US: Cultural Irrigation Needed?

[adderslj]

I'd be very interested as to what US readers think of this article.

Despite being published by The Guardian, it's from a right-wing commentator, incidentally.

Comments

[5eh.livejournal.com]

...sounds about right to me. I am continually depressed by the way Americans remain completely ignorant about the world around them.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

I think that's a decent idea.

As an aside, the general impression I've seen of Western Europe is "every conversation I have there turns into one about why we invaded Iraq."

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

I thought they were the same candidate in that they were both awful, but I'm a bitter, bitter man. :) (BTW, hiya!)

Also, I second on the lack of politics/business understanding. I don't recall who thought it would be a good idea, but the plan for people in Europe to call people in the U.S. and campaign against Bush did a great job of stirring apathetic fence-sitters into the Republican camp. Perhaps Karl Rove's herpetic grasp was wide indeed.

[adders.livejournal.com]

It was, of course, The Guardian. :)

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

I see. :)

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

Long time no see. Next time you're through here we all have to get together and do the dinner thing.

BTW, that icon is spectacular.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

He was the Democratic Party's compromise candidate. He stood above the rest by not excelling in a very pliable way. He was a penultimate parlaimentarian who could not get to the damn point about anything ever - an asset when you're running down your time, but a liability when you're trying to talk to anybody who doesn't yield minutes to the speaker, who he would like to thank, &tc. The burden of proof was on him to impress me and he did not. He was literally "anybody but Bush," and the complete lack of focus in the Democratic Party didn't help that one bit.

As for the simple plan:

1) From the way he was pandering, you'd think everybody would be home by July 2005. I chalked that up as either a campaign promise he would immediately renege upon when getting into office or, if he was absolutely foolish, something he would go through with. I didn't want us to be there in the first place, but now that we're there I think it would be absolutely foolish to just "up and leave." The base who wanted that most would have accepted nothing less, and he'd have had to ditch them like Bush did to the religious right (twice!) or danced their tune and left a giant mess in the region.
2) I grabbed both health care plans and read through the proposals, analyses, figures, etc. The only significant variation I could find between the two was the way they would shuffle the money to get it done. Both were, of course, pie-in-the-sky ideas that could only exist as written if passed through Congress unopposed.
3) I'm actually behind this, but didn't trust him to be the guy to do it. He'd be a milquetoast president entering office with a Congress completely opposed to him. The Republicans would have exercised their own nuclear option of obstructing everything in their power to obstruct.

For me, the theme of the 2004 election was "So...it's come to this." If the Democrats wanted to get rid of a controversial president who practically handed them reasons to oust his administration, they should not have brought their C-game.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

I'm inherently skeptical of any politician, particularly someone touted as the "next best thing" at a point where the current politician is abysmally bad. When you have a glass full of sewage with a drop of wine, and a glass full of wine with a drop of sewage, it's still just sewage. Comparatively, yes, Kerry looked better. That's why I was very, very careful to scrutinize him and for me he didn't pass muster. I didn't believe he'd keep the promises he made.

Not that it matters; Fairfax county returned something like 90% on Kerry, so whatever I ended up deciding was either at the crest of the wave or beneath it. :)

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

This exchange reminded me of something I wrote back in October of '04:

Though I wouldn't normally have done so I watched (somewhat sporadically) the debate last night between Pres. Bush and Sen. Kerry. It was less painful than I thought it would be to watch and I came out of it feeling a bit better about Kerry than I did before, though I tend to think that feeling better about a politician because of a good performance is like feeling better about a tumor because it has stopped metastasizing for the moment.

Kerry may try running again in '08.

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing the idea that we can't just "up and leave." So, what is the plan then? Unless we're planning to stay until all parties bent on civil war can play nice, we're eventually going to leave a big mess. So, what's the requisite amount of blood and treasure we squander before we throw up our hands and let them kill each other? We haven't the forces to remain for the rest of time, and although I see lots of people who say it's in our vital national interest to stay, I don't see them signing up or supporting a draft. Hell, I don't see many of them supporting tax increases to fund the damn conflict.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

Erm, I don't think Adam's journal is the best place to debate this - mind taking it to yours? I'll pop over there, it's just that I was already feeling silly for repeatedly going on about two-year-old American election business. :)

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

You're quite right, not the appropriate forum. I'll copy my post and put it up in my journal.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

NP! No fight at all.

Good luck on finals!

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

The author of that article is, I think, dead on with his assessment of the present lack of a cross-culture climate, and his suggestion for how to deal with the problem is a good one.

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

I think it's rather overly optimistic because it seems to assume Americans as a whole have some desire to learn about other cultures and worldviews, and I don't see much evidence of that. We have people who won't take their kids to a museum much less ship them off to Europe to gain perspective. A lot of Americans are quite happy in their conformity and ignorance.

Then again, the plan is certainly worth a try, and I'd love to be able to send my own children when they're older. :)

[point5b.livejournal.com]

This may be sketchy. I've sat and pondered for some time, and it's very late...

While Hastings talks in general terms about American disinterest in the world, the thrust of the article comes across to me as dismay at American disinterest in Europe in favor of American interest in other places. The comment about American generals struck me in particular - why would a sensible Brit want American generals thinking about Europe as much or more than they think about the Middle East?

Of course, I'm also deeply skeptical of the premise that Americans really are so relatively ignorant about the world and need to be enlightened by their wiser cousins. America doesn't lack for ignorance, but the world (and even Europe) faces no shortage either. I'm unhappy with my country's foreign policy, but I feel no stirrings of awe when I consider the policies across the pond.

Something else strikes me: I've yet to see Americans who buy the premise of special American ignorance and who are willing to describe themselves - or people who generally agree with them - as ignorant and in need of "irrigation". The ignorant Americans just happen to be other people, the ones who disagree with them. ...And very interestingly, you find a similar and symmetric view of this group of Americans among Americans who actually like our foreign policy, which is symptomatic of the things that lead me to my ultimate reaction:

While I think Europeans and Americans working to better understand each other could only be good, I think Americans more urgently need to work on understanding each other right now.

[doctorcaligari.livejournal.com]

My reactions are:

1) Well, duh. Yes, Americans in general need a broader and deeper cultural literacy. Yes, Americans are in a global position where they are more able to get away with ignoring other countries' affairs than other countries are to get away with ignoring them. Yes, realpolitik suggests that as long as the present geopolitics persists, Americans are not likely to leap up en masse of their own accord and start consuming foreign media and policy.

2) On the other hand, I'm a little disturbed by the author's seemingly unquestioning acceptance of the premise that he and his country are at the "mercy" of the U.S.'s decisions (his own word). I know there's a massive power imbalance and one must be realistic, but is this really something most people in Europe are resigned to indefinitely? Is there nothing that can be done about it, immediately or eventually? Is Western Europe not still First World and does it not still possess self-determination, particularly if it bands together? Would it not be wiser in the long run to seek an alternative mode to eternally wheedling, cajoling and lecturing the United States and hoping for the best?

3) The one thing most guaranteed to piss off the arrogant is to suggest that they're arrogant, and the best way to piss off the ignorant is to inform them they're ignorant. Ignorant and arrogant people may not know much, but they know when they're being condescended to -- ignorant and arrogant are not the same as dumb. The unfortunate truth is that until Americans take it upon themselves to become more conversant with world affairs, nobody outside the U.S. is going to be able to overcome that inertia, particularly if they're pompous about it. It needs to come from within and to be supported and led by U.S. government and media figures (since folks usually don't pay near as much attention to someone who doesn't already have name recognition no matter how valuable the information is). Unfortunately our election system is predicated on the assumption of public ignorance, and changing that would just mess everything up for the people who would most need to be involved. :-)