An Exegetical Essay of Paul Smith's Primal America

Introduction

"America's more or less absolute devotion to the fundamental propositions and processes of its own historical form of capitalism." argues Smith in his book Primitive America. For cultural critic Paul Smith, the tension between progressive and primitive is a constitutive condition of American history and culture. In “Primitive America,” Smith contemplates this primary contradiction as it has played out in the years since 9/11. Indeed, he writes, much of what has happened since-events that have seemed to many to be novel and egregious-can be explained by this foundational dialectic.

9/11 Tragedy

The shock and moral outrage provoked by the September 11 attacks were deep, genuine and expressed by people throughout the world. Had someone denied that the attacks were grievous wrongs, the denial would have reflected badly on whoever expressed it rather than casting doubt on the wrongness of the attacks. Moreover, if asked why the attacks were wrong, the most natural answer is that they killed innocent people. Primitive America attests that this underlying stress is driven by America's unquestioned devotion to the elemental propositions and processes of capitalism (Smith, pp. 57-156). This devotion, Smith argues, has become America's quintessential characteristic, and he begins this book by elaborating on the idea of ??the primitive in America-its specific history of capital accumulation, commodity fetishism, and cultural narcissism. Smith goes on to track the symptoms of the primitive that have arisen in the aftermath of 9/11 and the commencement of the "Long War" against "violent extremists": the nature of American imperialism, the status of the U.S. Constitution, the militarization of America's economy and culture, and the Bush administration's disregard for human rights (Smith, pp. 57-156). No realist thinker who spoke out after the September 11 attacks to say that moral condemnations of terrorism are misguided or naïve. Yet, realists could not honestly join in these moral condemnations. Honest realist must say either that morality does not apply to terrorist attacks or that such attacks are only wrong if they harm the national interest (Smith, pp. 57-156). Because Smith argues that moral realists evaluate such acts only from the perspective of interests, they could say that the September 11 attacks harmed the interests of the United States and benefited the interests of Al Qaeda, but they could not say that they were morally wrong. People who hold the moralized version of realism would, in fact, have to go farther and say that there is a moral duty to engage in terrorist acts if they would promote the national interest. They are committed to this conclusion because the moralized realist view evaluates all actions from the point of view of their own national self interest. The government of that time also reacted to the event of September 11 attacks from the perspective of self interest. The aim and objective of this essay is to talk about war on terror from the perspective of realism. In order to prove that the war on terror can be justified from the perspective ...