Post by hollister on Nov 17, 2007 18:15:35 GMT -7
The entire article is at slate.com/id/2177970/pagenum/all
The author asked people for ideas on how to improve America's image in the world. As he posited,"During the Cold War, our freewheeling jazz, rock, and movies appealed to millions of people behind the Iron Curtain. Today, the vast phenomenon of anti-Americanism stems mainly from our government's policies. But if the next president changed some of those policies, is there anything in our culture that might restore our luster, or at least make us less hateful, not just to Arabs and Muslims, but also to the Asians and Europeans who were once our closest friends?"
To Know Us Is To Love Us
In short, our greatest selling point may be our sheer, mundane humanity. A Dutch student writes, "America must (re-)consider itself an ordinary country—special and of great importance, but not playing in a league of its own. If America joins the world … the world will gladly receive America."
Along these lines is a letter from the aptly named Joshua Mensch, an American in the Czech Republic. When Mensch was a student in Prague in the late 1990s, the Czechs he met regarded him as cool, the arbiter of taste, the beacon of all that is desirable. "Being American," he writes, "gave you a certain cachet."
In 2004, after the deterioration in Iraq and George W. Bush's re-election, the atmosphere changed. He wasn't shunned for being an American—not usually, anyway—but the "cachet" evaporated.
Now, Mensch writes, he is polite to everybody; he speaks Czech as much as possible; he's always hoping to find lost wallets or cell phones, so he can return them to their owners, as a way of demonstrating that American people are decent.
"Americans abroad in every city I visit," he continues, "are quietly re-appreciating their identities as American." They are openly and unashamedly American. But they also behave "in a manner that is worldly, attentive to the differences between the cultures and not brutish about it. … The Americans who act like America is part of the world and not the commander of it, not the evil ruler or the bane of it, and not the ultimate signifier of it, will be the Americans who make America look good."
if you are still reading at this point .... he is a counter argument to consider
And there's the real problem with the suggestion, "to know us is to love us." It ignores reality. One Dutch student wrote to Kaplan: "America must (re-)consider itself an ordinary country—special and of great importance, but not playing in a league of its own." Sorry, but America, by virtue of the power of its economy, military, and culture, does play in a league of its own. Being huge inspires hatred; just ask the Yankees, Wal-Mart, or Microsoft. Pretending that isn't so will hardly fix anything.
"For now, America must bear the burden of being both loved and hated at once. Our embassies will at once be blown up and packed with locals seeking visas. I'm all for exchange programs, but they aren't enough to cure this ill. If you heard Karen Hughes or Condi Rice tell you that the solution to the U.S. public diplomacy problem is that foreigners just don't understand how wonderful Americans are, wouldn't you laugh her out of the room? You ought to do the same with Kaplan's experiment."
blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/7044
The author asked people for ideas on how to improve America's image in the world. As he posited,"During the Cold War, our freewheeling jazz, rock, and movies appealed to millions of people behind the Iron Curtain. Today, the vast phenomenon of anti-Americanism stems mainly from our government's policies. But if the next president changed some of those policies, is there anything in our culture that might restore our luster, or at least make us less hateful, not just to Arabs and Muslims, but also to the Asians and Europeans who were once our closest friends?"
To Know Us Is To Love Us
In short, our greatest selling point may be our sheer, mundane humanity. A Dutch student writes, "America must (re-)consider itself an ordinary country—special and of great importance, but not playing in a league of its own. If America joins the world … the world will gladly receive America."
Along these lines is a letter from the aptly named Joshua Mensch, an American in the Czech Republic. When Mensch was a student in Prague in the late 1990s, the Czechs he met regarded him as cool, the arbiter of taste, the beacon of all that is desirable. "Being American," he writes, "gave you a certain cachet."
In 2004, after the deterioration in Iraq and George W. Bush's re-election, the atmosphere changed. He wasn't shunned for being an American—not usually, anyway—but the "cachet" evaporated.
Now, Mensch writes, he is polite to everybody; he speaks Czech as much as possible; he's always hoping to find lost wallets or cell phones, so he can return them to their owners, as a way of demonstrating that American people are decent.
"Americans abroad in every city I visit," he continues, "are quietly re-appreciating their identities as American." They are openly and unashamedly American. But they also behave "in a manner that is worldly, attentive to the differences between the cultures and not brutish about it. … The Americans who act like America is part of the world and not the commander of it, not the evil ruler or the bane of it, and not the ultimate signifier of it, will be the Americans who make America look good."
if you are still reading at this point .... he is a counter argument to consider
And there's the real problem with the suggestion, "to know us is to love us." It ignores reality. One Dutch student wrote to Kaplan: "America must (re-)consider itself an ordinary country—special and of great importance, but not playing in a league of its own." Sorry, but America, by virtue of the power of its economy, military, and culture, does play in a league of its own. Being huge inspires hatred; just ask the Yankees, Wal-Mart, or Microsoft. Pretending that isn't so will hardly fix anything.
"For now, America must bear the burden of being both loved and hated at once. Our embassies will at once be blown up and packed with locals seeking visas. I'm all for exchange programs, but they aren't enough to cure this ill. If you heard Karen Hughes or Condi Rice tell you that the solution to the U.S. public diplomacy problem is that foreigners just don't understand how wonderful Americans are, wouldn't you laugh her out of the room? You ought to do the same with Kaplan's experiment."
blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/7044