Either you love the country, the flag, the military adventures overseas, the government, the state institutions and baseball or you must leave the country.
This was the mantra during the 1970s when the cultural revolution kicked in and the hippies grew out mangy hair. Of course the 1960s were not as serious because drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll tended to take the fighting edge off.
But the hippies were drafted just like the farm boys, and both had shaved heads before going off to Vietnam to defend the nation or die in a military morass.
So in the end, it didn’t matter if you grew up in the rural hinterlands or in the urban cityscape; they all had to leave America anyway.
And 58,220 solid citizens did not return.
Merle Haggard’s Tone Setting Tantrum
By 1970, the battle lines were drawn and social upheaval pit the anti-war and civil rights protesters against the patriotic public that supported a foreign war. That’s the normal narrative.
In truth, everyone is patriotic in their own way. That is the American Way. We just like to fight, remember!
Merle Haggard is a country music legend. He is as hard-scrabble and authentic as anyone who ever wrote a patriotic song. His song, The Fightin Side of Me became a mini-anthem for those fed up with smelly hippies and ungrateful peaceniks.
Here’s the chorus:
Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me
Runnin' down a way of life our fightin' men have fought and died to keep
If you don't love it, leave it
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'
When you're runnin' down my country, man
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me
But to Haggard’s credit, he recognized that being an American is also about freedom of choice, even if that decision is not popular.
An' I don't mind 'em switchin' sides, an' standin' up for things they believe in
Nonetheless, you still have to deal with the ‘fightin side’ of the other argument.
Ain’t that America!
Coda
Americans believe in a lot of things. We are not monolithic.
We value our upbringing and influences to the nth degree. So we want to uphold them to the other side and coerce them into broader acceptance.
So most of us have both a righteous side and a fightin’ side. That makes conditions ripe for political persuasion and manipulation. Americans are easy to agitate.
We’ve been fighting among ourselves for decades. We are split along so many factions that it may be impossible to gain any common ground as a unified nation.
So we’ll just fight it out and see what’s left of the country, if the dustups ever settle.
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