Termites in Our Self-Delusions

Before Hurricane Katrina, residents of the Gulf Coast felt lucky to live in a warm, hospitable place. The scenery reminded visitors of Eden with the verdant greenery and bright flowers. Katrina changed the landscape dramatically—especially in places where people who weren’t wealthy tended their homes. After the carnage, many of the less advantaged minority residents gave up and left. They had no money to attempt to resurrect their neighborhoods. What most people didn’t know was that beneath the unspoiled beauty of the coastlands lives a formidable enemy—formosan subterranean termites. They set about eating the timbers of the abandoned structures, hurrying their ruin.

Formosan termites invaded the United States from Asia shortly after WWII and are famed for their overwhelming numbers and voracious appetites. According to PBS’s National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth, Formosan termites can eat a foot of 2X4 in as little as 19 days. Locals were hoping the flood waters from the failed levees would drown them. No such luck. The termites constructed waterproof barriers for themselves so they survived as human occupants died. Their insidious threat reminds me of other less honest attacks from within.

Hate in the form of prejudice has smoldered beneath segments of American society since the country’s inception—often bursting into spots of flame. Not unlike other nationalities, Americans have struggled to contain baseless ill feelings that target indigenous as well as immigrant populations for race, gender, religion, or various other identifying differences. Genocide is a common result of prejudices gone rogue. For example, THE Henry Ford supported Nazis because he hated Jews.

Other hostilities don’t seem to be traceable to any specific source beyond a need to blame someone. I once had a highly capable college student in a communication class on the benefits of empathy who told me she wrote what she knew I wanted to hear, but she didn’t believe in caring about other people or their needs. She should have been my first warning that I had misjudged the emerging character of my country. When our elected officials blithely and often cruelly punish or scapegoat persons and organizations/institutions for no crime except disagreement, I realize I didn’t recognize a gigantic ethical shift as it was happening.

Like the termites I mentioned, the American proponents of division culture based on monetary merit have quietly multiplied and inserted themselves into society over perhaps the past fifty years. Many believe they’re Christian, although they don’t follow the advice of Jesus Christ or any other compassionate religious leader. Were they seduced by promises of greater wealth and power that would supposedly shield them from climate degradation? Were they taught by violent mass media instead of cohesive families?

In their fear, did mistrust for other ethnicities, races, or religions become generalized and woven with urges toward violence? Or are many simply too deeply indoctrinated to spot propaganda and lies that have been substituted for less destructive methods of improvement? Because, of course, the United States as it has traditionally manifested itself has often made selfish choices that didn’t benefit the people on whom the democracy supposedly rests. Humans err—especially when temptations are too easy to reach. But does pretending we’re incapable of bad behavior make us better people?

So how do we preserve and enrich what’s good about us? Can courage, compassion, and loyalty be contagious? We’ve managed before, although this time the goodness we believed in so fervently seems to be sorely tattered. If we gather into a whole, one dedicated to the betterment of humankind, we just might find ways to incapacitate the termites. Now where did we send those immigrants who were brilliant?