Death of an Anti-American
Tibor R. Machan
Susan Sontag died a few days ago, at age 71, succumbing to cancer, which
she has been battling for a long time. She was a very prominent New York
intellectual, a novelist and essayist and a leading member of the American
Left. Despite her frequent brillianceÂ?for example, when she remarked, to
the consternation of many of her pals on the Left that Â?Communism is
successful fascismÂ?Â?Sontag was also pretty confused when it came to an
understanding of human affairs.
In particular, shortly after the devastating terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center, Sontag penned these lines for The New Yorker magazine:
Â?Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a Â?cowardlyÂ? attack on
Â?civilizationÂ? or Â?libertyÂ? or Â?humanityÂ? or the Â?free worldÂ? but an
attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a
consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens
are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word
Â?cowardlyÂ? is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill
from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those
willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of
courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the
perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.
There is great deal thatÂ?s off in these remarks, not the least involving
the history of the bombing of Iraq. Sontag contends, by implication, that
this was some kind of arbitrary American indulgence in aggression against
an innocent country, whereas a consideration of the context would
demonstrate that this is far from how the matter ought to be understood.
But that is only one, and not the most important, problem with SontagÂ?s
comment.
While it is generally bad form to criticize the recently deceased, in
this case I think it is worth noting that even to someone like me, who
considers AmericaÂ?s Middle East foreign policy flawed, the kind of
tribalism SontagÂ?s remark illustrates is a very serious problem. Sontag is
among those, after all, who would complain bitterly about such policies as
ethnic profiling in the wake of terrorism, and rightly so. But why is such
profiling wrong?
Because it lumps people together on the basis of what are, after all is
said and done, superficial attributes. Being an Arab or a Middle Eastern
or American should not be held against someone. It is not color or ethnic
background or even nationality that should qualify someone for moral or
legal scrutinyÂ?it must be their actual conduct. And thatÂ?s true also about
how people need to respond to injustices done to them.
Even assuming the United States government has acted wrongly toward people
in Iraq or Saudi Arabia or some other place around the globe, so that
something may be done in response, there is absolutely no justification in
sacrificing innocent Americans, including many children, while doing so.
Â?An attack on the worldÂ?s self-proclaimed superpowerÂ? may under no
circumstances involve lashing out at just any American, especially not
against civilians and children.
Those working at the New York World Trade Center were not some
Â?self-proclaimed superpowerÂ? but a great number of specific individuals
whose complicity in any wrong-doing of the American government needed to
be established before any harm might have been justly inflicted on them.
The terrorists were indeed cowardly for going after essentially
defenseless civilians and children simply because nearly all of them were
Americans. Furthermore, given that in their belief system they would be
rewarded with many blessings in the wake of their terrorists deeds, any
talk of great courage is arguably off base.
But SontagÂ?s ill-chosen remarks illustrate very well to what extent many
on the American Left embrace a collectivist view of human social life.
They view America as some kind of entity, of which the citizens are bits
and pieces, so if one is aggrieved by some of those bits, any others can
be made to suffer in response. For those who think this way, America is
like a person, so if the person hits you with arms, your hitting back at
the head or back is just fineÂ?they are all of one piece. It doesnÂ?t matter
that American citizens do not all agree with the American governmentÂ?s
policies in the Middle East. It doesnÂ?t matter that many of the victims of
the terrorists where kids who couldnÂ?t by any stretch of the imagination
be held responsible for what the government does and has done.
No, for collectivists a society is one great bodyÂ?as Marx said, Â?an
organic whole.Â? America is a large organism and those abroad are another
organism. It is then the former body that mistreats the latter, so the
latter may strike back at any part of the former.
Susan Sontag may have been a decent novelists and essayist, a good
wordsmith. But her thinking, as illustrated by her response to 9/11, shows
that she really was a quintessential anti-American, given her complete
rejection of one of the central tenets of American civilization, namely,
individualism. Only individuals who have been shown to have committed a
wrong against others may be punished for that wrong, not their neighbors,
relatives or children. Her failure to see this makes the late Susan Sontag
a perfect example of the LeftÂ?s fundamental anti-Americanism, even if one
were to admit that American foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired.
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