Immediately after the terrorist attacks tension was running high in a Chicago neighbourhood, one that was predominantly Arab-American. White Americans from other areas had come in and taken to the streets to vent their anger. It didn’t escalate into fighting, the violence was only verbal - “USA, USA” shouted the white mob, meaning “this is our country!”. “USA, USA” the Arabs shouted back, meaning precisely the same thing. (The difference, of course, is that the white folks’ immigrant families got off the boat a few generations back; and they grew up never needing to submit paperwork to establish citizenship.) SOF 51 / January 2002 In the melee, someone unfurled a flag. It was so big that it needed two people to hold it, and according to Levitican laws of the land it must not touch the ground.
By chance, at one end there was a Caucasian and at the other an Arab. They walked along in solidarity. And they even exchanged a few polite words before they parted company.
The attacks, like that story, push certain questions to the fore: Whose America is this? Where does hatred spring from? Will Americans ever feel safe again?
In those early weeks Americans were blessing themselves everywhere they went: on buses, as they went in to cinemas, as they read newspapers. “God Bless America” flashed the front of buses, where it used to say “Go Cardinals” (St Louis’ baseball team); cinemas religious instruction c ° urged you to go and give blood, the request squidging the names of the latest releases to one side; companies cancelled splashy ad campaigns in the New York Times and instead placed sombre notes of sympathy. There were of course more conventional ways of expressing that mixture of grief, anxiety and solidarity: flags were draped from house and office windows, churches held vigils and charities were founded - and for a time people spoke about nothing else. Since then life has “It seems unlikely that ‘God bless America’ is an order howled heavenward by a modern day Job.” drifted back to normal, albeit a changed kind of normal.
Yet that is my abiding memory of those first few weeks: the saturation, the attempt to fill every available spot with a comment about September 11th. The usual trivial, often commerce-driven, sentiments that fill public spaces were displaced by lofty statements. “These colors don’t run”, it said on a poster of the stars and stripes. “Proud to be an American”, screamed countless T-shirts. At the top of this list of slogans was “God Bless America” - a phrase that packs a punch, communicating both religious and patriotic fervour in just three words.
But what does that phrase mean? Semantically and theologically it is puzzling, a linguistic aberration. But then language about God usually is. With a shaky layman’s understanding of linguistics I did my best to unpack it. “God bless America” is not a present-tense statement (which would be “God blesses America”). A parallel grammatical structure would be “David eat cake” or “Nancy get book” - and the only way those constructions can make sense is to think of them as imperatives. That said, it seems unlikely that “God bless America” is an order howled heavenward by a modern day Job.
Perhaps a more satisfactory explanation would be that “God bless America” uses “bless” as a performative verb. That is, the act of blessing takes places as the phrase is uttered. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines performative verbs this way: “Paradoxical though it may seem, there are certain things one can do just by saying what one is doing. This is possible if one uses a verb that names the very sort of act one is performing. Thus one can thank someone by saying “Thank you”, fire someone by saying “You're fired”, and apologize by saying “I apologize”.
Other examples from specifically religious contexts would be “I declare you man and wife” or “I forgive you”. “I declare you man and wife” only works if one has the legal authority to perform that act. If “I forgive you” is said sincerely then forgiveness is given; but “he forgives you” fails the test - it may be a true description but is not a performative verb. It has also been suggested that the insertion of the word “hereby” can show whether a verb is being used performatively. “I hereby forgive you” is clunky but its meaning is clear. Is this any help in deciphering “God Bless America”?
Turning it into “God hereby bless America” draws attention to the fact that the problem is not, in fact, with the verb but with the subject. Can humans speak for God? Do we have the authority to carry out God’s action of blessing and cursing? Would an adequate paraphrase be “We bless America”?
It depends, I would argue, on our theology. To someone who believes in a God Out There who intervenes in human affairs it would be hopelessly wrong-headed, even blasphemous. But to a Sea of Faith-er it may be acceptable to say that “God bless America” boils down to “We bless America”, for it is impossible to disagree with Teresa of Avila’s statement, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours; yours are the only hands with which he can do his work, yours are the only feet with which he can go about the world, yours are the only eyes through which his compassion can shine forth upon a troubled world”. If “blessing” is a meaningful act, it is surely humans who carry it out.
I like this understanding, but have to admit it is dishonest: a case of twisting the facts to fit the conclusion. A better reading of the phrase is to expand it to “May God bless America”. By writing, saying and singing that phrase innumerable times - at a time of unparalleled anxiety - Americans were hoping to ensure their safety, their freedoms and their prosperity. ; Linguist Kenneth Burke, writing on the symbolic power of language, argued that: “If magic says ‘Let there be such and such’, religion says ‘Please do such and such’. The decree of magic, the petition of religion. It is difficult to keep the magical decree and the religious petition totally distinct. Though the distinction between the coercive command and conducive request is clear enough in its extremes, there are many borderline cases.” “May God bless America” is at its root a petition to God. Most people are humbly exhorting God to act, to intervene, to make things right again. Perhaps when the “may” is dropped, and it becomes an indiscriminatelyused slogan, the phrase could be said to be closer to a magical incantation.
The “Gods” and “Americas” invoked vary from speaker to speaker. To some this is an all-powerful vengeful God; others doubt whether God has a will or any real power; others think it is better not to talk of God at all. To some Americans, “blessedness” means the country’s dominant economic position in the world, for others it means military might - the ability to fight wars and not get hurt. “Blessedness” also hints at that time, now gone, when people didn’t worry about hijacked aeroplanes falling out the sky.
Occasionally though, as people hotly disputed God’s will and America’s destiny, you’d hear an echo of Tiny Tim’s words, “God bless us every one”.