REMOND: Effects of Cold War ideology continues to hold American progress back
Column: Unironically Utopian
Among all the negative effects of the Cold War on the U.S. — including the fear of perishing from nuclear devastation ingrained in a whole generation — one of the most significant damages done to the nation was the demonization of anything that was not capitalism. But before going further, a little history lesson is needed.
After World War II, the world was pretty much devastated, yet two nations were exceptions: the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Nazism was gone, hence in the eyes of capitalist America, communism (and hence the Soviet Union) was now the obvious foe. This led to an ideological global conflict between the most powerful nations at the time, a conflict that is known as the Cold War.
In this manner, the Cold War was seen as the fight between capitalism and communism. Fast forward to 1991, the Soviet Union no longer existed — marking the end of the conflict. Therefore the fight between ideologies had a clear winner, right? Capitalism was the superior choice! Anything else was proved to be a failure, right? Here is where it gets tricky.
As mentioned before, the Cold War ingrained fear in the minds of a whole generation — fear of nuclear devastation, fear that, in my opinion, was not linked to nuclear weapons alone but also to their keepers and what they represented. This fear was extensively promoted and exaggerated through various methods in the U.S., propaganda being one of them.
Due to this fear, practices like McCarthyism were created. McCarthyism was a practice named after a Wisconsin senator who said communists were secretly integrated into American politics. Thus, this practice was basically exposing “communists” in American politics. The thing about this tactic is that it was not used fairly.
People started using McCarthyism as a weapon. Every time your opponent was winning and you did not like it, you could say he was a communist, and all your problems would be gone. For instance, one of its most famous users was Robert Moses.
Moses was a New York public official who displaced thousands of minorities and drastically changed New York City's landscape favoring private car transportation over public transit. Moses used McCarthyism several times to get these things done (this phenomenon is explained really well in “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro).
A planner was opposing a highway running through a community? It does not matter — he is a communist! He was gone. An official wanted to put a train through a bridge and hence benefit thousands of workers who could not afford a car? Well, he is a communist! And just like that, he was gone, too.
In my opinion, Mccarthyism was only possible due to the conception the U.S. had of communism and the view of how superior capitalism was to not only communism but also everything that remained in its ideological book.
Many of the victims of McCarthyism were not even communists. They just had ideas that were not fundamentally capitalist. Just like the Catholic Inquisition created abuses of power due to the personal interests of their authorities, McCarthyism did a similar thing to the U.S. It created a political weapon, and that was used not for exposing communists but for the personal gain of its users.
Now, McCarthyism is an old thing, and fortunately, people realized what it really was. Yet, despite all the damage it did in the past, it still does damage to us today. You can see this in our political system very clearly.
It might not be the exact definition of McCarthyism, but it surely remains. You can see it in how certain members of certain parties accuse members of other parties. Better health care? No, that is communism! Better public transportation? Communism! They want to take away our cars, our freedom! I could go on and list several examples, but I think the point is made.
Unfortunately, this has caused a battle between progress and a distorted thought that originated through propaganda. In 2022, this is ingrained in our culture, and it keeps stopping opportunities and ideas that could benefit the country as a whole. This would not be such a problem if capitalism was a perfect ideology, but like anything in life, nothing is perfect. Capitalism has some good points, but in subjects such as wealth disparities and unemployment, it is unsatisfactory.
As a result, the Cold War generated an exaggerated fear of anything that is not capitalism, creating weapons like McCarthyism that stopped important ideas and developments. At the same time, the same tools used to demonize the opposition were used to idealize an imperfect system, which led American society to avoid all types of reforms (good and bad), further magnifying the effects of McCarthyism.
Now all of this can be appreciated in our political sphere and, in my opinion, could be one of the reasons for our inefficiency in accomplishing important changes.
The U.S. needs to stop this retrograde thinking and look at fellow great powers that have integrated different ideas into their country management. Only in this way are we going to be able to do better as a nation, ultimately benefiting the most important part of our country — its people.
Marcelo Remond is a junior in the School of Engineering majoring in civil engineering and minoring in urban planning and design. His column, "Unironically Utopian," runs on alternate Thursdays.
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