Images of Sacrifice/ Models of Citizenship

• In Event: Scholar to Scholar II
  In Paper Session: Citizenship as Stability and Change: Exploring Technologies of American Virtue and Belonging

Abstract

“Can’t we all just get along?” is a wish placed (oddly, I think) into the mouth of Rodney King, but it appears just as clearly in calls for bipartisanship in political life, in the racial buddy films produced by Hollywood, and in the desire for moderation and patience in the face of demands for change. The answer, of course, is no. Living in community, as citizens, involves the continual work of inventing and reinventing relationships from quite different positions within a presumptive “whole.” This paper claims that American citizenship is importantly established through images that offer models of productive sacrifice.

Perhaps the most familiar image of citizen-sacrifice is John Kennedy’s inspirational call to “Ask not what your country can do for you …” “Ask not” offers images of service and imagines citizenship as active participation to help others for the public good. Reagan offered an economic model when he spoke of “heroes on both sides of the counter.” Government was the presumptive problem, the solution lay in virtuous citizens working hard and consuming sensibly to ensure the good life. Although the model of the citizen-consumer has flourished, it was (ironically, perhaps) brought into some disrepute by George W. Bush’s call to “shop” in the face of attacks on the World Trade Center. The ideal of “success” and (often gendered) incentives to perfect oneself through various products, programs, and procedures are all familiar variations on these themes. A third, perhaps less obvious, kind of citizenship is displayed in Jack Nicholson’s famous denunciation of the weak-willed Tom Cruise: “You can’t handle the truth.” Like the equally fictional Jack Bauer in 24, Nicholson’s anguished cry demands that we allow others to set aside ordinary virtues like empathy and kindness on our behalf in order to guarantee the protection of the polity from imminent threats on the global frontier. Justifications of torture under the sign of necessity, however, led many to question this kind of “citizenship.” Calls for “hope” and “change” indicate another emerging model for citizenship and sacrifice. Obama’s multiracial body, his call for “A More Perfect Union,” and his ambiguous re-enactment of Martin Luther King’s “dream” offer a distinctive image of democratic citizenship the contours of which are not altogether clear.

Author

• William Lewis, Drake University