{"id":1113,"date":"2014-07-21T13:44:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T17:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2014-07-21T13:44:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T17:44:50","slug":"a-critical-review-of-d-souzas-america-imagine-a-world-without-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/07\/a-critical-review-of-d-souzas-america-imagine-a-world-without-her.html","title":{"rendered":"A Critical Review of D’ Souza’s “America: Imagine a World Without Her”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Its friends in the media would have us think that Dinesh D\u2019 Souza\u2019s latest cinematic work, America: Imagine a World Without Her, <\/em>is worth seeing because of the effectiveness with which D\u2019 Souza demolishes the standard leftist charges leveled against the United States.\u00a0 I come away from this film with a dramatically different response.<\/p>\n

While D\u2019 Souza is <\/em>to be commended for establishing, by way of quite a few tidbits that promise to be news to most viewers, America hardly has a monopoly on \u201coppression,\u201d what he gives with one hand D\u2019 Souza takes with the other: D\u2019 Souza not only endorses<\/em> his leftist targets\u2019 position that America has <\/em>mistreated its racial minorities, particularly those of African descent; he actually\u2014but, doubtless, inadvertently\u2014underscores <\/em>this interpretation.<\/p>\n

D\u2019 Souza stresses that America is not unlike any other country or society that\u2019s ever existed inasmuch as it is spawned from the same set of circumstances\u2014slavery, war, conquest\u2014comprehensively, oppression\u2014from which all other historical societies spring.\u00a0 In one and the same breath, though, he insists that America is an idea. <\/em><\/p>\n

But if America is an idea\u2014a proposition, a principle, an ideal\u2014then it is most emphatically not <\/em>a historical society.\u00a0 Ideas are abstract and impersonal; the stuff of history consists of concrete actors, individual persons and the communities that they compose.\u00a0 And since America is allegedly not just an idea, but the <\/em>idea of human equality\u2014equality of rights, or something to this effect\u2014then America is exponentially more <\/em>guilty of the crimes with which D\u2019 Souza\u2019s left-wing targets charge it.<\/p>\n

Consider: If America is alone among the nations of the world in purporting to be the idea (ideal) of (say) \u201cunalienable rights\u201d incarnate, <\/em>as D\u2019 Souza maintains, then, at the very least, it alone among the nations of the world has the least excuse\u2014no <\/em>excuse\u2014for resembling <\/em>the nations of the world in engaging in oppression.<\/p>\n

So, to the list of grievances filed by his leftist foes against America we can now, courtesy of D\u2019 Souza, add those of rank hypocrisy and invincible hubris: hypocrisy for claiming to be the world\u2019s messiah while falling miserably short of the ideal that it claims to embody, and hubris for, well, purporting to be the world\u2019s messiah.<\/p>\n

Of course, D\u2019 Souza contends that while America is not unique in practicing the most egregious form of oppression\u2014slavery\u2014it is <\/em>unique in that it waged a \u201ccivil war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not being a historian, I will put to one side the inconvenient fact that there is no small number of remarkably accomplished historians that reject this grossly oversimplified account of the War Between the States. Familiar as I am with some rudimentary logic, however, I will simply make the following observation.<\/p>\n

If D\u2019 Souza\u2019s narrative is correct and Americans, or the bearers of \u201cthe idea\u201d that is America, had <\/em>to slaughter one another in numbers eclipsing those produced in any of our wars with foreigners in order to abolish slavery, then this reveals that Americans are \u201cexceptional,\u201d yes, but exceptionally corrupt<\/em>!\u00a0As the black libertarian Walter Williams, among many others, has amply shown time and time again, many societies have ended slavery, but all\u2014with the sole exception of the United States\u2014have done so peacefully.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

D\u2019 Souza\u2019s narrative actually paints a most unflattering picture of America, for it distinguishes Americans as the only people ever that, in spite of<\/em> having dedicated their collective being to an abstraction, nevertheless had to savage each other to stop themselves from savaging Africans and others.<\/p>\n

D\u2019 Souza\u2019s position that America is an \u201cidea\u201d\u2014to an even greater extent than most ideological fictions\u2014is a recipe for all manner of disaster.\u00a0 Those protesting against the unmitigated mess that is our southern border have made signs that read: \u201cHonk if you think the U.S. should have borders<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0If these protestors are remotely as interested in preserving the canons of logical consistency as they are interested in preserving the territorial integrity of America, then they must reject the D\u2019 Souza doctrine. \u00a0The reason is basic enough:<\/p>\n

Ideas do not <\/em>have borders.<\/p>\n

Once love of country\u2014patriotism\u2014is defined to mean devotion to an abstract, inherently universal <\/em>idea or principle, then geography is rendered morally irrelevant, and maybe even obscene: since anyone and everyone, regardless of where or when they live, can affirm the idea, all who do so are <\/em>Americans.<\/p>\n

There can be no moral justification for denying American citizenship to anyone willing to affirm the idea that is America.<\/p>\n

D\u2019 Souza and his supporters may have given the left the biggest present of all with America: Imagine a World Without Her.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Its friends in the media would have us think that Dinesh D\u2019 Souza\u2019s latest cinematic work, America: Imagine a World Without Her, is worth seeing because of the effectiveness with which D\u2019 Souza demolishes the standard leftist charges leveled against the United States.\u00a0 I come away from this film with a dramatically different response. 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