In Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (published in 1969), there is a character called Howard W. Campbell Jr. He is an American traitor turned propagandist for the Nazis, operating like Lord Haw-Haw, during the second world war.
There is a section of the book purportedly taken from an essay by Campbell about how American prisoners-of-war are so much worse in terms of behaviour than prisoners from other countries. Campbell wants to explain to his fellow Nazis why his countrymen are like this.
It's an interesting take and I wondered how much of it might have been the author's own insights into the way American society functions. It definitely resonates with some of the political selfishness spilling out of the poorer parts of the USA in the past decade or so.
This is how Campbell explains things:
"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but it's people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but It might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters."
(Unlike Campbell, Kin Hubbard was a real person; an American cartoonist and humorist who died in 1930.)
And then a bit further on, some more of Campbell's words:
"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue... Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those with no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times."
"Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love each other because they do not love themselves."
There are two things that have occurred to me reading this. The first is this seems to fit with the political rage of the MAGA movement that has been so prevalent in the past decade or so. Particularly the idolising (and idolatry) of Donald Trump, who has no redeeming features except that most American of virtues - the appearance of being rich. And why they rage against "socialist medicine" being "un-American", preferring to risk bankruptcy if they get cancer than seeing that affordable or free healthcare for all benefits everybody.
The persistency with which the American poor vote against their own interests has been referred to as a mindset that they aren't poor, they are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and one day the money truck will stop at their house and they don't want to be made to share.
It also explains why American religious identity has had such a garish obsession with wealth. To the best of my knowledge, America has never spawned its own ascetic movement. The Amish, the Shakers and the Quakers were all imports from the Old World. America's gifts to Christianity are the Prosperity Gospel wealth-and-health movement with private jet evangelists, and Mormonism which literally promises it's most faithful adherents that they will each rule their own planet one day.
The second thing that occurred to me is that Vonnegut deliberately puts these un-American heresies into the mouth of a traitor because there would be no way to have a true American think these terrible things. And yet, these observations are so acute, it doesn't seem that he is just giving his character stuff to say. There is a ring of truth to these condemnatory words, which is maybe why he needs to distance himself from them.
And 55 years after the book was published, the words still ring true.
