America Loves Big

We went on a road trip recently with my electric vehicle and had to stop several times for charging.  One of our supercharger stops just happened to be next to a Buc-ee’s, the new roadside phenomenon which appears to be a Cracker Barrel on steroids.  It was immense!  There was food, clothing, knick-knacks and oh so much more in a colossal building surrounded by perhaps a hundred gas pumps accommodating even the largest RVs and trucks.  

I purchased a brisket sandwich for about $10, passing up the massive slabs of beef jerky that came in every possible flavor.  There were scores of the brisket sandwiches in a warming shelf along with every other conceivable snack or lunch item.  Even with the endless stream of people coming in and out there was almost no wait at the checkout counter.

 

On my way back to the car I marveled at the hulking automobiles and trucks along the way -  SUVs the size of tanks, pickup trucks so long and wide that they bulged over the lines on the parking spaces.  Even the sedans are half again as large as they were 10 or 15 years ago.

 

America loves big.  Big houses, big cars, big yards, big refrigerators, big couches, big beds, big guns.   We eat big meals and port big bellies and big thighs.  We dream big dreams and launch big projects.  We aren’t satisfied until we make it big.  We won’t rest until all our big desires are met.  

 

Perhaps it is the size of our country, with its vast open spaces, that has accustomed us to seeking, constructing or demanding big things.  Or perhaps it is the rapid development of our status as the dominant world economy and military power that makes us prefer things that are bigger than the things that the rest of the world finds sufficient.  Or maybe it is the thought that we are God’s chosen land, the ‘shining city on a hill’, a land with a ‘providential mission’, that makes us feel we deserve bigger and better.

 

All empires have their time in the sun.  America has dominated the world for the last 100 years or more and has spread its love of big far and wide.  One can see grotesquely large SUVs squeezing through the delicate cobblestone streets and alleys in Europe these days and observe obese fast food aficionados leaving McDonalds with their huge sugary drinks all around the world.  We have exported big and made it a cultural contagion. 

 

Lest I sound too critical of my fellow citizens, I will note that our love of big is simply a vanguard.  Everyone seems to love big once they have the chance to experience it.  Big is an addiction that rivals drugs and social media.  Every human being can learn to love big.

 

There are a few things on the horizon that may eventually dim the beckoning light of big things – climate change, global inequality, excess population, massive resettlement and political instability to name a few.  Can we transfer our allegiance to small?  Can we learn to be content with more diminutive and petite things in our lives, and fewer of them?  Humans are very adaptable creatures and I am confident we will make the move when the time comes, painful as it may be.