The Myth of Western Exceptionalism

We Arizonans adore the image of our state as one of the last bastions of the “Wild, Wild West.”  We are, after all, the forty-eighth state (the last on the mainland), the home of Geronimo (the last Indian renegade), and Tombstone (perhaps history’s most infamous gunfight).  We also boast Senator Barry Goldwater, the rugged individualist who was probably the last national politician to forgo image consultants.  Senator McCain has carefully cultivated his image as a maverick, it is this tradition that Sarah Palin and Scott Brown seem to aspire to.

Formal Western American Romanticism as an art form started (as many things originally American things did) in Boston; however, its real genesis probably started in Northern Europe whose populace held America up as the land of opportunity.

Academia tells us that Romanticism was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, which is probably true, but it is historical irony that the Industrial Revolution produced the very tools used to conquer the last bastion of the wild and romantic West.

The Hawker

"Oz didn't give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't already have..."

One of my favorite characters in the Wizard of Oz is the medicine show charlatan who, in  Dorothy’s  dream, morphs into “OZ” himself.  “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” he screams as he is revealed to be nothing more than an ordinary man.   There are many pop references to “hawkers” and “snake oil salesmen.”  In a true historical irony, however, John D. Rockefeller’s father famously moved from town to town selling fake miracle cures.  Extending the analogy further, he was also a renowned bigamist, who used his absences from John D’s family to visit his other wives (Mark Stanford anyone?).   We all know that politicians tend to tell you what they think you want to hear.  There is a famous quote attributed to Samuel Johnson that goes:  “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” to which Bob Dylan added:  “Steal a little and they put you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.”