I sought the image of democracy itself … in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress,” Alexis de Toqueville wrote in Democracy in America (1831). His visit to the then newly born United States resulted in a work that today is misquoted, paraphrased and used as a mirror the US holds up to itself. About 170 years later journalist David Cohen undertook a two-year pilgrimage in his favourite philosopher’s footsteps across the US.
Chasing the Red, White and Blue (Pan Macmillan) poses pertinent questions: does the American Dream still exist and if so, in what form? The laid-back Cohen becomes animated explaining the importance of understanding the changes that have occurred in the US in the past 30 years.
Born in England, Cohen grew up in Johannesburg and then later returned to the United Kingdom to attend Oxford. “But, my heart resides here,” confesses Cohen.
A Harkness Fellowship brought him to the US, where shocking statistics of poverty and inequality landed on his desk. For instance, 40% of American children under the age of six live in poverty, and the incomes of the poorest have fallen by 21% since the 1970s. “It’s worse than in any other developed democracy,” says Cohen. “Yet America has gone through the longest economic expansion in history.”
Cohen travelled the original route of De Toqueville, but added Silicon Valley, California. Building a tapestry of diverse inhabitants, as well as providing astonishing facts and historical information, his book is a finely tuned and often heartfelt journey of exploration and inspiration.
Cohen uses his gift for mixing facts, figures and personal analysis without sacrificing emotional sensitivity or the flow of the writing. Using De Toqueville as his “backseat driver”, Cohen delves into the deeper malaise gnawing at the US today.
In New York he discovers that Manhattan has become a city for the rich, due to exorbitant real estate prices. Alabama yields pastors who abdicate responsibility for the poor; many in the Deep South retain racist mentalities. Silicon Valley produces youthful millionaires without social consciences. And yet, among the desert of disappointments, he finds wonderful surprises, such as Helaine Clark, a single mother and checkout girl from Pittsburgh, or a Californian entrepreneur who travels to Kosovo to help the needy.
Cohen espouses De Toqueville’s idea of “self-interest properly understood”, which he thought Americans practiced. This is enlightened self-interest — a knowing that by helping others, somehow you contribute to your own material and spiritual well-being.
“We’re witnessing the biggest smash’n’grab in corporate history,” he says of the Enron and Arthur Anderson scandals. “America worships its corporate heroes,” he notes, but the American Dream is accessible only to some.
“The rottenness of that dream is being shown up. The playing field has never been, is not level and is becoming even more skewed. What’s left is the quaking illusion of the easily attainable American Dream and the innate inability of Americans to deal with hard realities. They must be dealt with or they rise up, resulting in conflict rather than a world working together. It seems such a shame.”
On the subject of this country, by comparison, he says, “South Africa had a peaceful political transition, but now we need social and economic transition.” He draws parallels between the US and South Africa: the geographical separation of poor and rich, the prevalence of casino culture, the legacy of slavery and racism, and the critical role of education in ensuring equality.
Another similarity, according to Cohen, is the optimism and extrovert mindset of the nation. “There are positive lessons and warning signs for us.” Every bit as fine a social commentator as his De Toqueville, his next work is set in South Africa and promises to be insightful about who and where we are as a nation.
“What is the South African Dream?” Cohen asks. Perhaps we can extrapolate from his invesigations into the American Dream and De Toqueville’s way of understanding deeper structures. As Cohen notes, “It would be great if the haves and have-nots stepped towards each other and admitted inequalities. They would take those steps and do a dance. It could be very pretty.”