Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism

Taking a critical look at one's self in the mirror can be a difficult task, and yet that is exactly what authors Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence ask the reader to do in their well-written work on the Captain America complex. Human nature has a great tendency to live in the present with a very short attention span. The current "war on terror" is a case in point. Public rhetoric in regards to the current state of affairs leads us to believe that the situation is altogether new and completely unique from anything we've ever dealt with. One of the strong points of this work is that the authors delve deep in the history of the United States to draw strong parallels to the current international struggles of the United States. While the circumstances are no doubt novel, the ethos surrounding the events can be pulled from various international struggles throughout the history of the nation. Jewett and Lawrence avoid getting caught up in contemporary hysteria in response to real challenges to foreign policy and offer a tempered and level-headed look at the history of international relations and domestic patriotic sentiment, rooting it in what they have dubbed "The Captain America Complex." They rightly expose the complex as anemic and contra-biblical, arguing for a broader approach to international relations and a more biblically complete sentiment. I found this book to be timely (though much has happened in the years since its publication that would provide for interesting additional material), balanced with historical examination and biblical perspective, and quite thorough. It was an engaging and provocative read that Christians and non-Christians can benefit from reading. They add a much-needed perspective from the Christian community in regards to the relationship between faith and politics in America.

Mr. Jewett's analysis of the nature of the Biblical influence on foreign-policy attitudes... is original in fundamental ways. His research has been extensive and his eye for the telling quote is sharp: a number of exhumed utterances of American leaders from Revolutionary days to the present, flapping their oratorical wings as God's avenging angels, have all the arresting quality of the horrendous... One by one, Mr. Jewett shows the relationship between each of (the American preconceptions commonly revealed in foreign policy decisions) and the Zealous Nationalism in ways that are both illuminating and frightening." -- The New York Times Book Review "Extraordinarily provocative... furnishes us a fresh, intriguing and intelligent framework within which to comprehend American civic religion, to rebuke its blasphemous pretensions, and to transcend its decadence, and it does so with sensitivity." -- William Stringfellow

This is a book with many important points to make. Other reviewers have done a fine job, so I'll point out just a few. OK, here's the disclaimer first. I am not saying we should not fight terrorism, nor am I denying that "jihad" is a term usually used in reference with making the "world of war" submit to the "world of Islam". That said, I still find the central points of this book very much worth considering, since it seems our nation's foreign policy is in some ways mirroring the jihadist's foreign policy. The book's cases in point? OBL and Bush both have these commonalities in terms of foreign policy. One, both see God as blessing their worldviews. Two, both have enemies in grip of the devil (Great Satan is us for OBL, Iran etc and the Axis of Evil is OBL, NK, Iran, Iraq and everyone who doesn't help us). Three, victory is measured by killing or converting the Other. Thus four: violence is a means to do this, and God blesses it as in some way redemptive. With much of the Republican Party being a wing of the conservative, pro-Israeli Christian movement (no longer interested in "Reaganesque" small government), Captain America is revived from the dusty pages of the comics to fly again, this time for the cause of God- are we not the city on the hill? These and other points raised in the book should cause us to pause for a moment, and question both our real motives for our policies and to really think about their affect upon the rest of the world. This doesn't excuse terrorism's evil reality, but it may help us be more thoughtful in our response to the underlying causes of "why they hate us" so much, instead of a muscular, steroidal reaction which is actually playing right into the hands of the Islamist revolutionaries' playbook with a "see, I told you so" response leading to 1000 more OBLs.

Captain America and the Crusade against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism; Book Review Extrapolation September 22, 2004 No. 3, Vol. 45; Pg. 320; ISSN: 0014-5483 Kapell, Matthew As I sit writing this, American troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of those troops have recently been implicated in the possible torture of Iraqi citizens and the President is quite sure that the decision to invade these two countries was the correct one. I believe that the President should read Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil very carefully. (Assuming he reads, that is.) Jewett and Lawrence have brought together some of their most powerful arguments from the previous book, The Myth of the American Superhero (see my review in Extrapolation, 44, 2: 247-249), and an excellent knowledge regarding American foreign policy to produce a book that, though written before the current conflict, seems almost prescient. The authors undertake this project by examining American popular culture as part of an American civil religion that has as its central theme that only America can redeem the world. Jewett and Lawrence see American civil religion in comic books, television shows, films video games, political discourse and a host of other mediums. Their thesis is, as they put it, "to explain why America, in the wake of September 11, seems so proudly resolute about repeating the errors of the Cold War" (5). To do this they trace the American conception of itself though the repeated use of biblical language and rhetoric, holy war, crusades (against Native Americans, Communists, terrorists, Iraqis, you name it) through all of American culture. Obviously, this is a large-scale task and one that can only be accomplished through a strong central thesis and theme holding the entire project together. They use as their central metaphor for this American cultural belief the character of Captain America. For the authors, Captain America represents the American hero who comes in as a lone fighter for the American way, destroying the "evil doers" because it is so obvious who they are: the non-Americans. Repeated references to films such as the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises as well as other sf films make this a useful book for Extrapolation readers. Jewett and Lawrence have presented a thesis useful not only for understanding how Americans think, but how the classic representation of the hero (especially obvious in sf) is problematic in that it is antithetical to small-d democratic ideals. Jewett and Lawrence find the stories in popular media that Americans enjoy are too often centered around "a cool and reluctant killer willing to forsake love and law to rescue a decent life for the community" whose democratic institutions are incapable of working well enough to save itself (31). And, of course, this model is present in a host of sf works, and it is worthwhile to reflexively think about that. But to accomplish this feat they must go back to the early days

These two author's earlier work "The Myth of the American Superhero" explored the presentation of Justice as needing a redeemer figure replete with an arsenal of `righteous' weaponary and how this image has affected the US idea of politics. This earlier book represents the `secular' aspects. In "Captain America and the Crusade against Evil" Jewett and Lawrence show how this mindset coupled with the US's puritan backdrop has made this monomyth into a national obsession bearing all the hallmarks of Civil Religion (Civil that is unless you disagree with it)! When I first heard the thesis of this book in a presentation by one of the authors my thoughts were dismissive. While the hegemony of the US is something I abhor for the thesis to work the US must be full (en masse) of some incredibly stupid and gullible people. After reading the first installment this impression remained. However, in this book, particularly in their discussion of the various forms of zeal, a more nuanced and convincing portrayal is offered. Even where people clearly don't believe the hype US foreign policy is locked into a mindset that cannot accept any inference of inferiority without the collapse of the American Ideal. As such I found this book generally convincing and therefore extremely depressive. If the world social forum is correct in its hope that `another world is possible' this book makes clear that this is only with a radical re-assessment of the US self-understanding.