I was flying from Philadelphia to Orlando one evening in May, during the National Hockey League playoffs. As it happened, the Philadelphia Flyers were playing the Tampa Bay Lightning and Tampa Bay was getting the better of Philadelphia. The Florida-based flight crew periodically announced game developments, razzing the Philadelphians gently, at least at first. The passengers more than rose to the bait, responding with boos and catcalls. Tampa Bay won the game about the time we touched down and I felt a distinct mood shift from good-natured jocularity to something more tense. I wondered why. It’s only a game, right?
Identity in America is changing. A century ago, we knew ourselves by our region, state or hometown. The new immigrants clung to the ethnic enclave or the religion their parents brought from across the ocean. Trades, even 40years ago, were roughly divided on lines of national origin – Italian stonemasons, Irish painters and plasterers, German tool-and-die makers.
Two generations later, we’ve lost our ethnic roots. Very few of us are of a single ethnicity and those who’ve gone back to the old country know our cousins just think of us as “the Americans.” We’ve lost our regionalism. The true Vermont accent, with its rounded vowels and “ayap” interjections is increasingly rare, along with a thousand other shadings of American English.
The new identity has to be portable, so we can carry it around the country as we chase our faceless jobs from town to town. Sports team identification is one thing we can take with us and Red Sox and Yankee fans glare at each other from beneath peaked caps all across the country.
Pickup trucks wear bumper stickers reading, “I’d rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford,” or vice versa. Worse is the decal of the little boy relieving himself on the opponent’s corporate logo. What’s the attraction in those? Is it not vacuous and vapid enough to derive your sense of self-worth from your pickup truck that you must now compound the idiocy by proclaiming your disdain for the make of truck you do not drive?
By engaging in this behavior, we are responding exactly as programmed by our corporate masters. Among my acquaintances – you know who are are – are those who will walk out of a restaurant because it serves Pepsi rather than Coke. At this stage of the game, Pepsi and Coke need each other. Where would one brand be without the other to push against, to enforce brand loyalty, to keep the customers in line?
A quarter-century ago, some whiz kid on the payroll at Miller Brewing got the brainstorm to pit the drinkers of Lite beer against each other, in groups of “great taste” and “less filling.” It was pure marketing genius and was only undermined by the fact that the product was undrinkable.
Now politics is marketed to us the same way. There are Democratic “blue” states and Republican “red” states. (Oddly enough, they’re the same colors associated with Pepsi and Coke, respectively – or the Crips and the Bloods. Ponder that.) States neither “blue” nor “red” are “battlegrounds” and the Crips and Bloods, uh, the Democrats and Republicans will be slugging it out from now until November.
Although there are real difference between the parties and candidates this year, it’s sad to hear civic debate devolve into knee-jerkery. It only encourages ad hominem, negative tactics and everyone is so busy defending “our side” from “their side” that accountability on all sides goes by the board.
If you want to see where this can lead us, cast a glance toward Israel and Palestine. Two sides locked in a death struggle that may not only kill all of them, but is sucking in half the world besides. Decades of atrocities committed against “us” justify whatever we chose to do to “them.”
Four years after George Bush promised unity, not division the world is more polarized than perhaps it was at the height of the Cold War. It’s time to realize the only true measure of an individual or nation must be based on how we act, not who we are – and it’s time to start acting better than we have.
Pepsi Needs Coke
I was flying from Philadelphia to Orlando one evening in May, during the National Hockey League playoffs. As it happened, the Philadelphia Flyers were playing the Tampa Bay Lightning and Tampa Bay was getting the better of Philadelphia. The Florida-based flight crew periodically announced game developments, razzing the Philadelphians gently, at least at first. The passengers more than rose to the bait, responding with boos and catcalls. Tampa Bay won the game about the time we touched down and I felt a distinct mood shift from good-natured jocularity to something more tense. I wondered why. It’s only a game, right?
Identity in America is changing. A century ago, we knew ourselves by our region, state or hometown. The new immigrants clung to the ethnic enclave or the religion their parents brought from across the ocean. Trades, even 40years ago, were roughly divided on lines of national origin – Italian stonemasons, Irish painters and plasterers, German tool-and-die makers.
Two generations later, we’ve lost our ethnic roots. Very few of us are of a single ethnicity and those who’ve gone back to the old country know our cousins just think of us as “the Americans.” We’ve lost our regionalism. The true Vermont accent, with its rounded vowels and “ayap” interjections is increasingly rare, along with a thousand other shadings of American English.
The new identity has to be portable, so we can carry it around the country as we chase our faceless jobs from town to town. Sports team identification is one thing we can take with us and Red Sox and Yankee fans glare at each other from beneath peaked caps all across the country.
Pickup trucks wear bumper stickers reading, “I’d rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford,” or vice versa. Worse is the decal of the little boy relieving himself on the opponent’s corporate logo. What’s the attraction in those? Is it not vacuous and vapid enough to derive your sense of self-worth from your pickup truck that you must now compound the idiocy by proclaiming your disdain for the make of truck you do not drive?
By engaging in this behavior, we are responding exactly as programmed by our corporate masters. Among my acquaintances – you know who are are – are those who will walk out of a restaurant because it serves Pepsi rather than Coke. At this stage of the game, Pepsi and Coke need each other. Where would one brand be without the other to push against, to enforce brand loyalty, to keep the customers in line?
A quarter-century ago, some whiz kid on the payroll at Miller Brewing got the brainstorm to pit the drinkers of Lite beer against each other, in groups of “great taste” and “less filling.” It was pure marketing genius and was only undermined by the fact that the product was undrinkable.
Now politics is marketed to us the same way. There are Democratic “blue” states and Republican “red” states. (Oddly enough, they’re the same colors associated with Pepsi and Coke, respectively – or the Crips and the Bloods. Ponder that.) States neither “blue” nor “red” are “battlegrounds” and the Crips and Bloods, uh, the Democrats and Republicans will be slugging it out from now until November.
Although there are real difference between the parties and candidates this year, it’s sad to hear civic debate devolve into knee-jerkery. It only encourages ad hominem, negative tactics and everyone is so busy defending “our side” from “their side” that accountability on all sides goes by the board.
If you want to see where this can lead us, cast a glance toward Israel and Palestine. Two sides locked in a death struggle that may not only kill all of them, but is sucking in half the world besides. Decades of atrocities committed against “us” justify whatever we chose to do to “them.”
Four years after George Bush promised unity, not division the world is more polarized than perhaps it was at the height of the Cold War. It’s time to realize the only true measure of an individual or nation must be based on how we act, not who we are – and it’s time to start acting better than we have.
(c) Mark Floegel, 2004