America On The Move?

The war on terror is one part of a wider set of social phenomena that we don't always understand to be linked. A recent article in Reason provides us with an opportunity to begin to get to grips with this broader context. The article tackles an enduring myth about American life: that it is marked by an increasing geographic mobility. It walks us through the various arenas—journalism, academic writing, social theory and policymaking—in which the idea of the US as a “nation on the move” is relied upon to explain various social changes. In public health, increased mobility has been used as an explanation for changing rates in malignant melanoma, and for rising AIDS transmission rates in rural areas. In public funding, Americans’ alleged nomadic lifestyle is used to advocate the allocation of increased public funds toward family support services, or toward elder care. The number of social trends or concerns to which the mobility explanation has been applied almost boggle the mind: the breakdown of family units, environmental problems, the culture of materialism, increased social stratification, to name a few.

The staying power of the mobility myth is even more striking when one considers the powerful evidence, laid out in the Reason article, indicating that, if anything, Americans are more settled than ever before (due to factors such as significant increases in homeownership and the prevalence of two career households). As Reason puts it, “Americans are more likely than ever to stay put. You might think that basic fact would give the social critics and policy makers pause. But it hasn’t stopped them from asserting that rampant mobility is destroying the environment, undermining the family, and increasing anomie. More important, it hasn’t stopped them from proposing…measures to curb a problem that doesn’t exist.”

If all research on the subject undermines the theory that society is increasingly mobile, why is the idea so widely accepted? Reason provides one explanation, that the mobility myth’s popularity is due to a general anxiety about seemingly uncontrollable change. “Mobility is an easy scapegoat for complex changes in the American social fabric.” But then the Reason article bolsters its case through a discussion of the motivations behind the myth; groups invoke the mobility myth because it is politically expedient in furthering their interests. This interest-based explanation fails to place the myth within a context of similar developments, and to understand how its appeal relates to broader trends.

The mobility myth is but one example of demonstrably false social theories which continue to carry sway, because they resonate with a wider anxiety in society. For instance, top-down fear-mongering is often used to explain the strength of myths that prey upon fear. One such analysis which has proved popular is Michael Moore’s "Bowling for Columbine" which explored the growth of fear in American life—and the depoliticizing role it plays. But Moore’s account could only explain the spread of fear through a conscious manipulation on the part of ruling elites who cynically terrorize the populace in order to better control it and further their own personal interests. This a conspiratorial account of the problem, similar to claims that have been made about the war on terror. Such an explanation falls far short, while allowing society at large to shirk its responsibility for widespread and baseless anxiety. The Reason article was much closer to the mark when it recognized that theories that play on social anxiety are popular partly because we live in a society which seems to be in a state of flux, and we lack any feeling of control over the changes, nor any systematic way of making sense of them, or even better, of controlling them.

Because generalized fear and risk-aversion play an important role in shaping and perpetuating the war on terror, specific examples of widespread social anxiety (like the mobility myth), as well as how we come to explain these, are important in helping us get a handle on both what the war on terror is, and how best to challenge it. The “culture of fear” reaches well beyond even the broad parameters of the war on terror, and its development relies on social phenomena far more fundamental than the self-interested plotting of limited interest groups.