The Terror Dream

The terror dream is a dream America has been dreaming for 300 years. It’s a dream about vulnerability, and violation by dusky heathens. And each time we have that dream, we wake up in the morning with a burning desire to hurt and shame someone. Who? Women, of course.

Why? Because only by reducing women to frightened and suppliant dependents can we be, in contrast, the manly men our country needs to protect and avenge it. As Susan Faludi sums it up in The Terror Dream, her appalling recent book: “The virginal child-woman was the caryatid supporting the edifice of male effectiveness and thus of national psychological security; without her vulnerability, the structure collapsed.” Thus, Job Number One of the American man is to make damn sure his women don’t even think they could exist without him.

Same as it ever was, from the Indian wars of the 17th century through the Cold War. Three centuries of psychic damage virtually guaranteed that what bubbled up from the national unconscious in the days and months after September 11 would be dark and atavistic indeed. And so it was. Not just the irrational lashing out at supposed enemies, but the reflexive and intolerant assertion of machismo at home. And throughout, in aid of more perfect manhood, the clamor for women barefoot and pregnant.

This is one seriously disturbed country.