Don’t blame it on the Puritans
God Won't Save America, by George Walden

Tomas White
posted 17 March 2008

‘The truth about Puritanism is that it was a schizoid condition, whose contradictions are becoming more visible and revealing in America today than at any time in its history.’ - George Walden

The idea behind this book is a simple one. The basic premise is that America owes its many paradoxes to one single root cause: Puritanism. It is to this facet of the nation’s history that George Walden attributes the many contradictions found in all aspects of American life, from sex and commerce to politics and international affairs. Why, for example, is there such hypocrisy surrounding American attitudes towards sex? How does a country so advanced in science and technology demonstrate such a crude and primitive approach to capital punishment? How can Americans reconcile their religious piety with the selfishness and greed of their economy? And how can the democratically elected leader of a nation with the capacity to send men and women into space think there is somebody up there who appointed him president? All these questions, and many more, are answered by blaming the pilgrims. The portrait painted is of a nation deeply misunderstood. That is the psychosis. And Walden is the analyst. His diagnosis is that once we misunderstand these inconsistencies, we misunderstand America. This book is his attempt to highlight the tensions at work in American society in the hope that readers, presumably from both sides of the Atlantic, will better understand this strange, American condition.

Without the Puritan pilgrims, Walden argues, today’s America would be a very different place; less moralistic, less individualistic and less hypocritical. But surely the USA is as culturally diverse as nations come, you say. It would be absurd to put everything down to one strand in the complex tangle of America’s cultural influences. Walden maintains that despite this, the most powerful legacy in America’s cultural history is that of the Puritan tradition. What is more, the Puritan matter is ‘a case apart’. There is something singularly peculiar about Puritanical values and, at 60% of the population Protestants still perpetuate them in many aspects of American society. Walden aims to unveil the currents of Puritanism at work in this society today, tracing its dialectical development (‘the Puritan dialectic of repression and revolt’) through the ages, in an attempt to explain these contradictions.

And so he goes about his task, variously explaining this Puritanical dialectic at work in different areas of American life. For example, the Puritan dialectic is the reason behind Americans’ ability to abhor depictions of sex, or its discussion in schools, all the while being the world’s largest producer of pornography. Characterised as an abreaction to the stifling moral constraints of Puritanical doctrine, America’s ambiguous attitudes toward sex present a perfect illustration of Walden’s argument. Hugh Hefner and Alfred Kinsey are his showcase examples, both sons of severe, Puritanical fathers, and both sexual rebels in the extreme. These men are the typical products of a country in rebellion against its prudish spiritual forefathers. Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives illustrate Walden’s idea that the country is obsessed with the sexual repression of its Puritan heritage. Likewise, American business suffers a neurosis of Puritan proportions. How else can bosses hold morning prayers with their employees before going about exploiting them?

And what of politics? In a country where secularism is nominally enshrined in the constitution, it would seem strange that a Christian re-birth be a required stop-over on the campaign trail of many a presidential candidate; and not just for those on the Christian Right. The trend, exemplified by politicians such as Al Gore, suggests the direction of domestic American politics is in the midst of an evangelical revival. There is, it seems, a nostalgic longing for the pre-Enlightenment era, especially in the spectacle of televised politics, where reason is ignored in favour of the virtuousness of ‘sincerity’ and ‘feeling’. Most pertinent are Walden’s comments on the vacant religiosity that has grown in popularity in American society, and which, if anything, is characterised by a move away from true religious roots towards a simulated or spectacular piety, which is in danger of undermining true, rational and responsible democracy.

The notion that American politics and religion seem to fuse together in an irresponsibly strong cocktail of ideology is best illustrated in international affairs under the banner of Manifest Destiny. This idea is taken to its extreme when one considers Bush’s proclamations of divine providence inspiring him not only to run for office, but in doing his godly duty in Iraq.

I do not know how to avoid the conclusion that a man who is capable of taking the illusions of religion so literally and is so sure of a special intimacy with the Almighty is unfitted for relations with the ordinary children of men.

These are Freud’s words on Woodrow Wilson’s manic religiosity, which Walden quotes, suggesting the same comments would be apt in describing the current president. The general gist is that whilst faith-based politics may work at home for the moment, faith-based diplomacy is totally absurd.

Walden’s ruminations on the Puritan legacy in various areas of American life do raise some interesting points and make for entertaining debate, but it is in the last chapter of the book that the substance of his argument is most laudable. The very contradictions Walden attributes to the self-conflicting nature of Puritanism form the basis for the rest of the world’s confused perceptions of America. Critics are quick to deride the USA for its many shortcomings, all the while remaining free to enjoy its many ‘good’ things such as holidays in Florida, American brands, and the many sitcoms and Hollywood blockbusters. The point is, the USA is a country of polarities; it is deeply religious but can be accused of pagan hedonism; it is a bastion of social selfishness yet it is home to the world’s most generous philanthropists. Perhaps its biggest problem in winning the favour of world-opinion today is its leader. George W Bush is the perfect poster-monster for Americanophobes. Says Walden, Bush ‘does away with the critics’ doubts and allows them to give reign to their prejudices’.

In his explanation of our confused perceptions of America, Walden uncovers the crux of the matter. The reaction to America is a mix of attraction and repulsion. The attraction is easy enough to understand, but the repulsion works on two levels: ‘a genuine horror of America’s crass materialism, and a revulsion at our own sneaking attraction to it’. A lonely sufferer the USA is not; we too are profoundly confused.

Anecdotes and (often entertaining) quotes from Puritan figureheads stuff the book to the gizzard like a thanksgiving turkey, obfuscating the shallowness and unoriginality of Walden’s core argument. What is more, the book lacks rigour thanks to its digressive, rant-like style, and it is often unclear where Walden is laying down his ideas.

A major criticism to be made of Walden’s approach is the imbalance of his arguments. He is quick to dismiss those who might get in the way (AJP Taylor is a ‘professional mischief maker’, for example). His selective and slapdash borrowing from thinkers such as Max Weber also undermines any seriousness his position might have. Let us be clear, attempting to explain away the many contradictions inherent in a culture by attributing them to a single cause is a daringly ambitious task and unfortunately Walden lacks the expertise to make him the man for the job. One, relatively generous, critic says of Walden, ‘his ability to attribute to them [the Puritans] all the oddities of modern America is possible only with an attitude to logic that is as elastic as his treatment of evidence is Procrustean’. And I am inclined to agree.