In his article “Americans are Tuning Out the World”, Alkman Granitsas brings readers’ attention to the fact that; whereas, America continues to play an important role in shaping up world’s socio-political realities, the perception of these realities, on the part of American citizens, is being marked by their isolationist attitudes, which grow ever-stronger, as time goes by: “Americans now pay less attention to international affairs, and read less foreign news than at any time in the last two generations” (Granitsas 2005). Author refers to this phenomenon as such that reflects the fact that, ever since early sixties, the demographic fabric of American society has undergone a drastic transformation, due to the policy of “multiculturalism” being given an official status in this country, and also as such, that signifies the process of more and more American citizens being deprived of spiritual qualities, which allowed their ancestors to build and to maintain a civilization in the New World: “Since the days of ancient Rome, it is an axiom of political science that economic well-being dulls the appetite of citizens to participate in civil affairs” (Granitsas 2005).
In other words, in his article, author simply repeats the most important idea, contained in Edward Gibbon’s famous book “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, which can be formulated as follows: The reason why Rome was being sacked by barbarians in 546 A.D. with such an amazing ease, is because by this time, Roman citizens were no longer Roman citizens, in traditional sense of this word, while consisting of crowds of racially mongrelized degenerates, solely preoccupied with seeking entertainment and practicing perverse sex, as their foremost priority: “(In 5th century Rome) Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens. The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule” (Gibbon, Ch. 24). Thus, Granitsas article’s conceptual context implies that many parallels can be drawn between Roman Empire, during the time of its decline, and today’s America, which is nothing but the “Roman Empire of modern times”: “For all the talk about a global village, there are actually two communities in the world today: Americans and everyone else” (Granitsas 2005). It is needless to say, of course, that such author’s suggestion can hardly be thought of as corresponding well to politically correct assumption that “celebration of diversity” policy strengthens America’s national integrity.
This is the reason why Granitsas strived to smooth out article’s rough ideological edges, by deliberately not mentioning the actual demographic effects of America’s “progressive” immigration policies upon the society, as if he was unaware of the fact that; whereas, prior to 1960, it were namely White people who would be given preference over representatives of other races, as potential immigrants, nowadays, it is people from Third World countries that amount for 75% of all immigrants coming to America on annual basis. As a logical result, the areas in large America’s cities that appear as Third World slums, continue to undergo a rapid territorial expansion, which in its turn, has a direct link to the process of American citizens’ intellectual integrity being undermined. One of article’s strongest points is the fact that Granitsas recognizes the negatively objective essence of this process: “According to a report funded by the US Department of Education, in 1965, more than 16 percent of all American university students studied a foreign language. Now only 8.6 percent do… According to a 2002 National Geographic survey, 30 percent of Americans believed the population of America to be between 1 and 2 billion people” (Granitsas 2005).
Unfortunately, in his article, author fails to mention the number of high school graduates that now enrol in America’s universities and colleges annually, despite not being able to point at U.S. on world’s map, while taking a full advantage of “affirmative action” policy, and whether the existence of such policy has any affect on the process of America’s educational standards being continuously lowered. Also, while complaining about Americans growing increasingly alienated, in social context of this word, Granitsas deliberately withdraws from establishing a direct link between such citizens’ tendency and the particularities of their ethnic affiliation. For example, in America’s Chinatowns, there are many second generation Chinese-Americans who do not even speak English, simply because it is in the nature of Chinamen to create a “society within a society”, upon immigrating into traditionally White countries. The same can be said about representatives of other racial minorities in this country, such as Hispanics or Arabs – they actively resist being wholly integrated into society to which they formally belong. However, only very naïve people can believe that citizens fully preoccupied with “exploring their ethnic uniqueness” are able to understand what the concept of national unity stands for.
Moreover, it is not only in America, where citizens are becoming increasingly incapable of acting as productive members of society, while paying less and less attention to the matter of socio-political importance, but also in such Western countries as France, Britain and Germany, simply because these countries are being invaded by the hordes of immigrants from Third World as well, despite the fact that France, Britain and Germany can hardly be referred to as “nations of immigrants”. Therefore, we can say that, even though Granitsas’ article contains many valid arguments (the most insightful of them is author’s recognition of the fact that many parallels can be found between declining Roman Empire and today’s America, which prides itself on being turned into interracial melting pot), it does not provide readers with the actual clue on innate essence of the process of American citizens’ political attitudes becoming ever-more isolationist. In its turn, this can be explained by author’s apparent awareness of the existence of politically correct censorship, to which his article would be subjected, before being allowed for publishing. Thus, article’s conclusions can be best referred to as being only partially sensible, simply because in “Americans are Turning Out the World”, Granitsas had made a point in not discussing how people’s racial affiliation define their existential mode, as it would result in him being automatically charged with “racism”, “sexism”, “male chauvinism”, “retrogradeness” etc.
Bibliography
Granitsas, A. 2005. Americans are Tuning Out the World. Yale Global Online. Web.
Gibbon, E. [1776] 2002.The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Web.