America is a place where myths, fables and fairy tales thrive better than facts. Long before the war on facts in social media took root, America established itself as a land where mythology thrives, and facts take a back, less sexy seat. We love our fantasies, cartoons and other endless escapes from reality now brought to you by the billion-dollar corporations like Netfllix. Nothing proves our love of the world of fantasy better, however, than the phenomena of the Disney Corporation.
In 2018, their fantasy theme parks earned over 7 billion dollars in revenue drawing in over 157 million visitors. 20 million dollars in a day in profit is a testimony to the ability of Disney to know how to capitalize on a deep American desire to be divorced from reality. We want to be wowed with talking mice, dazzled by rides like the billion-dollar Galaxy’s Edge and enveloped in the glow of the future as told by the likes of Epcot Center. All of these fantasy experiences are happily offered by the Magic Kingdom for $100+ entrance fees.
Problems are hard enough to solve with facts in hand, but when myths become firmly welded to the American psyche, life can become a petri dish of mutating trouble. Some of our cultural myths begin with innocent or even noble intention, after all Disneyland is fun, but often unfold to create real problems down the road.
Take the movie Free Willy. It’s a story, for those who don’t remember, about an Orca (often called Killer whale) trapped in captivity at a Sea World-like place, forced to perform for visitors. In the happy ending of this Warner Bros. 156-million-dollar grossing film, the young protagonist finally releases his captive friend to a free life in the ocean. It raised awareness to be sure and it would have been great if it just stopped the awful capture of wild Orcas, but public demand for the release of captive orcas grew to a fever pitch. The real-life captive Orca, named Keiko, was released under pressure from those who loved whales. They thought he would be in store for a happy ending too. But Keiko was too tame and not able to adapt to migration and soon died of pneumonia in the cold ocean waters bordering Norway. Beware of Americans who think they are doing the right thing without fully vetting the potential results of their actions. Whale and zoo experts warned of Keiko’s fate, but they had facts in their wheelhouse and these well-meaning citizens had their weaponized feelings about whales in their quiver. Beware of Americans bound and determined to do the right thing as defined by their very own ‘wokeness’.
We let cats roam free because it’s their ‘nature’ and then low and behold they kill billions of birds because that is their nature too. Another embarrassing trend in our society is that we often offer inaccurate, palatable answers that don’t work once we become aware of a given problem. Spaying and neutering programs are offered up as a way to lessen the number of birds that find themselves in the mouths of these domesticated predators. These fixed cats are then released outdoors and continue to contribute to the feline annihilation of the bird world. Just because a cat can’t reproduce, doesn’t mean it stops the killing of birds and we can’t catch all of these hungry predators. The tally of this bad decision? An astounding 2.4 billion domestic cat-killed birds a year in the US and Canada.
Americans are often just unaware they are absorbing lies because they are told to believe things with the help of billions of dollars in advertising. Because we do love our myths, we do so often without questioning industries which stand to make a profit if they can just fool enough people. “Cigarettes make you sexy” was a huge push by the tobacco industry until lawsuits and millions of early deaths knocked them down a few pegs.
Sometimes so-called experts write books filled with nonsense and we believe them for years. JW Conway may not be a familiar name now, but he wrote “The Prevention and Correction of Left-Handedness in Children” in 1936 and it became a foundational principle for teachers who continued to think for years that this simple brain development had to be corrected.
The joys of hand feeding wildlife is a destructive myth I had to deal with for many years as a director of a nature center. People who say they love nature want to have wild animals come up to them because well if Snow White can do it why can’t they? The result is often fatal. I witnessed the sad fate of a pair of wild geese when teenagers with nothing better to do, speared and tortured these innocent waterfowl which had been hand fed, becoming easy marks for their brutality.
What myths are hurting us now? There is a long list that would turn this essay into an encyclopedia. There are two deeply connected myths which need to jump into the interrogation seat, for they will frame the future of America. The first is the myth embodied and emboldened by France’s gift to us, the Statue of Liberty. Many well-meaning and educated Americans believe the myth that only thing stopping millions more from becoming Americans is our prejudice. Just like the Free Willy story, they believe they are helping people by insisting on a more liberal pathway for more people to become US citizens. This dove-tails into the other myth, that says that our streets are paved with gold. America is full of promise and wonder for all who come knocking. The sentence needs to end with America is full. These myths prevent seeing the ecological, sociological and economic realities of unending demands for limited resources. Buying into these myths allows people to easily ignore the resources we are already running out of, which more people will just exacerbate. If I were a betting person, I would put lots of money behind the guess that most haven’t a clue of that this iconic statue, gifted in 1885, arrived 280 million Americans ago.
When our rivers no longer run to their proper ocean destination, when our cities reek of pollution, when climate change is drying out the ever popular southwest it is time to re-access the intersection of these two very dangerous myths.
I would like to propose the radical notion that one can be anti-racist, pro-immigrant AND want to procure much tighter regulations at our borders. I consider myself to fit into that seemingly gerrymandered category. Being called a racist for proposing that the US cannot take on more citizens due to its overburdened social, economic and ecological systems is an unjustifiable lie which will burden the future generations. It is much easier to call someone a racist than it is to listen to their heartfelt pleas. Name calling is a lazy way to resolve an issue one knows little about.
We would love to think we have done something for whales by freeing just one of them, but even if Keiko would have survived, it would have amounted to a small effort in a hurting world. The Campaign for Nature’s 30 by 30 project is a much-needed endeavor with a goal to protect 30% of the world’s biodiversity by 2030. 100 conservation organizations have joined in a unified voice to call on policy makers to commit to what is being called a new deal for nature. President Biden admirably says he is committed to this broadly scoped plan but he is also creating a pathway for millions more to become Americans which will add to our already bloated numbers. His immigration policies are as well intended as those who wanted to Free Willy and release neutered cats, but they only sound good to those who cannot hear the gloom in their forecast. This is a very different kind of gerrymandered stance which doesn’t hold up to deeper scrutiny. You can’t be about preserving nature while loosening immigration rules. You can’t keep the faucet turned on if you don’t want the room to flood. Americans are so good at hypocrisy and nothing could be more hypocritical than promising to save room for wildlife while continuing immigration policies that will keep us growing until our open land is all but a memory.
The myth of wanting two diametrically opposed things is unfortunately also very American. We want our fancy coffee lattes and rainforests, our cheap food and higher wages, our speedboats and clean water. The multi-billion dollar weight loss industry exists side by side with ubiquitous donut shops proving we also want our ‘cake’ and waistlines too.
We want to extend a helping hand to all who want to enter our overpopulated land and want our rivers to run free and our wildlife to flourish. We want good jobs and health care for all no matter how big our society gets. This is a great script for yet another myth-making, damaging Hollywood film but it is not possible in the current overpopulated state of America. We need to become and can become an anti-racist, ecologically sound, socially responsible America.
Putting out the “WE ARE FULL” sign out on our borders is about letting go of these two myths and embracing reality, for they stopped serving us long ago. We must consider the overall impact 330 million Americans already living here has on our declining resources. Although it is shameful how we consume and waste resources on excessive products in this country, just the impact of our basic needs is unsustainable. I offer up our over-taxed aquifers as Exhibit A. This will require incredible courage, forgiveness and some mental gymnastics, but we will be all the fitter for it.