Tough Guys in America, (Part 3) 8-31-2010

 [Continued from Tough Guys in America, (Part 2) 8-31-2010. sch 3/19/23.]

I saw our American history as being as revolutionary as the Russian or French revolutions. I know I am of a minority on this point. The French Revolution interests writers and philosophers much more than our revolution. Albert Camus in The Rebel connects the French and Russian Revolutions without a mention of the American. I will take Madison and Hamilton over Marat and Robespierre. I don't think we realize the greatness of Washington as a politician until we look at Napoleon. 

But we still look a palooka. Maybe it is we have no alternatives to the muscle-bound idiots who will smash through all obstacles in their flat-footed righteousness. We have promoted Bluto over Popeye. Iraq serves as a museum for our most witlessly muscle-bound ideas. We went in on Shock and Awe using massive displays of power, only to find crude improvised devices killing most of our troops. The change in Iraq came with the arrival of General Petraeus who resembles not Rambo but Gary Cooper.

We need to promote heroes who use their brains. We rely on might rather than wit because might can be more easily bought. Because we separate intelligence from manliness. Nowadays, we associate intelligence, wits, with ineffectual intellectualism instead of as an essential element of humanity. Watch the mood of Public Enemies change when Gable is on the screen. He upstages Depp with ease, for all Depp is the better actor. Gable welds intelligence with energy with machismo in a way no one has done for a long time. 

Remember, Gable and Wayne and Cagney and Gary Cooper came of age in an America where success was a risky thing, requiring brains and brawn and energy. Even then, the margins were thin.

[Continued in Tough Guys in America, (Part 4) 8-31-2010. sch 3/1923.]