A list of examples of self-sacrifice myth:
- (LJW), November 12 2004, Message Unit 6
- Lasswell (TV Guide), April 12 2003, Message Unit 14
- Belt (LJW), April 11 2004, Message Unit 14
- Belt (LJW), April 11 2004, Message Unit 5
- Belt (LJW), April 11 2004, Message Unit 18
- Gordon, Mazzetti, Shanker (NYT) August 17 2006, Message Unit 1
- Straziuzo (AP) June 23 2007, Message Unit 1
- Belt (LJW), April 11 2004, Message Unit 16
- Coleman (AP), April 9 2004, Message Unit 2
- J-W Wire Reports, April 9 2004, Message Unit 6
- (LJW), November 12 2004, Message Unit 8
- (LJW), November 12 2004, Message Unit 12
- (LJW), November 12 2004, Message Unit 4
- Associated Press, November 8 2003, Message Unit 16
- Rothschild (LJW), August 19 2004, Message Unit 1
- Rothschild (LJW), August 19 2004, Message Unit 5
- Rothschild (LJW), August 19 2004, Message Unit 3
- Douglas and Stearns (Knight Ridder) April 6 2004, Message Unit 1
- Douglas and Stearns (Knight Ridder) April 6 2004, Message Unit 4
- Douglas and Stearns (Knight Ridder) April 6 2004, Message Unit 5
- Douglas and Stearns (Knight Ridder) April 6 2004, Message Unit 7
- Logan, June 14 2005, Message Unit 1
- Johansson, March 23 2006, Message Unit 1
|
|
Definition of
self-sacrifice myth
The
self-sacrifice myth
is the most important of the core myths,
a set of five unchanging descriptive beliefs about the US
government's actions in the world. The self-sacrifice myth deals with the interests of the US government.
It says that the US government
gives; the US government does not get. When the US government
acts, it harms itself,
it suffers costs;
the US government does not help itself, does not gain.
This myth covers both actions and
objectives or goals. Because of this myth,
the US government cannot be described as acting according to
many of the objectives that have always been assumed to motivate
governments: it does
not seek wealth for its friends, power over the people of other countries,
land, natural resources, or subservient states. When the US government acts,
it does not gain wealth or power over other people or over their lands, properties,
or resources; it does
not help its follower states to do these things either.
Instead, it suffers, and bears unpleasant costs.
The self-sacrifice myth is not a new idea; other
countries have sought and acquired benefits
while pretending not to do so, and the
news agencies in other countries have performed the same
reversals to reality many times, like the US news agencies and other patriotic texts
do. For example, it is
common in the history of non-US colonialism to
hear an act of murderous conquest and gain for
the interests of the conquering government and its
attendant companies referred to as a selfless
act of kindness to the people being conquered,
as if the conquerors and their friends had nothing
to gain at all and even suffered costs.
This sort of reversal is also common at the nonstate level.
Slavery in America was often portrayed
as a selfless act of kindness
to the slaves on the part of generous and altruistic slaveowners.
American slaves who showed insufficient
humility were called "ungrateful," implying
that the slaveowners were giving, not getting.
We are used to such pleasure-as-pain reversals, such benefit-as-loss inversions,
and we expect and recognize them in pretty much all actors other than the US
government. For example, we see the car advertisement that portrays
the dealer as an altruist, out to help the buyer at great cost to himself.
We sneer at the idea that the Japanese government was out to bring
prosperity and happiness to the people of the countries that it conquered in the
middle of the twentieth century.
We are not fooled by these obvious tricks when they are used for
car dealers, European colonial governments, slaveowners, the Japanese
government in World War II. But the same reversal used for the US government is
treated as so credible as to be a given; in fact,
not making this reversal for the US government
is considered outlandish or insane within the patriotic information environment,
if it is admitted as possible at all.
Scope of the self-sacrifice myth
The self-sacrifice myth is inviolable in patriotic messages:
the US government does not acquire. It does not engage in
conquest, or acquire (or try to acquire) power over others, or their wealth, land,
resources, or help its follower countries acquire
these things.
Relationship of the self-sacrifice myth to other core myths
The implication of the self-sacrifice myth is that the US government can act in
only two ways:
in benevolence to people of other countries, or in defense of America or Americans or
of US allies.
The secondary core myths are thus humanitarianism and self-defense/nonaggression.
The self-sacrifice myth and the changes to history
The US government's behaviors violate the self-sacrifice myth.
To conform to the self-sacrifice myth, the US government's acts contrary to the myth are
removed from history or converted into their opposites. Often, entire cases are
gone from the commonly portrayed history of the world; this absence is the
case for many, probably most, of the US
government's actions in the twentieth century. In
other cases, the actions are still there, but the US government's role as principal actor,
the fact that they were US actions, is removed. When neither the actions themselves
nor the US government's role as actor are
removed, the benefits that the US government gets from the act are removed,
often to be replaced with costs to the US government,
so that an acquisition of a choice prize, a conquest of another country, a benefit
to the US in terms of power, resources, or control over others, becomes a
selfless act of charity. In other cases, an outcome that the US wanted and worked hard to
bring about is presented as if it were something that the US government did not want.
|
patriotized history
