The American Hostel
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

The movie "Hostel" (2005) is a potent depiction of gore and graphic
horror. More subtly, it is also a counterfactual and jingoistic
political allegory for the post 9-11 age.

A couple of wholesome American youths (one of them a Jew) are nabbed
by a ring of east Europeans who cater to the depraved needs of
sadists by providing them with fresh supplies of torture victims.
The good guys are invariably American (or mistaken for Americans, or
the allies of Americans, Japanese). The bad guys are invariably
European; a decadent and unfaithful Icelandic, seductive Czech and
Russian women, a Dr. Mengele type German, a Ukrainian pimp. The
torture chambers are located in a small village in the outskirts of
Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia in Central Europe. Everyone is
in on the take, the police especially.

The events depicted in the film are not without historical
precedent, but the moviemakers got the locations all wrong: nine of
ten serial killers worldwide are born and bred in the United States.
Born Killers is an American phenomenon, not a European one.

Moreover, the New Europe (to borrow the American Secretary of
Defense's unforgettable coinage) - namely, the countries of eastern
and central Europe - are obsequious vassals of the United States. It
is the Old Europe that regards the United States and its inhabitants
as a menace to world peace and stability and a clear and present
danger to us all.

Indeed, the United States, as Nobel prize winner Harold Pinter
recently pointed out in his acceptance speech, is an evil and
psychopathic polity. Niall Ferguson, the renowned historian, claims
that from its very inception, the USA set out to cannibalize its
neighbors and prey on the weak while amassing wealth and territories
in the process.

Like any psychopath, the USA believes that it should be immune to
the consequences of its misconduct abroad. Hence its shock when al-
Qaida brought the blazing message home: you are not beyond reach.
Hence America's insistence that its military and intelligence
services - frequently busy raping (Japan, the Philippines),
murdering (Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan), and pillaging
(Iraq) - be exempted from international law and the remit of the
International Criminal Court.

The (American) protagonist in the movie gets sliced up but, against
all odds, succeeds to extract the badly mutilated Japanese from her
hellish cell and escape. Catching a glimpse of her eyeless self, she
later commits suicide. Indomitable, he then proceed to torture and
amputate the sinister ringleader, a Central European-vaguely German,
respectable-looking, middle-class type. He is too late so save his
Jewish friend, though (a not so veiled reference to the Holocaust).

This is how Americans view themselves: as good-hearted, good-
natured, naive, somewhat gullible, fun-loving, and generous people
universally victimized by inscrutable and malevolent foreigners,
bent on sadistic and needless destruction. Denial is a defense
mechanism very common among narcissists and psychopaths. The truth
is, of course, radically different.

With the exception of World War II, the United States has acted as a
rapacious conqueror of other peoples' lands under the flimsiest of
pretexts. Its expansion was always violent and involved numerous
acts of genocide and warfare. Now it is gradually eroding its only
redeeming feature: its democracy. It is slowly being transformed
from republic to empire, as did Rome two thousand years ago.

The USA is a terrorist state. While there is no disputing that the
abhorrent al-Qaida network of murderers should be hunted down and
exterminated mercilessly - it is equally morally commendable to wish
for the dissolution of the United States and for its disintegration
into its constituent states. Pax without Americana is the best of
all worlds.

Incrementally, but noticeably, the United States is shedding its
democracy. Hard-won civil liberties are willingly sacrificed for the
sake of illusory added security. Institutions are stacked with
political, partisan appointees who do their puppetmaster's bidding.
Laws are openly broken and the Constitution flaunted with
breathtaking callousness and an ease that would have been considered
unthinkable on September 10, 2001. I wouldn't be surprised if the
forthcoming presidential elections are suspended due to this
perpetual "state of emergency".

Largely ignorant of history and thus devoid of any meaningful or
helpful perspective, people shrug off this doomsday scenario. They
forget that Rome - a four hundred years old republic with venerable
institutions like the Roman Senate - gave in to tyranny in the space
of four years. The same goes for ancient Athens, the first truly
participatory democracy on earth, transformed by wars into a hideous
dictatorship.

America's is a malignantly narcissistic culture. Its denizens
believe counterfactually that it is the richest, most virtuous,
freest, society on earth. Reasonably, they are convinced that
everyone is destructively envious of them. This renders them
paranoid and violent. An early and observant traveler, Alexis de
Tocqueville, noted this siege mentality and warned that the United
States is walking a thin line between freedom and authoritarianism.

It is this ingrained belief that the world is hostile and harsh that
will likely undo the American experiment. Psychology teaches us
about projective identification - a defense mechanism that forces
people around you to behave the way you are accustomed and expect
them to. Treating everyone as a potential enemy usually turns them
into ones.


==============================================================
AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com