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Machan's Musings - Death Of An Anti-American
by Tibor R. Machan

Susan Sontag died a few days ago, at age 71, succumbing to cancer, which she has been battling for a long time. She was a very prominent New York intellectual, a novelist and essayist and a leading member of the American Left. Despite her frequent brilliance—for example, when she remarked, to the consternation of many of her pals on the Left that "Communism is successful fascism"—Sontag was also pretty confused when it came to an understanding of human affairs.

In particular, shortly after the devastating terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Sontag penned these lines for 'The New Yorker' magazine:

" … Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word 'cowardly' is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."

There is great deal that’s off in these remarks, not the least involving the history of the bombing of Iraq. Sontag contends, by implication, that this was some kind of arbitrary American indulgence in aggression against an innocent country, whereas a consideration of the context would demonstrate that this is far from how the matter ought to be understood. But that is only one, and not the most important, problem with Sontag’s comment.

While it is generally bad form to criticize the recently deceased, in this case I think it is worth noting that even to someone like me, who considers America’s Middle East foreign policy flawed, the kind of tribalism Sontag’s remark illustrates is a very serious problem. Sontag is among those, after all, who would complain bitterly about such policies as ethnic profiling in the wake of terrorism, and rightly so. But why is such profiling wrong?

Because it lumps people together on the basis of what are, after all is said and done, superficial attributes. Being an Arab or a Middle Eastern or American should not be held against someone. It is not color or ethnic background or even nationality that should qualify someone for moral or legal scrutiny—it must be their actual conduct. And that’s true also about how people need to respond to injustices done to them.

Even assuming the United States government has acted wrongly toward people in Iraq or Saudi Arabia or some other place around the globe, so that something may be done in response, there is absolutely no justification in sacrificing innocent Americans, including many children, while doing so. "An attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower" may under no circumstances involve lashing out at just any American, especially not against civilians and children.

Those working at the New York World Trade Center were not some "self-proclaimed superpower" but a great number of specific individuals whose complicity in any wrong-doing of the American government needed to be established before any harm might have been justly inflicted on them. The terrorists were indeed cowardly for going after essentially defenseless civilians and children simply because nearly all of them were Americans. Furthermore, given that in their belief system they would be rewarded with many blessings in the wake of their terrorists deeds, any talk of great courage is arguably off base.

But Sontag’s ill-chosen remarks illustrate very well to what extent many on the American Left embrace a collectivist view of human social life. They view America as some kind of entity, of which the citizens are bits and pieces, so if one is aggrieved by some of those bits, any others can be made to suffer in response. For those who think this way, America is like a person, so if the person hits you with arms, your hitting back at the head or back is just fine—they are all of one piece. It doesn’t matter that American citizens do not all agree with the American government’s policies in the Middle East. It doesn’t matter that many of the victims of the terrorists were kids who couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be held responsible for what the government does and has done.

No, for collectivists a society is one great body—as Marx said, "an organic whole." America is a large organism and those abroad are another organism. It is then the former body that mistreats the latter, so the latter may strike back at any part of the former.

Susan Sontag may have been a decent novelists and essayist, a good wordsmith. But her thinking, as illustrated by her response to 9/11, shows that she really was a quintessential anti-American, given her complete rejection of one of the central tenets of American civilization, namely, individualism. Only individuals who have been shown to have committed a wrong against others may be punished for that wrong, not their neighbors, relatives or children. Her failure to see this makes the late Susan Sontag a perfect example of the Left’s fundamental anti-Americanism, even if one were to admit that American foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired.

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