Which of course explains the charitable groups based in the United States. People in the United States did send money and resources to the tsunami victims of 2005, right? Maybe it was some sneaky underhanded way for U.S. citizens to invest in those nations and I just didn’t notice it. Of those who “donated” money and resources what kind of profit have they seen thus far?
To be fair this is partially true.
None? That kind of surprises me actually because I thought all sorts of people had concerns about the future though they do have a difference of opinion when it comes to deciding what is best for the future.
Of course, nations will enter agreements that benefit them the most and hurt them the least, and the U.S. has quite a bit of leverage.
That’s not really my point.
What I’m curious about is the way talking heads, pundits and polis in soundbite snippets almost always brush away anything faintly smelling of “working together internationally” and seemingly getting a lot of agreement from the public.
Regardless of our faults the US is no more afraid of internationalism than any other country is. In fact, less so. Look at Japan, or France, or virtually every Middle Eastern state and tell me they embrace outside culture, values or influence.
In fact, try and show me that they don’t actively (and often vehemently) suppress it.
We’re rich and numerous. Even the uncharitable American populace gives a lot in terms of absolute dollars, even though we give less than other Western countries on a per person or per dollar of assets/income basis. I’ll see if I can find a cite; last I heard we were near the bottom, percentagewise.
I don’t know when/where you went to school, but in none of the schools I attended was I taught that we’re inherently superior to anyone. In fact, quite the opposite: the trend when I was in school (80s - 90s) was to emphasize the bad side of American history: slavery, genocide of the Indians, racism, etc. Though, of course, some people (through provincialism, or laziness, or what their parents told them) did come to the conclusion that we’re the best country in the world – as happens to people in all countries.
The US may be dinky compared to, say, Russia, but not to Canada, which is only about 3.5% larger than the US. And considering how much of Canada is inaccessible frozen wasteland, and the fact that the area the great majority of Canadians live in is very small…
We currently have a huge foreign-born population in this country; just counting them and their US-born family, children, and relatives adds up to a sizable proportion of the population that presumably does not see foreigners as irrelevant, evil, or exploitable. Add in the millions of native-born Americans they work with and interact with on a daily basis, along with those who just take a natural interest in the world.
I think Americans are at times the worst offenders at stereotyping their own countrymen/women. It’s so easy because it’s such an ingrained stereotype around the world: you remember the examples that fit, discount the ones that don’t as the exception. I’ve done it myself. But when I really think about it, for the most part it doesn’t jive with reality. On average, most Americans I’ve known, when talking about the world outside our borders, have displayed varying degrees of interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity, though for the most part positive. (Depending, of course, on the foreign region in question.) I have heard very few actively hostile comments. Most Americans do not think we are “inherently superior” to other people. This has held true, to varying degrees, in every part of the US I’ve lived in – New England, South, Mid-Atlantic, Mid-West, Southwest, in both cities and towns. We’re really not as bad as a lot of us think we are. (And no, we’re not as wonderful as a lot of us think we are either.)
Yes, in a way it is. What, we’re not aloud to compare what your accusing of the US of, when other countries feel the same way about their culture and national interests? :rolleyes:
Yes it is, because the answer is the same whether its France or America or where ever. The reason nation-states exist is due to big groups of people with similar beliefs, customs, mannerisms etc. There is absolutely nothing particularly unique about the American dislike of internationalism. Its human nature.
We just get all the bad press because we’re the most powerful nation-state.
That’s one way to put it. Another is that SA dismantled their Nuclear Weapons and abolished Apartheid to end the crushing international embargo they found themselves under. Even if they did do it out of altruism, they did it for themselves - to make their own country a better, more moral place - and not for the world at large.
I think that can be turned on it’s head, because it seems to me a lot of Americans (the vast majority of whom [yes, I’ll look for a cite] have never lived, studied, or even travelled abroad) have *no *idea how big the United Staes is.
That said, I also don’t think that the US is any worse comparitively than any other country. Governments exist to insure their own existence. It is (virtually) impossible to conceive of a government doing something purely for humanitarian reasons.
Which Americans are you talking about? The one’s you see caricatured on protest signs around the world, or the one’s who work in soup kitchens, work for the Peace Corps., etc. Are you talking about the American economists like Jeffrey Sachs who have devoted themselves to pulling Africa out of its cycle of death, disease, and poverty? (I’m sure they’re doing so just to have a new Coka-Cola market, right?). What about Bill Gates and George Soros?
I think a large part of all of these problems comes from the exaggerated, gross caricatures Americans have of the rest of the world, and vice versa.
“Americans” aren’t going anything. Just as “the French” weren’t out in the streets last week.
Americans are internationalists, only, I would argue, not enough of them. The government has realized how out of touch Americans have come with the rest of the world. This year is the “Year of Study Abroad” and last year was the “Year of Languages.”
Also, in January, Bush talked about the National Security Language Initiative (though most people focused on what Bush thought about Brokeback Mountain, it seems). All of these movements together, I think, will show that “the Americans” realize that they can act less and less with disregard for the effects their actions have abroad.
We’re a sovereign nation with the means to defend that sovereignity. Why on earth would we just give some of that away? Is there an offer on the table other than goodwill? Alot of international goodwill and a token will get you on the subway, Americans should know this better than most.
Especially when “the international community” is usually just a euphemism for Europe. After the events of the last hundred years alone, allowing European authority of any kind over us would be like giving a convicted child molester the keys to the local pre-school at his parole hearing. And besides, unilateralism may have became a dirty word somewhere in the past few years, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out the substantive difference between unilateralism and self-determination.
It’s not fear and it’s not ignorance. It’s a long memory and a nose for a bad deal, coupled with the certain knowledge that in our own country, we should be making the rules. People may not think that’s “fair,” and it’s certainly a tad hypocritical given our tendency to dictate to other nations, but I’d rather be a jerk and a hypocrite than subject to the rule of another.
I went to school in the Midwest roughly about the same time as you did. (I graduated in 1996.) I went to both public and private school.
Out here in the sticks, emphasising the negative aspects of American history would be seen at best as “liberal anti-American brain washing” if not outright heresy. In the public school slavery and the eradication of the Native Americans were, of course, discussed, but in a passing manner without overt moral objections.
In the private school, which was religious in nature, and frankly, unworthy of the title “school”, it was hinted that the Godless indians got much what they deserved for rejecting Christianity and behaving in barbarous fashion. They supported “Manifest Destiny” in a big way.
I was not unique in my experiences here. My husband teaches at our local university, and his students are often shocked and upset when he discusses those topics. Often it’s either the first time they’ve ever heard such things in detail, or they feel that to “dwell on them” is un-patriotic.
As for America being the gretest land of all, that is something that was subtly drilled into us kids. I can remember the stories in our history text books, illustrating that America was the only nation in the world where you could do anything if you just tried hard enough. (Didn’t log-splitting Abe Lincoln become president? You can, too! But only in America could you do that, because we’re the only ones to have a real Democracy. Didn’t Helen Keller* learn to read and write?)
I have a clear memory of my history teacher in public school telling us that in Russia, kids were shot if they were caught reading the Bible and that we should be glad to be Americans because only we had the freedom to believe what we wanted. I can also remember her telling us that only we had a truly fair economic system in capitalism.
The majority of things we were taught about world history were names, dates, capitals, and exports, and incidents related to the US. A kid who’s not a voracious reader might get the impression that other countries don’t have a history worth learning about.
Not all school districts are the same, obviously. Some (like yours) are better than others, and I think community sentiment has a lot to do with what gets taught. There are standards, of course, but teachers can gloss over areas which might be controversial.
Just why in the blue fuck history students are taught about Hellen Keller, I still cannot understand. Her story is of no historic importance.
Well, I was annoyed. The point is, it’s ridiculous to say that Canadians “don’t understand how big the US is.” Travel between major Canadian cities involves distances as long or longer than travel between major US cities. Many Canadians have travelled in the US.
Or how about China or India? Frigging huge countries with unimaginably vast populations. Do they not understand how big the US is? That’s well over a third of the world’s population between them, and I was responding to “Most of the world has no idea how BIG the US is.” It’s bollocks, and it’s repeated over and over and over again by smug, self-absorbed Americans excusing themselves for neither knowing nor caring about the world outside their borders. And it’s damned annoying.
And no, non-Americans aren’t much better in this regard, but most at least recognize it as a failing instead of holding it up as a virtue.
And I hear constant ranting about how horrible and vile they are.
You must live in the America in the alternate universe next to mine.
When the noble throws a few coins in the face of the peasant after raping his daughter, that doesn’t make him a kind and charitable man.
Pointless symbolism; I doubt many Americans know that, and fewer care.
It the difference between driving where you want on the road you want, and driving right over somebody’s lawn and family, and sneering at them while you do it.
I don’t know exactly how to put this, but I think it’s an illusion to think that the US dictates other nations. I know the US uses it’s sway to “encourage” countries to do what it wants, but the idea that the US can control outcomes is an illusion.
That’s to say there’s an idea that the US can “control” situations until their good graces come back to bite them in the ass.
Many in the US have this idea that the US is more in control, and that the US is making decisions in its own interest. The problem is that the interests of the US are the interests of every other country in the world.
That’s not just the case for America. Europe, in order to stem the flow of African immigrants, has a lot at stake in the well-being of African countries.
The problems of the world – terrorism, fundamentalism, pollution, poverty, disease – are the business of every country, and any country, including the US, that thinks that it can act on its own and for its proper benefit is mistaken…I believe. That’s why I think it’s in the best interests of the United States to be a little more pro-international.
(Check out In Our Own Best Interests, by William Schulz)
One thing you’re forgetting is that this is pretty much the case in every country I know of. The one big difference when talking about the US is that, to my knowledge, most people outside of the US study their own history and American history. Around the world, most people have a basic knowledge of American history, whereas Americans don’t have the same knowledge of, say, Taiwanese or Australian history (save for as much as it concerns the US).
Otherwise, I think your average high school history class anywhere will be relatively superficial.
(Have you heard about the recent French debate over putting the good aspects of colonization in their textbooks?)
I think when you talk about bad history classes, it’s simply a reaction that people all over the world have when they take it upon themselves to dig a little deeper and find that there’s so much more blood, back-stabbing, and agent orange under the glossy pages of history textbooks.
Then again, I think there’s plenty of that in everybody’s history, and it’s up to those of us who find it horrendous to do something about it. I didn’t eradicate the Native Americans. I didn’t have any slaves. I’m tired of hearing what “we” did. I’m ready to fix the scars from what *was *done, as corny as it sounds.
I do agree with you, however, that teaching/learning these things – like for instance the bombing of the Valley of the Jars in Cambodia – is considered by many to be “anti-American.”
…shit…I just realized how far I’ve wandered from the OP’s question.
Well, I am, more or less, an internationalist. I think it’s getting harder and harder these days to clarify who – meaning which nationality or group “they” are – did what. “American” companies even aren’t really American. Or, for instance, look at even that Dubia Ports Company, many of the people directing the damn company were American, British, and Australian.
I think if people in the states start giving reasons why it’s in the interests of a country or company to be more humanitarian and to participate more equally in whatever international body, they will see a change in kind. That goes especially for the companies, who can/will adapt much faster than any government.
The point is, it’s ridiculous to say that Canadians “don’t understand how big the US is.” Travel between major Canadian cities involves distances as long or longer than travel between major US cities. Many Canadians have travelled in the US.