Can a Nation Be Irrevocably Ruined By Its Leaders?

Reflections on how quickly a nation may fall from grace.

Oh Deutschland, bleiche Mutter!
Wie haben deine Söhne dich zugerichtet
Dass du unter den Völkern sitzest
Ein Gespött oder eine Furcht!

Oh Germany, pale mother!
How have your sons ill-served you
That you are scorned by all people—
A thing of obloquy and terror!

Bertolt Brecht, “Deutschland”

In William Faulkner’s story The Bear, the protagonist, Isaac McCaslin goes on a series of hunting expeditions to kill a bear named Old Ben. However, when he finally gets a chance to take a shot, he chooses to let the splendid animal—that seems to embody what’s left of the disappearing Mississippi wilderness—live. Later he watches in horror as another hunter brutally slays the old creature with a knife.

The story seems to be a meditation on how men may be given to greed, lust, and the desire to dominate and kill, thereby losing their souls. Especially disturbing is Isaac’s perception that, from the actions of the men who settled it, including his own family, his homeland of Mississippi has been irredeemably tainted.

Bertolt Brecht conveyed a similar idea in his poem “Deutschland” that expresses the idea that the once great nation of Germany—personified by a “pale mother”—will never recover from the dishonor inflicted upon her by the dreadful conduct of her sons.

There was a time not that long ago in the United States when our society still valued the concept of a gentleman—an idea that traced its lineage back to classical Greece. The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus remarked that even a relatively minor form of misconduct is enough to ruin a man’s reputation forever. As he put it:

A small thing may ruin and destroy all. There is no need of anything large to ruin us; to lose your self-respect, your integrity, your modesty, a single moment of intemperance or carelessness is enough.

Increasingly, it seems to me that the people who own and run the United States possess the character traits that Isaac McCaslin perceived to have resulted in a fall from grace. They are conspicuously—even bombastically— greedy, rapacious, bloodthirsty, vulgar and seem to have no regard for the other peoples of the world or for even the younger generations of their own country.

Has this coterie of awful people rendered America into “a thing of obloquy and terror”?

The same question may be asked of Israel. In retaliation for approximately 4,000 Hamas assassins brutally killing about 828 Israeli civilians and 367 security personnel, Israel’s military has damaged or completely destroyed an estimated 82% of all buildings in Gaza and killed (according to a study Lancet Global Health study) around 75,000 people and injured around 174,000. According to this study, women, children, and older people made up a majority of violent deaths.

Just as the atrocious behavior of the German government (and people who played along with it) in the years 1933-1945 did irreparable harm to the reputation of ALL German people—including those not yet born—the reputation of the American and Israeli nations will likely be permanently damaged by the conduct of their current governments.

We can try to defend the actions of our dreadful politicians till we are blue in the face, but it won’t change the factual reality that the rest of the world can plainly see, even if we are too willfully blind to see it ourselves.