North Star Writers Group

I am not the first to suggest that Americans have an incredibly guilty conscience, initially stemming from episodes such as the Trail of Tears and slavery, and carried on by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War and the current situation in Iraq. Some events were more tragic and more stupid than others, but the result remains the same. Many Americans seem to struggle with a rather strange variation of shame, as though we inherited the guilt of generations past. I have also wondered if this inherited guilt has combined itself with embarrassment for having much more stuff than everyone else in the world. We are very lucky people.

In a tiny corner of this liberated country, some well-documented research uncovered a few things. The average American sleeps about four-and-one-half hours a night and watches television for the other 19-and-one-half. The average American also drinks about 69 ounces of coffee before 9am, and about four triple grande lattes from Starbucks every afternoon. In addition, the average American BMI is 67.

As a result, we are, all of us, thoroughly educated, exhausted, wide awake and well fed. It was probably not formulated in a chemical laboratory, but our formula is working quite well. Starbucks is here to stay, thank heaven, and TV is actually pretty good these days.

You’re probably thinking. “Why hasn’t anyone told me about these statistics?” And, “If this diligent student of statistics blabs on much longer, I might have to order my third latte earlier than usual.”

Psychoanalyzing a population is a nebulous practice at best, but if the readers are as hopped up on caffeine as I assume, perhaps I’ll just continue.

When considering statistics such as these, one might consider the following question. Are Americans just gluttonous, or are we masochistic?

Constitutionally, we are among the most liberated countries in the world. But when considering our extensive list of vices, we do not appear quite as free as one document might suggest.

I think that the list of legal drugs, though shortening by the hour everywhere but the Golden State, has managed to enslave an entire population made vulnerable by a guilty conscience. Traditionally, the definition of “drug” was restricted to something including some sort of chemical substance. But it may be expanded to include anything that could spawn an addiction.

Yes, many Americans are addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, and a certain percentage is addicted to more immediately harmful drugs such as cocaine. But the drugs we ought to be most concerned about are the ones to which almost all of us are addicted – drugs such as television, obesity and enough caffeine to compensate for insufficient rest. These are the drugs we all use to numb ourselves from the real pain. I mean the pain of watching the world suffer, the pain of walking by homeless people in the streets and even the pain of failed marriages and families, the pain of watching our children fall in love with the same drugs we met around the same age.

So how do we respond to such a crisis? First, we might acknowledge that most of us are using certain non-chemical drugs the same way people use the chemical ones. But more importantly, we ought to address our guilt. Each one of us has plenty to feel bad about. But this should not include things we never did. We need to take a small dose of a drug Robin Williams gave to Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting”, called “It’s not your fault.” We might consider taking responsibility for certain mistakes we all make, but we are not responsible for Andrew Jackson’s treatment of American Indians. It’s not your fault. We are also not responsible for the atrocious sins against African Americans that went on for centuries. It’s not your fault. We are not responsible for the tens of thousands of Japanese whose lives were lost in 1945. It’s not your fault. We did not decide to send tens of thousands to die in Vietnam. It’s not your fault. And very few Americans are responsible for Abu Ghraib. It’s not your fault. Yes, there are people starving all over the world and in our very own backyards, and there is much we can do. But even still, their conditions are not your fault.

Nothing will make crimes against humanity OK and nothing can alleviate the pain of observing someone who is suffering, but if we are so concerned with placing blame, we might at least hand it, exclusively, to the deserving parties.

We are a nation of people stifled by misplaced guilt, crippled by the drugs we tend to forget about. The best medicine may be a few small doses of lots of drugs, and one large dose of reality.

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This is Column # NS23. Request permission to publish here.