PARTISAN REVIEW
159
than nationality, greater even than ideology. There
is
a certain in–
evitability about Americanization. For the whole tendency of the
world
is
towards generalized solutions of problems of living for
mil–
lions of human beings who are seen in a generalized way as social
and economic units. And since America has gone much further in
these directions than other countries, and is also much richer, Amer–
ican mechanization seems the future in a way that cuts across ideolo–
gies. For example, it
is
generally assumed that a prosperous Soviet
society would be one which had caught up with America's rate of
growth, and in which the standard of living of the average Russian
would be that of the average American. And it
is
difficult to see
the ultimate future of Russia as other than becoming a sesond
America.
In a totally Americanized world, everything would be known
about everyone, and everyone, since
his
needs were known, could,
in theory, and perhaps sometimes even in practice, be provided for.
This
does not mean, as it
is
sometimes taken to, that there would
be no individuals. For an individual who
is
completely known in
all
his
physical and psychological make-up may still be exceptional,
even unique, just as a combination of known notes on an instru–
ment can be unique.
The Americans are, to other nationals, the people they feel they
know most about. One might almost define an American as someone
whom everyone not an American thinks he knows absolutely. There
is
not an Eskimo, a Laplander, a Chinese, an Indian, a Dutchman,
who could not give you, at the drop of a hat, a lecture on America
and Americans. He would do so with an assurance that he would
certainly not have
if
talking about Russians and Russia, Frenchmen
and France, or English and England. For he would feel about the
Russians and the French, for example, that they were like icebergs
who - although the displayed surface might be sharply distinctive
and immediately recognizable - had three quarters of their char–
acter hidden under the ocean. But America forms a remarkable ice–
berg which has been publicized, analyzed, made accessible to such
an extent and in such detail, that it
is
almost impossible to believe
that there
is
any part of it not revealed by subaqueous flood-lighting,
and reflected through mirrors.
I do not at all mean that everything said about Americans by
foreigners - or by Americans themselves -
is
true. On the contrary,
