Mike Dubost
Posts: 273
Joined: 8/24/2008
From: Sacramento, CA
Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: SireChaos
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ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost
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ORIGINAL: SireChaos
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ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost
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ORIGINAL: HansBolter
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ORIGINAL: Neilster
Watching the Presidential debate today I was struck by something. I'd like to ask the Americans here whether they think it's actually healthy to be constantly told "America is the greatest country in the world" by your politicians and business leaders?
Cheers, Neilster
One could probably successfully argue the case that it is a necessary counterbalance to constanty being put down by everyone else and denounced as the Great Satans of the universe. 
I think we need to be a bit careful in this discussion, so as to avoid it degenerating into politics or a personal flamewar, but let's see if we can stay civil.
The idea of the US as the greatest country in the world is nothing new. I remember some years ago, American Heritage magazine had a 19th Century cartoon of political cliches, which included "spread eagle" as one of them. The term derived from the idea of spreading the US out to include other parts of North America (since the eagle is the national symbol). For further evidence, I cite Abraham Lincoln "We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of Mankind". It appears to be a long-standing part or the US self-image, for better or worse.
As to wether it is healthy; I don't know for sure, but I think it is OK as long as we don't suffer from the delusion that we are perfect. I happen to believe that we are the best, but as humans, even our best is imperfect. What I don't want to see is a desire to become more perfect become a desire to copy others blindly. Let us examine ideas from elsewhere, by all means, but let us test them against our current ideas.
I feel that being told we are the greatest is better than being told we are the worst (which I heard from some residents of Berkeley). According to them, the US was never good enough no matter what. If I felt that way, I would not be interested in trying to make the US better. Since I believe that it is the best, and that others look up to us, I am inspired to try to make us worthy of that high regard.
Starting about 100-odd years ago, the "patriots" of my country began to grow the idea that their country was the best there ever could be, and that they needed to export this goodness. In their words, "Am Deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen", i.e. roughly, the world shall be cured by the (wholesome) German example. We all know what consequences that had - two world wars and a holocaust, for example.
Now, whenever I hear the tireless repetition (impervious to criticism or inconvenient fact, of course) that America is good, America is great, and America must remake the world in its image, I remember my history lessons.
Well, as I feared, this thread is vering toward politics and polemics. I will make an attempt to remain civil, but I may allow my anger to show through.
Essentially the same as me, then? Fine, that´s something I can work with.
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If you intend to refer to recent events by "remake the world in its image", then my interpretation of the no politics rule prevents me from arguing the pros and cons of Iraq, etc.
Including, but not limited to recent events. I guess everyone who has a high opinion of their own opinion tends to grow a missionary complex, but the US is in the unique position to be able to act on it on a global scale.
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However, I would like to point out that you are the one who brought up forcibly remaking the world in our image. As you can see from my post, I merely advocated reducing the flaws of the US in order to make us a nation that can provide an example that others will desire to voluntarily emulate.
Well, yes, you advocate this. And, assuming you are serious, (and I have no reason to assume otherwise) it is a rather noble goal.
Yet at the same time, I see in many American self-proclaimed patriots a profound unwillingness to take a critical look at themselves and their country, and work at its actual flaws - instead they see such flaws like "too many unpatriotic people badmouthing our great country", or "those despicable *insert rival party here* traitors scheming to destroy what makes America great".
Mind you, I see such tendencies elsewhere, too, including my own country - but for one thing, these tendencies are a lot more pronounced in the US than elsewhere in the West, and for another, by virtue of its sheer massive weight it can throw around, any wrong actions the US takes are pretty much by definition going to have much more of an impact than what smaller countries can do.
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At the risk of venturing into "tu quoque" territory, I will also point out that in the recent past, other nations tried to remake portions of the world into their own image (with varrying degrees of success from total failure in Uganda or Algeria, through limited success in Ireland, general success in India, and near total success in New York and Quebec).
I´ll concede that this is not automatically bad, given a number of conditions. To avoid drifting too far into politics, I´ll be circumspect and say that the people doing such thing need to have (or have access to) and be willing to make use of, a number of skills and fields of knowledge that current world leaders, including those of the US, don´t have or refuse to use, and personality traits I don´t necessarily see them as having, and a lack of other traits that I do see some of them as having, and basing their decisions on.
(I guess if this was too confusing, you can always ask for clarification - by PM, I guess?)
To make it shorter - FDR and Truman and Churchill (or Lincoln or Washington, for that matter) were one calibre of statesmen; other people I could name who hold office these days are a different calibre
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Do you regard it as always a bad thing to try to change the world? If you examine the history of Germany, I think you would agree that the conscious effort to remake Germany in the mid-1940s was not a bad thing for the German people. We niether destroyed German culture nor made you a carbon copy of us.
German culture post-45 was not the same as pre-33, and not just limited to the elements of it that, by necessity, had to be excised to make it safe for the rest of the world to have Germany be part of it again. Though I do not necessarily see this as a bad thing.
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Indeed, the major difference between the US and Prussia/Nazi Germany is that we still seek to make the US more closely match our view of perfection. Your view of perfection is not the same as ours, and that is posssibly the source of some of the heat in this debate. But how can anyone look at US history (recent or older) or the current presidential / vice presidential candidates and still think the US is static and unchanging?
I think if you look closely you will see that Prussia and Nazi Germany were also trying to make themselves match their own views of perfection more closely. Of course, the Nazi view of perfection is too different from yours for any but a complete madman to not notice the total incompatibility. Prussia, on the other hand... I won´t say the US is like Prussia, but I can see parallels, and these parallels worry me.
I guess that I would have to say about the current president/VP candidates would go too far into politics. But... well, not so much static and unchanging, but more "what´s the real difference?" If you subtract all the posturing and the mutual character assassination, how different are these people from each other?
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As far as "impervious to criticism" much of what I see on this thread reads as insult, not constructive criticism (e.g., the cartoon implying US troops are viscious murderers when the cameras are off, or the statement that only fear of the USSR caused us to rebuild Europe). As such, it tends to make patriotic Americans angry and makes us unwilling to listen to what you have to say (as my countrymen sometimes regrettably demostrate).
In my experience, the unwillingness to listen exists right from the start in too many cases, although of course any excuse for them is welcome. Those who are willing to discuss things at all do not tend to take criticism as an insult to begin with.
I would like to point out that I neither posted said cartoon nor agreed with it. And as for the reason the US rebuilt Germany - do you not think that the primary motive for this was enlightened self-interest, rather than the sudden and inexplicable desire to pour massive amounts of resources into a country that, shortly before had been considered the incarnation of evil?
I reacted to your remark about "remaking the world" under the impression that you were putting words into my mouth, and then I wrote something that looks like I was putting words in your mouth . I wish to apologize unreservedly. I did not intend to state or imply that you stated or endorsed the opinion of the cartoon. I had intended to use it as a readily available example of unconstructive criticism, not of your opinions.
I do admit that it is possible to be closed-minded and use excuses for the rejection of opinions, but I would like to think the majority of us are capable of avoiding that trap. Maybe I am a bit naive about human nature, but I do try to be charitable about other's faults, knowing I have a fair number of my own. 
Unfortunately, the no politics rule does mean we need to be careful about how we discuss our views on when nation-building is or is not acceptable. Tell you what, let's table that issue for now. If we decide to continue the debate in that direction, maybe we can go over to the Steakhouse (note to self, check out the Steakhouse and see what the "temperature" of debate is like), and have our debate a bit more free to range.
Yeah, German culture did change somewhat, but so did the culture of all countries involved WWII. Therefore, I was mentally writting much of the change off as an inevitable result of total war combined with close contact with other cultures in the form of the Occupation. That may have been an error.
As far as Prussia attempting to remake itself closer to its ideal, the drive seems to have been more directed outward to remake that part of Europe, at least to me. There was limited and muted dissent in the Kaiser's Germany, compared to then-contemporary US and UK politics, or at least that is the way history reads to me. I admit there was some, and there was no repression, it was mostly social conformity that enforced it, but still...
My intent on bringing up the pres/VP tickets was not so much to point out individual pluses and minuses of them. As you say, that gets into politics. I had intended to use them as a convienient and immediately visible symbol of the fact that the US is changing itself. A nation completely convinced of its own perfection does not change.
I would also like to point out the fact that the US (at least to my eyes) has a vigorous and sometimes racuous debate ongoing about issues ranging from purely domestic (such as abortion) to such foreign policy issues as what (if anything) to do about Iran. I will avoid specifics, but I do wonder if that debate is muted to outsiders? The US still has a tradition (weakening but not dead) that "politics stops at the water's edge", and our mainstream media is monolithic and monotone in comparison to the UK for example. How much of the debate gets through to the outside world? Even in the US, you almost have to read the blogs to get a real sense of the extent and fervor of the debate.
In one of my posts above in response to Nielster, I stated my belief that the reconstruction of Europe was carried out for a mixture of motives. If you wish to have a single phrase to describe all of them, then "enlightened self-interest" will do nicely. I do sometimes get a bit sensitive about this point as I have seen several people (including one of the other posters on this very thread) take the least creditable motive of the mixture and assert that it is the only one. I guess this leads back to my point about constructive versus non-constructive criticism, which is where I began this post.
Thank you very much for a rational and civil post to provide food for thought. I would like to know more about the specific similarities you see between Prussia and the modern US, but that might start getting too much into politics. If so, let's think about a visit to the Steakhouse.
Note: I will be offline for a day or so. I may not be able to give you a rapid response to further posts, but don't worry, like McArthur, I shall return.
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