For the first time, following a trip overseas, I returned home reluctantly. After a week in Ireland, I looked forward to coming back to my life in Oak Park, of course, but not to the U.S., which feels wrecked and ruined. The prevailing culture here does not reflect my values; in fact it is aggressively hostile to those values. In Ireland, on the other hand, I felt much more in synch — a superficial impression, perhaps, based on an 8-day trip (though consistent with my three previous trips over a half-century span).
As I said in my column last week, Ireland feels more egalitarian with less evidence of economic inequality and a greater commitment to free speech. The noise and partisan toxicity levels are much lower there. Addressing climate change and economic disparity are demonstrated priorities, judging by the well-produced public service announcements I saw during a brief sampling of Irish television — and even in the B&Bs where we stayed on the West Coast. The Irish go out of their way on these issues. We do it half-heartedly or with corporate lip service, if at all. In Ireland, gas-guzzling automobiles are not the dominant mode of transportation. Communitarian values are more openly espoused there than in our country, where hard-core individualism and hyper-competitiveness still reign.
Moving to Ireland is not an option, but taking a break from our national sh*tstorm was a welcome respite. Minus email and the internet, I was happy to be removed from the madness, though it’s impossible to escape altogether. Coverage of the murder of Charlie Kirk made the front page of the Irish Times, as did efforts by the political-corporate complex to censor Jimmy Kimmel. But those wormholes didn’t lure me in. They just made me all the more appreciative of spending time in a place that felt so much saner.
I haven’t traveled abroad since 2019 (also to Ireland). I don’t know how other Americans feel voyaging these days, but since last November, we Yanks, as they call us, travel with an albatross around our necks, bearing the embarrassment of having re-elected a laughing-stock in the eyes of the rest of the world.
In Ireland, they were kind about it, consoling even. “We know it wasn’t your fault,” we heard more than once. They could have rubbed it in, but they didn’t. They know it’s embarrassing to have a joke as president, so they don’t bring up politics unless you do. But once they realize you have a clue, they let down their guard a little and commiserate. From such a distance, it’s even possible to laugh a bit about the sheer absurdity of it all. Harder to do that back here.
Traveling Americans, I suspect, have to fight the urge to apologize for this, our un-finest hour. But when I’m abroad, though it happens rarely now, I don’t feel the weight of “representing my country.” It would be impossible to explain our national insane asylum to them anyhow. One can only shrug and say, “We are a cauldron of irrationality.” The Irish, if anyone, would understand.
It is, as we Irish-American Catholics like to say, “the cross we bear.”
But I didn’t think about it much while I was there. America was once a saner nation, so it felt familiar being in Ireland. Maybe even a little homesick for those days. When I travel, I like to find the things that other countries are doing better. That wasn’t hard on this trip. We have a lot to learn from other lands. Too bad we’re so hard-headed.
I doubt there are as many “ugly Americans” out and about these days, exuding arrogant bravado. And that’s a blessing. I felt more like a citizen of the world, and that helped me cope with living in a country with its head so far up its butt. A little humility right now may be good medicine for the national soul.
And if Ireland is any indication, there is hope elsewhere. The world may even extend a hand to help us get over ourselves. And say, with a clap on the back, “Hey, Yank, it’s good to see you back in the land of the living.”
One thing the Irish know how to do, from long experience, is to laugh it off.
Someday, maybe. Someday.