Steinbeck: America and Americans

A couple of months ago, Becky and I were killing time in a used book store near the UW, before seeing So Close at the Varsity. I came across a book that looked pretty interesting: America and Americans, with text by John Steinbeck, and photos by many of my favorite photographers, published in 1966.

I confess I had primarily bought it for the photos, but last week when I was lying around feeling sorry for myself I picked it up off my "to read" stack and burned right through it.

The text is Steinbeck's observations about US history and culture, from the perspective of his 64 years (at the time) of closely observing human beings. It's a fascinating work -- equal parts affectionate and scathing. Some of his comments, particularly about politics, have a haunting timeliness to them that creeped me out. For example, today's selection, which is from a larger discussion of people reacting to life out of fear instead of curiousity:

... they live in a state of constant apprehension. This makes them fair game for the man or group with dictatorial desires.

Such leaders are surely screwballs, but they are wise in the use of timidity. They have only to bring charges, no matter how ridiculous or improbable, of plots ... in order to arouse fear, which is the mother of ferocity... Once they have been frightened into organization for self-defense, the Messiah who has planted the fear is able to use it for his own ends. He has only to bring some cruel, stupid, and untrue charge against an official, and particularly against any reform movement, to set these cohorts in noisy motion and to draw from them large amounts of money which, devoted to publications and radio and television programs, keep these poor people further off balance; and, as Joseph McCarthy proved, the more ridiculous the charge, the less possibility there is of defense.

What is the purpose of such leaders or stimulators or catalysts? Probably a simple desire for power. But their stated purpose is invariably patriotic -- they promise to preserve the nation by techniques which will inevitably destroy it. They may even have convinced themselves of the virtue of their mission; and yet, over all such activities there is the smell that caused Doctor Johnson to say that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.