Enforced smiles and righteous outrage
Thoughts on a recent visit to the United States
28 July 2022 — Thirty-seven days in the United States in one fell swoop. Earlier in the year, I’d been stateside for 7 days. Chances are, I will return for another 10–20 days before the year is up. I’ve been returning more and more often to my birth country, from a small town on the French Riviera.
Prior to living in the south of France, I lived on a French-speaking island in the South Pacific. Before that, I lived as one can, in Paris, for 20-something odd years. All told, I’d wound up living longer “abroad” than in my native land.
Like many, who straddle countries, who speak of feeling out of place wherever they are, of experiencing a homelessness of a kind, I daily encounter the foibles of living with two brains, two sets of cultural norms, two collections of culturally accepted habits and different sets of taboos.
A land described as “sanguine/happy” and “choleric/assertive” by Susan Cain in her new book, Bittersweet, America, these last few visits, has struck me as simultaneously “more itself” (falsely happy and truly assertive) and fraying at the seams. For example, before this last trip, I had not yet known America to be as forthright in its opinions, on both (there seem only two) sides of any argument.
I know, America is a big country; I cannot generalise. But in 37 days, I visited 11 states (some of them very briefly): Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Colorado, California and Alaska. I drove over 1,500 miles (~2,400 km), was in as many planes as the number of states I visited, spent 10 days with 3,000 passengers on a 15-storeyed floating mammoth and, was, despite my introverted nature, a veritable magnet for people of all types and kinds.
Perhaps as a quasi-European accustomed to different verbal customs, my surprise at the forthrightness of American opinion was to be expected. The French speak less loudly and refrain from personally implicating themselves in their opinions. This does not mean they do not repeat what they are reading or seeing on TV without any additional thought or analysis; people are people, the French included.
Though the French have strong opinions, they are less forthright and will involve you in a discussion by way of discerning your thoughts and beliefs. Relatively subtle questions will be posed (“Where do you live?” vs “What do you do?”), a comment about a current event will be made (fires in southwest France), and before you know it, you’re discussing the historical arc of nihilism in modern France. A game of intellectual fencing, if you like. And yes, you are infinitely more interesting if you support or defend an unlikely or minority view.
Contrast this with a recent conversation you may have had in America.
My sense, on this last US visit, was that feelings are running high against a backdrop of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, regular mass shootings, the January 6th hearings and inflation. People I spoke to on both coasts are upset about the “state of the nation” and the nation’s trajectory. People on both sides of the political spectrum are expressing fear and outrage.
What is striking to me about this is the certitude with which I heard friends, family and strangers speak. They rattled off opinions as if they were steeped in cold, hard fact:
- “We’re being invaded by thousands of Hispanics from the south. This will be war!”
- “Reversing Roe v Wade means gay marriage is next!”
- “We’re moving toward a one-party system. This is the death of democracy!”
- “This nation is a nation of lawlessness — welcome back to the Wild, Wild West!”
I spent much of the time trying to sort fact from fiction (in my own head), and at times, I felt like I was living in a cable news network. Things would become tragicomic when opinions grew personal. How had it become acceptable, even commonplace, to attack a speaker for a “dumb” idea, to tell someone he/she were wrong (again, not something I have seen or heard in France after 3+ decades here) or to tell someone, “You don’t know what you’re talking about”? All of those things may have been true, but what happened to discourse around ideas vs character? When did America become so forthright, so sure of itself, so assertive and in some cases, so inflammatory?
I couldn’t help wondering if this phenomenon could or should be attributed to the Trump years. Again, on both sides, each faction agreed. This was all Trump’s fault. Or this is all thanks to Trump.
Hmmm.
So it’s not cultural differences? These enforced smiles vs the French angst, this righteous outrage vs the French heated debate. It’s situational? It’s political writ personal? Am I, are we, living in a cable news network? Are the signs right — is socialism slavery (sorry, France), are people (on both sides) truly incompetent, is Civil War in the United States brimming, soon to break?
“Enforced smiles and righteous outrage” is a phrase borrowed, again, from Susan Cain, in Bittersweet. I found it a beautiful way to capture some of what I observed in this last trip to the United States. Thank you, Susan.
