Read It or Leave It

Do you want a roundhouse kick to the face from a guy wearing these bad boys? I didn't think so.There is an unjustified consensus among expats that living in East Asia ruins your English ability.  It's true I find myself forgetting how to spell simple words and making high school mistakes when it comes to word choice or style, but in general my English has improved since I came here. 

To follow up on my last post, this is because English teachers have to think about literally every word that comes out of our mouths; we gradually habituate to using terminology and grammar that our students can understand. 

When I came upon the works of Kay Hetherly a few weeks ago, it became clear to me that not only could expats write well, but that they could write well because they were expats.  Hetherly's Hemmingway-like paucity of words and exactness is something to which I aspire. 

I just finished teaching Hetherly's essay "Love it or leave it" to an intermediate student.  In less than 700 words, she connects the expression "take it or leave it" to hand-me-down clothes, dating, the 60s, the American flag, and then she takes it back to clothes, all while encouraging the reader to allow his mind to wander freely.  Hetherly is one of the best pure writers I've come across in years.  Her essays, each of roughly the same length, are like tightly coiled springs ready to release deep, philosophical introspection:

One of the most interesting variations (of the expression "take it or leave it") came about in the 1960s.  During the Vietnam War, people who supported the war used this slogan against the protesters: "America, love it or leave it."  You could see these angry words on bumper stickers and signs all over the country.  The message was a very strong one: the protesters were unpatriotic, un-American, and even unwelcome in America.

An image of the American flag was often part of this slogan.  It was used, like national flags everywhere, as a symbol of pride in the country and support for the government and its war effort.

The American flag has a lot of power as a symbol.  In the past, it wasn't ever used as a popular design on T-shirts or bags.  At a very young age, I was taught, like most American children, that you must never let the American flag touch the ground.  In other words, it should be treated with great respect.  Knowing this, the protesters used the flag, as a symbol of the government, to make their protest clear to everyone.  Some burned it and others patched holes in their jeans, especially the seat, with material from a flag.  In response to "America, love it or leave it," they were basically saying, "America is ours too, and we're not leaving."

I wasn't old enough in the 60s to be active in the anti-war movement.  But the slogans and images of that period made a strong impression on me.  Even now, I feel a little uncomfortable when I see the American flag on clothes or bags.  For most Japanese kids and a lot of young Americans, it's simply a popular image of America.  But for me, and many others of my generation and older, it can never be quite so simple.

This speaks to a discussion going on at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen in response to the first post of new blogger Ned Resnikoff about the Baby Boomer perception of the Information Generation as self-absorbed and shallow.  I think the example of the American flag illustrates how, if we are indeed self-absorbed and shallow, it's because we were made this way by the previous generation.  (I don't think we're particularly self-absorbed and shallow; but I do think we're rather independent and we value heterodoxy as a virtue in itself.) 

Here, in essence, is what happened to the American flag:

1.  The American flag is an abstract symbol of the country meant to be respected and not used in vain.  The flag is not meant to touch the ground as a legacy of the times when armies relied on standard-bearers for effective collective action. 

2.  During the Vietnam War, the American flag is exploited as part of bumper stickers and signs as a symbol to support the war. 

3.  Hippies counterexploit the flag by tearing it up and incorporating it into their clothes.

4.  Industry realizes that there is money-making potential in exploiting the flag as fashion.

5.  Worn out, the American flag becomes severely meaningless for young people (or it is mere material for absurd comedy, as pictured above).

It is of course unfortunate that this happened (but not super unfortunate.  It's a good thing Americans value the Constitution more than the flag, even at the peak of the flag's rightest revival in 2006.), but the story of the American flag is an example of a pattern that has recurred across our culture for the last forty or fifty years or so: the right exploits something, the left counterexploits that something (or vice-versa), business exploits that something, that something is left valueless. 

I like to characterize American politics and the culture war especially as "the two most extreme positions shouting at each other and laying waste to everything between".  If there is a turn inward to be observed in my generation, it is the withdrawal that is all that remains in the smoldering ashes of the battlefield of what was once our traditional culture, morality, and ideals.