战后美国史

Americans‟ Hatred to Politics and Their Anger and Anxiety in 1990s

Li Baolong, Class 3, 08010022

America has a long history of hostility to government and the tradition to oppose the present incumbent of the White House. The 1990s has seen the increasing disgruntled Americans and their hatred to politics (Norton et al.1002). Since China also has the counterparts, the “angry youth,” who are angry or even hated th e government as some Americans did in 1990s, studying the period of American history will provide some insights toward China‟s status quo. This paper attempts to examine the reasons why American public in 1990s, according to E.J. Dionne Jr., hated the politics and elaborate Americans‟ anger and anxiety at that time.

According to Norton Jr., There are at least 3 main reasons why Americans hate politics: the effect of 1960s legacies, the false choice under the partisan confrontation and the political corruption problems.

First of all, Americans in nineties were affected by the legacies of the 1960s, especially the New Left movement and its counterculture. Born in richer and more prosper society, the New Left was different from the old Left. It was called “New”because it rejected the sectarianism of American communist as well as the sectarianism of the anticommunist left. Too many ideas got lumped together under the headline “The New Left” in this movement, making people sometimes confused. While in Riggenbach‟s analysis, who is a libertarian writer, what mattered about the New Left was its antiauthoritarianism, its individualism, and its skepticism of the state (Dionne Jr.53).

When reflected on the culture, it turned into the counterculture, mainly including the rise of rock …n‟ roll and the drug culture in the beat generation. Rock …n‟roll is self expression in essence. The rock concert was expressive for rockers‟ snarl and whine and drawl accompanied with amazing light and deafening volume. The shift from 50s‟ folk to 60s‟ rock also reflected a shift in values from sincerity to authenticity. Therefore, the famous rocker, Bob Dylan‟s works increasing violence and intensity were seen as kind of expression to become oneself by creating and whining. The culture of rock also played a decisive role in shaping the attitudes of young whites toward black people and civil rights (Dionne Jr. 40). The rock integrated black music into the lives of white people as it had never been before, the

cultural integration combining white people and the blacks together eased the way toward civil rights and helped explain why so many middle-class white youth were drawn to the black struggle.

The drug culture, in the meantime, had a clear and unmistakably libertarian demand: repeal drug laws and “leave us alone.” At that time, drugs became important to the counterculture in part because they were illegal. According to Dionne Jr., taking drugs was an adventure, a way for individuals to cast themselves as outlaws, a means of escaping the normalcy and boredom of everyday middle-class life. Drugs were simultaneously an expression of individualism. A gentle hedonism was one of the most powerful elements of the counterculture, and drugs were part of that hedonism. Since the Vietnam War bred a mistrust of the military, of the draft, of entangling foreign alliances, some student radicals in the 1960s opposed, even burned the draft and demanded the right to smoke marijuana to show their noncooperation and escape from the real world. All together, the New Left and its counterculture left many legacies, making Americans‟ sensibility towards government growing over the past 30 years.

Second, liberals and conservatives, according to E.J. Dionne Jr., were framing issues as a series of “false choices,” making it impossible for politicians to solve problems, and alienating voters in the process. Conservatives and liberals argued that everything wrong with the country could be traced to the selfish eighties. Nobody was talking seriously about the nineties. If conservatives and liberals had trouble facing the future, it was because doing so will require both to face up to flaws in their world views (Dionne Jr. 323-324). As a result, American politics in 1990s mired into partisan confrontation, in which Politicians engaged in symbolic rather than substantive politics. While constituencies concerned about the economy, distribution of benefits, health care, efficacy of institutions, the politicians‟ discussion are distant from their concerns. What they mainly discussed actually was about morality, anti-communism, imperialism, human rights. For example, instead of compromising and negotiating solutions, there was partisanship and stalemate in George H. W. Bush‟s term, Republicans and Democrats seemed unable to work together or agree on anything. Therefore, most of the issues Americans really cared about had gone largely undiscussed. The future had gone undebated, while politics was still trapped in the past and the voters hated what they saw. Americans say that politics has nothing to do