11 ms·

Unlearning the myth of American innocence

126 points by kawera 9y ago

DanielBMarkham 9y ago
For all their patriotism, Americans rarely think about how their national identities relate to their personal ones. This indifference is particular to the psychology of white Americans and has a history unique to the US. This is the thesis of the piece. The rest is an extended critique of Americans. I have difficultly buying into the thesis, so the rest of it reads like a very long-winded opinion piece with the standard throwaway charges about how the U.S. is horribly bad. This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up. It's nice to see it done in such a talented way. Just not my thing.
- boyce 9y ago
  It's certainly going to be an easy sell to the bulk of the Guardian's readership. Can't see them publishing the equivalent article about the prejudices of, say, the north London elite.
  - DanielBMarkham 9y ago
    Yes. This is a case where I upvoted the article for the work and clear thesis, but would downvote the editorial staff if I could. They gave this author a bit of a softball pitch and could have cut this way down. Column-inches aren't worth sacrificing quality over. As an American, I've noted the popularity of this kind of "America still sucks!" media material. I've seen it for 40 years and I imagine it'll still be going strong 40 years from now. It's not that I have a problem with introspection and going over all of our faults and thinking about where we could be better. It's after a couple hundred of these things? I'm not seeing where a lot of them are adding any more to the discussion. It gets to have more of a feel of a religious sermon or catechism, where the material is well-known by both the speaker and audience and held dear, but over time the ritual of pronouncing and consuming the material can become more important than the content itself. Still, given the caveats about the genre, points for style and cogency.
    - boyce 9y ago
      I think that's fair. Not sure who was challenged by this piece apart from the author. Sometimes that can be interesting of itself though.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      Perhaps a difference of expectations? In the UK we have overtly opinionated print press and "neutral" TV while I believe in the US it is generally the other way round?
    - kenjackson 9y ago
      Different days, new audience. I think that the fact that this same writing is going 40 years strong says something about the past 40 years, don't you? In contrast, if said writing had evaporated, that would be an interesting data point as well -- or do you not agree?
      - DanielBMarkham 9y ago
        It's a genre. Like all genres, there are rules. I don't think you can compare across genres. Over a period of centuries you can observe which ones come and go and which ones stay. Disaster stories, for instance, seem to come and go on regular intervals. This "I am observing so many things about my upbringing that were invisible to me until X" story? It feels to me a much older genre, one that originally had roots in verbal story-telling, not books. The interesting question (to me) is how the genre changed moving from a verbal interaction to an essay form. You could extend that to this particular writer. Have they had experience with this form of story-telling, perhaps in a religious or social setting? So looking at these multiple genres with the same theme, yes, it says something. There's something powerfully true about the human spirit at work. But 40 years of seeing this in <FORMAT_X>? Nope. At least not for me. Too soon. Check back with me in a hundred years or so. :) ADD: You know who this type of written story reminds me of? Emily Dickinson. There's that same feeling of turning your life inside-out and looking at it from the outside. That's about as far back as I can go with the written word, but my Kung Fu here is quite weak. It's also reminiscent of the flagellants, which had much the same message and delivered it verbally to whomever would listen.
  - Nursie 9y ago
    Actually I think they probably would. The Guardian's schtick is quite full of "Oh god we're all so awful, we must repent". Although you may be right - it's more likely to be aimed at everyone they consider less enlightened than them. All that said, there certainly is something in what she writes, particularly about the naivety of people growing up with little world perspective like that.
    - marcus_holmes 9y ago
      Her assertion that world geography is not taught to US high school students shocked me.
      - Nursie 9y ago
        Yes, me too. I had a fairly sheltered upbringing in the UK, but we did at least do some world geography and the GCSE curriculum in the early 90s required a little bit more social geography, concentrating on the southern parts of West Africa (not that I remember much of it now). Without any world geography at all, well it seems criminal to set up an education system, that way.
        davedx 9y ago
        Yeah, and swathes of the conservative / alt-right movement currently running things want to get rid of the (Federal) Department of Education altogether, so I read. I've even seen people on Twitter claiming America would be better without any college system at all.
        didgeoridoo 9y ago
        The DoE has only existed since 1980. American public schooling did just fine without it for centuries. Why is it beyond the pale to consider eliminating it?
        jessaustin 9y ago
        Who else would enforce standards in geographic education? /s
- foxhedgehog 9y ago
  Pretty sure this piece was written by a second-year college student.
- l33tbro 9y ago
  I think "throwaway charges about how the U.S. is horribly bad" lacks charity for what the author is getting at in this piece. While exploring shadow narratives to American exceptionalism may not be everyone's cup of tea, you must agree that it's rare (and even refreshing) to see an identity politics op-ed that relates to the foreign policy and conduct of one's country, rather than one's own gender, sexuality, or ethnicity? Perhaps it's just me, but it seems the overwhelming majority of op-eds I read these days are outrage screeds pertaining to the latter.
  - jjt-yn_t 9y ago
    Agree, for the most part FWIW.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up. Probably because they have also eaten bombs, interventions, pressure etc for a century or so before that.
  - tome 9y ago
    Merely a century?
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Well, before that they were eating that oppression from the British, French, etc.
      - tome 9y ago
        Indeed. Therefore it seems a bit much to pick on America now given that it's doing no worse than what every powerful country has done throughout history.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >Therefore it seems a bit much to pick on America now given that it's doing no worse than what every powerful country has done throughout history. Well, I don't think the above information would be much comforting to the people affected. Maybe we should be picking on all of them, but even more so to the one actually doing it at the present (and for near a century)? Especially since "picking on" (criticizing negatively) seems like the lightest of responses about the abuses and harm from a powerful country to others.
        tome 9y ago
        What I really meant was something from a different vantage point, like > It seems a bit much to expect America not to throw it's weight around since there's no superpower in the history of humanity that has restrained itself like that. Instead it would be more productive to learn to to live with and mitigate it.
johnrichardson 9y ago
Jordan Peterson has a great take on the attitude this author (and many others like her) have about America, and the West in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc&t=1s The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West - quite ironic given that we live in one the most free, prosperous societies ever created in human history. They are driven almost entirely by resentment, and lack even a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  "The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West" Do you mean that "the modern left", that homogeneous and well defined group, discourse is full of unjustified generalizations, where generic labels are apply without qualification? Yes, quite ironic certainly.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    Shout outs to out-group homogeneity bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    one can point out trends in political groups without implying that they're a hoard of drones.
    - ivanbakel 9y ago
      But nothing was being pointed out, neither was the implication of drone-ness taken away. GP's point was just that a sweeping generalisation of "the modern Left" is a meaningless statement, because it doesn't address a well-defined group, and the Left generally is not similar enough among itself for those broad claims to be true. Representing an entire swathe of the political spectrum as one homogeneous group is completely dishonest and unrealistic. It's definitely not "pointing out a trend".
gobugat 9y ago
The piece is stating the obvious, and the reactions in this thread -- predictably -- prove the author's point. Expatriation, even temporary, has so many benefits. I'd be curious to correlate the postures of HN commentators with their provenance and life experience.
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  The piece is also full of guilt for American foreign policy that's mainly decided by special interests, but then gets blamed on ordinary Americans. Aren't they lucky - first they get their democracy subverted by multinational corporations, then they get to feel guilty about what those same corporations do. Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
  - gobugat 9y ago
    Where exactly does the author blame "ordinary Americans"? A certain form of "ordinary American spirit" is at fault in their eyes, for sure. Education and cultural experiences, or more precisely lack thereof, seem to be the explaining factors. Hence my question.
  - boyce 9y ago
    Blaming the American people is like blaming the cogs in a machine for the design of the product it produces.
    - emilecantin 9y ago
      Have you lost so much faith in your democracy that you don't feel responsible for who you collectively elect? For a people that is always chanting "USA! USA! USA!", "Freedom!", "Democracy!", I find the reactions in this thread pretty rich. You, collectively, are 100% to blame for the actions of your government. You, individually, share 1/300 millionth of that blame. If you don't feel that way, your democracy has failed.
throw2016 9y ago
Exceptionalism always carries with it the danger of supremacism and once that gets you as individual, group or country there is a constant desire to find the 'logic and evidence' to support the position post-facto. Identity becomes deeply entwined with protecting the purity of the 'exceptional group' with an unhealthy reductive interest in judging others and clearly demarcating the 'unexceptional'. This is a very negative space. The problem with sweeping articles like this is it requires intense engagement with history, reason and reflection to escape the generalization and find a truth you can be comfortable with. No one can define you, you can always choose what you want to be. On a wider level people have always been led and as long as exceptionalism remains a low key 'motivator' it works but its a dangerous game as the lines can blur pretty quickly.
traverseda 9y ago
I'm surprised at how easily another "original sin" doctrine has taken root. I suppose if it works, it works. Still, I'd have expected people to build up some kind of immunity.
dalbasal 9y ago
My take on the topics raised - US innocence, hostility towards the US, patriotism, nationalism... my take is that these are changes in prevailing opinions and notions. The cumulative of subjective opinions. I'm not American, btw. There are a few big reasons for what the author is observing and commenting on, that get too little attention IMO. One is the end of the cold war, and the wars preceding it. The cold war was cold, but the psychology was regular war psychology. Fear, demonisation, rallying around your side... Relative evaluation of conduct and goals, rather than idealistic evaluation. In the corld-war-world, the US represented democracy, personal liberty and its associated human rights, and (very importantly) culturally icons. US and western police forces behaved well relative to Soviet police forces. US Movies & Music were better. Press was more honest. The comparison was not made relative to an idealised concept of democracy or human rights (or music). It was made relative to the Soviet Union associated states. It was also mostly made in Eastern Europe, where the divide was arbitrary, non-national and highly visible. That dichotomy world is gone. These days, I think people evaluate these things in a more abstract way, relative to abstract idealizations. A second effect is US politics' global viewership. This is a product of globalized media, the dramatic merits of US political theater, the genuine impacts of big US decisions and other reasons. This is huge. I live in Ireland. The majority of people are more knowledgeable, vested and opinionated about US politics than local politics. They have a strong opinion on US health policies, but not Irish ones. This is a recipe for insanity. US politicians are pandering to US opinions, not Danish or Georgian or Irish opinions. Of course they feel unrepresented. When one side loses a heated election, large numbers always feel alienated and angry at the country. It passes, a normal part of democracy. Many Danes (and everyone) were involved enough emotionally to get the same feeling but being non-americans aren't as affected by the normalizing effects that bring everything together in the end. When Europeans express a frustrated criticism of US politics, they are doing it as insiders. They are criticising it the same way they would criticize a local party coming to power, one which they don't like. Imagine how angry Americans would get at the Danish or Mexican parliament if they were following it like this. A third issue is the "someone must be driving" fallacy. In this sense being angry at the US is like the constant anger at one's own government. There is so much wrong with everything and it has to be someone's fault. The US has been having a bad run in foreign policy. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, even N. Korea, ... The US is (rightly or wrongly) held responsible as the guy in charge. Politics rarely rewards successes. The failures are just more visible. Who do you get angry at for the Syrian civil war? Who's to blame? The UN?
cafard 9y ago
Quite a few years ago, I saw a trailer for a movie about the 1950s quiz-show scandal. It included a clip of the producer, Robert Redford, saying something about "the end of American innocence." At that point, I started wondering about the man's smarts.
AlgorithmicTime 9y ago
I won't apologize for our country. We're powerful enough that we don't need to take into account anyone else's opinions about us. That's the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. If we want to manipulate other countries, that's fine. Perpetuating American power is an end I support
reptation 9y ago
It very much glosses over Turkey's own history of (Greek, Armenian) genocide and the very real differences in religious and other liberties between Turkey and the U.S.
- vkazanov 9y ago
  She's not talking about Turkey as something superior to the US. Quite the opposite! She notices similarities between Turkish nationalism and American patriotic world view, and that includes being a very aggressive state.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Yes, we must see ourselves in others. My epiphany was when I realized how similar the political decision-making process in Pakistan is to that in USA. Short answer: in both places, the military-industrial complex dictates the "reality" it's acceptable to perceive, and all decisions flow from that.
randcraw 9y ago
America is indeed an empire. Apparently the author was oblivious to this, and her epiphany that empire creates a reality distortion field for all those within it is really not that much of a revelation, except to her. Perpetuating unthinking patriotism is fundamental to empiric survival. Only as long as the populace believes in their inherent superiority (AKA exceptionalism) do their eyes remain blissfully closed to the consequences of their righteousness on others. The rest of the article (book?) is about the author's slow growing awareness that non-Americans are warped by these distortions of reality too, in ways that are just as self-delusional and self-destructive. Yes, power does corrupt. Absolutely. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age 30? Has this become typical? Even an Ivy League American student can be so insulated that they're not aware that people elsewhere in the world see the world so differently? That their disenfranchisement from power, both locally and globally leaves them bitter and mistrustful of all forms of authority? Who doesn't know this? Jeez. We just elected TRUMP, dammit. Who isn't aware that even the average American feels disempowered by the routine abuse of authority by self-perpetuating elites? Likewise, I was equally taken aback at the general public's response to "Hillbilly Elegy" as epiphany. Back in the 1970's I lived on the edge of Appalachia, which left me well aware of the subsistence lifestyle in rural America that the book revealed as something new (to most?). Are such wide dynamic ranges of experience in and outside the USA really so invisible to most of us? If so, that's freaking inexcusable. We live in an era where the ubiquity of the Net can make you aware of virtually every aspect of human experience on Earth in less than a heartbeat. Just open your eyes.
- DonnyV 9y ago
  Articles like this may seem obvious and redundant to you, me and other people that actively reach into the web for information. But there is a large...LARGE community of people that do not actively go looking for new information. They are fine or even scared to see what is beyond there bubble. So just like raising children. Constant reinforcement needs to happen to make things stick and let this information sink in. Eventually the light bulb flickers on for everyone.
losteverything 9y ago
My take. She is a journalist. They have to write. She writes. We read. The old saying is "everybody has one novel in them." updated verson: everyone has a blog post in them. Her words are ok. Not inspiring whatsoever. Not dramatic. Not new. I take it for what it is. Let her get better at her job.
RodericDay 9y ago
One thing I find very interesting is how entertainment media, probably as a result of needing to pander to whatever the mainstream sensibility of the moment is, really works as a barometer for how people in America see themselves. Back when America could do no wrong, America was Rocky, or one of those glistening 80s heros. Maybe a bit flawed, but generally a family man vs. evildoers, a plucky little upstart. Then America was Bruce Willis in Die Hard, rough around the edges and divorced but still a good guy, trying to do the right thing. Then America was Keifer Sutherland in 24... somebody's gotta do the torturing! For a good cause, though. The more and more dirt comes out, the more public sensibilities turn to stuff like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and House of Cards, reassuring watchers that nobody's good, that if you try to do the right thing the world will crush you, that all that matters is being top-dog. Sucks, but "that's the way the world really is". It's super interesting. You'd think the character development in those shows is indicting, but it really is mostly immunizing and pride-preserving.
- eregorn 9y ago
  I'd like to throw in that I wonder if this article is a bit late, and in a way Americans are already coming out of exceptionalism. I was noticing I cared more about international politics than I previously did, and I saw a lot of other Americans putting more skin in the game than in the past (Although the only way I know this is from the last days of the French Election, where a bunch of tone-deaf English/bad French memes were being pushed to save Le Pen). It is European focused but hey its a start I guess. More importantly though, is the lack of trust in institutions. When the article started talking about conspiracy theories and the deep state I had be do a double take for a second on whether she was still talking about Turkey.
- bahjoite 9y ago
  One recurring theme of US entertainment seems to be 'good people fighting bad people and doing "whatever it takes" to get the job done'.
evolve2k 9y ago
Summary of Americans responses here: "Oh no, this doesn't apply to me"

126 points by kawera 9y ago

For all their patriotism, Americans rarely think about how their national identities relate to their personal ones. This indifference is particular to the psychology of white Americans and has a history unique to the US. This is the thesis of the piece. The rest is an extended critique of Americans. I have difficultly buying into the thesis, so the rest of it reads like a very long-winded opinion piece with the standard throwaway charges about how the U.S. is horribly bad. This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up. It's nice to see it done in such a talented way. Just not my thing.

boyce 9y ago
It's certainly going to be an easy sell to the bulk of the Guardian's readership. Can't see them publishing the equivalent article about the prejudices of, say, the north London elite.
- DanielBMarkham 9y ago
  Yes. This is a case where I upvoted the article for the work and clear thesis, but would downvote the editorial staff if I could. They gave this author a bit of a softball pitch and could have cut this way down. Column-inches aren't worth sacrificing quality over. As an American, I've noted the popularity of this kind of "America still sucks!" media material. I've seen it for 40 years and I imagine it'll still be going strong 40 years from now. It's not that I have a problem with introspection and going over all of our faults and thinking about where we could be better. It's after a couple hundred of these things? I'm not seeing where a lot of them are adding any more to the discussion. It gets to have more of a feel of a religious sermon or catechism, where the material is well-known by both the speaker and audience and held dear, but over time the ritual of pronouncing and consuming the material can become more important than the content itself. Still, given the caveats about the genre, points for style and cogency.
  - boyce 9y ago
    I think that's fair. Not sure who was challenged by this piece apart from the author. Sometimes that can be interesting of itself though.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    Perhaps a difference of expectations? In the UK we have overtly opinionated print press and "neutral" TV while I believe in the US it is generally the other way round?
  - kenjackson 9y ago
    Different days, new audience. I think that the fact that this same writing is going 40 years strong says something about the past 40 years, don't you? In contrast, if said writing had evaporated, that would be an interesting data point as well -- or do you not agree?
    - DanielBMarkham 9y ago
      It's a genre. Like all genres, there are rules. I don't think you can compare across genres. Over a period of centuries you can observe which ones come and go and which ones stay. Disaster stories, for instance, seem to come and go on regular intervals. This "I am observing so many things about my upbringing that were invisible to me until X" story? It feels to me a much older genre, one that originally had roots in verbal story-telling, not books. The interesting question (to me) is how the genre changed moving from a verbal interaction to an essay form. You could extend that to this particular writer. Have they had experience with this form of story-telling, perhaps in a religious or social setting? So looking at these multiple genres with the same theme, yes, it says something. There's something powerfully true about the human spirit at work. But 40 years of seeing this in <FORMAT_X>? Nope. At least not for me. Too soon. Check back with me in a hundred years or so. :) ADD: You know who this type of written story reminds me of? Emily Dickinson. There's that same feeling of turning your life inside-out and looking at it from the outside. That's about as far back as I can go with the written word, but my Kung Fu here is quite weak. It's also reminiscent of the flagellants, which had much the same message and delivered it verbally to whomever would listen.
- Nursie 9y ago
  Actually I think they probably would. The Guardian's schtick is quite full of "Oh god we're all so awful, we must repent". Although you may be right - it's more likely to be aimed at everyone they consider less enlightened than them. All that said, there certainly is something in what she writes, particularly about the naivety of people growing up with little world perspective like that.
  - marcus_holmes 9y ago
    Her assertion that world geography is not taught to US high school students shocked me.
    - Nursie 9y ago
      Yes, me too. I had a fairly sheltered upbringing in the UK, but we did at least do some world geography and the GCSE curriculum in the early 90s required a little bit more social geography, concentrating on the southern parts of West Africa (not that I remember much of it now). Without any world geography at all, well it seems criminal to set up an education system, that way.
      - davedx 9y ago
        Yeah, and swathes of the conservative / alt-right movement currently running things want to get rid of the (Federal) Department of Education altogether, so I read. I've even seen people on Twitter claiming America would be better without any college system at all.
        didgeoridoo 9y ago
        The DoE has only existed since 1980. American public schooling did just fine without it for centuries. Why is it beyond the pale to consider eliminating it?
        jessaustin 9y ago
        Who else would enforce standards in geographic education? /s
foxhedgehog 9y ago
Pretty sure this piece was written by a second-year college student.
l33tbro 9y ago
I think "throwaway charges about how the U.S. is horribly bad" lacks charity for what the author is getting at in this piece. While exploring shadow narratives to American exceptionalism may not be everyone's cup of tea, you must agree that it's rare (and even refreshing) to see an identity politics op-ed that relates to the foreign policy and conduct of one's country, rather than one's own gender, sexuality, or ethnicity? Perhaps it's just me, but it seems the overwhelming majority of op-eds I read these days are outrage screeds pertaining to the latter.
- jjt-yn_t 9y ago
  Agree, for the most part FWIW.
coldtea 9y ago
>This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up. Probably because they have also eaten bombs, interventions, pressure etc for a century or so before that.
- tome 9y ago
  Merely a century?
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Well, before that they were eating that oppression from the British, French, etc.
    - tome 9y ago
      Indeed. Therefore it seems a bit much to pick on America now given that it's doing no worse than what every powerful country has done throughout history.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >Therefore it seems a bit much to pick on America now given that it's doing no worse than what every powerful country has done throughout history. Well, I don't think the above information would be much comforting to the people affected. Maybe we should be picking on all of them, but even more so to the one actually doing it at the present (and for near a century)? Especially since "picking on" (criticizing negatively) seems like the lightest of responses about the abuses and harm from a powerful country to others.
        tome 9y ago
        What I really meant was something from a different vantage point, like > It seems a bit much to expect America not to throw it's weight around since there's no superpower in the history of humanity that has restrained itself like that. Instead it would be more productive to learn to to live with and mitigate it.

johnrichardson 9y ago

Jordan Peterson has a great take on the attitude this author (and many others like her) have about America, and the West in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc&t=1s The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West - quite ironic given that we live in one the most free, prosperous societies ever created in human history. They are driven almost entirely by resentment, and lack even a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.

RobertoG 9y ago
"The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West" Do you mean that "the modern left", that homogeneous and well defined group, discourse is full of unjustified generalizations, where generic labels are apply without qualification? Yes, quite ironic certainly.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Shout outs to out-group homogeneity bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  one can point out trends in political groups without implying that they're a hoard of drones.
  - ivanbakel 9y ago
    But nothing was being pointed out, neither was the implication of drone-ness taken away. GP's point was just that a sweeping generalisation of "the modern Left" is a meaningless statement, because it doesn't address a well-defined group, and the Left generally is not similar enough among itself for those broad claims to be true. Representing an entire swathe of the political spectrum as one homogeneous group is completely dishonest and unrealistic. It's definitely not "pointing out a trend".

gobugat 9y ago

The piece is stating the obvious, and the reactions in this thread -- predictably -- prove the author's point. Expatriation, even temporary, has so many benefits. I'd be curious to correlate the postures of HN commentators with their provenance and life experience.

DarkKomunalec 9y ago
The piece is also full of guilt for American foreign policy that's mainly decided by special interests, but then gets blamed on ordinary Americans. Aren't they lucky - first they get their democracy subverted by multinational corporations, then they get to feel guilty about what those same corporations do. Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- gobugat 9y ago
  Where exactly does the author blame "ordinary Americans"? A certain form of "ordinary American spirit" is at fault in their eyes, for sure. Education and cultural experiences, or more precisely lack thereof, seem to be the explaining factors. Hence my question.
- boyce 9y ago
  Blaming the American people is like blaming the cogs in a machine for the design of the product it produces.
  - emilecantin 9y ago
    Have you lost so much faith in your democracy that you don't feel responsible for who you collectively elect? For a people that is always chanting "USA! USA! USA!", "Freedom!", "Democracy!", I find the reactions in this thread pretty rich. You, collectively, are 100% to blame for the actions of your government. You, individually, share 1/300 millionth of that blame. If you don't feel that way, your democracy has failed.

throw2016 9y ago

Exceptionalism always carries with it the danger of supremacism and once that gets you as individual, group or country there is a constant desire to find the 'logic and evidence' to support the position post-facto. Identity becomes deeply entwined with protecting the purity of the 'exceptional group' with an unhealthy reductive interest in judging others and clearly demarcating the 'unexceptional'. This is a very negative space. The problem with sweeping articles like this is it requires intense engagement with history, reason and reflection to escape the generalization and find a truth you can be comfortable with. No one can define you, you can always choose what you want to be. On a wider level people have always been led and as long as exceptionalism remains a low key 'motivator' it works but its a dangerous game as the lines can blur pretty quickly.

traverseda 9y ago

I'm surprised at how easily another "original sin" doctrine has taken root. I suppose if it works, it works. Still, I'd have expected people to build up some kind of immunity.

dalbasal 9y ago

My take on the topics raised - US innocence, hostility towards the US, patriotism, nationalism... my take is that these are changes in prevailing opinions and notions. The cumulative of subjective opinions. I'm not American, btw. There are a few big reasons for what the author is observing and commenting on, that get too little attention IMO. One is the end of the cold war, and the wars preceding it. The cold war was cold, but the psychology was regular war psychology. Fear, demonisation, rallying around your side... Relative evaluation of conduct and goals, rather than idealistic evaluation. In the corld-war-world, the US represented democracy, personal liberty and its associated human rights, and (very importantly) culturally icons. US and western police forces behaved well relative to Soviet police forces. US Movies & Music were better. Press was more honest. The comparison was not made relative to an idealised concept of democracy or human rights (or music). It was made relative to the Soviet Union associated states. It was also mostly made in Eastern Europe, where the divide was arbitrary, non-national and highly visible. That dichotomy world is gone. These days, I think people evaluate these things in a more abstract way, relative to abstract idealizations. A second effect is US politics' global viewership. This is a product of globalized media, the dramatic merits of US political theater, the genuine impacts of big US decisions and other reasons. This is huge. I live in Ireland. The majority of people are more knowledgeable, vested and opinionated about US politics than local politics. They have a strong opinion on US health policies, but not Irish ones. This is a recipe for insanity. US politicians are pandering to US opinions, not Danish or Georgian or Irish opinions. Of course they feel unrepresented. When one side loses a heated election, large numbers always feel alienated and angry at the country. It passes, a normal part of democracy. Many Danes (and everyone) were involved enough emotionally to get the same feeling but being non-americans aren't as affected by the normalizing effects that bring everything together in the end. When Europeans express a frustrated criticism of US politics, they are doing it as insiders. They are criticising it the same way they would criticize a local party coming to power, one which they don't like. Imagine how angry Americans would get at the Danish or Mexican parliament if they were following it like this. A third issue is the "someone must be driving" fallacy. In this sense being angry at the US is like the constant anger at one's own government. There is so much wrong with everything and it has to be someone's fault. The US has been having a bad run in foreign policy. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, even N. Korea, ... The US is (rightly or wrongly) held responsible as the guy in charge. Politics rarely rewards successes. The failures are just more visible. Who do you get angry at for the Syrian civil war? Who's to blame? The UN?

cafard 9y ago

Quite a few years ago, I saw a trailer for a movie about the 1950s quiz-show scandal. It included a clip of the producer, Robert Redford, saying something about "the end of American innocence." At that point, I started wondering about the man's smarts.

AlgorithmicTime 9y ago

I won't apologize for our country. We're powerful enough that we don't need to take into account anyone else's opinions about us. That's the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. If we want to manipulate other countries, that's fine. Perpetuating American power is an end I support

reptation 9y ago

It very much glosses over Turkey's own history of (Greek, Armenian) genocide and the very real differences in religious and other liberties between Turkey and the U.S.

vkazanov 9y ago
She's not talking about Turkey as something superior to the US. Quite the opposite! She notices similarities between Turkish nationalism and American patriotic world view, and that includes being a very aggressive state.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Yes, we must see ourselves in others. My epiphany was when I realized how similar the political decision-making process in Pakistan is to that in USA. Short answer: in both places, the military-industrial complex dictates the "reality" it's acceptable to perceive, and all decisions flow from that.

randcraw 9y ago

America is indeed an empire. Apparently the author was oblivious to this, and her epiphany that empire creates a reality distortion field for all those within it is really not that much of a revelation, except to her. Perpetuating unthinking patriotism is fundamental to empiric survival. Only as long as the populace believes in their inherent superiority (AKA exceptionalism) do their eyes remain blissfully closed to the consequences of their righteousness on others. The rest of the article (book?) is about the author's slow growing awareness that non-Americans are warped by these distortions of reality too, in ways that are just as self-delusional and self-destructive. Yes, power does corrupt. Absolutely. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age 30? Has this become typical? Even an Ivy League American student can be so insulated that they're not aware that people elsewhere in the world see the world so differently? That their disenfranchisement from power, both locally and globally leaves them bitter and mistrustful of all forms of authority? Who doesn't know this? Jeez. We just elected TRUMP, dammit. Who isn't aware that even the average American feels disempowered by the routine abuse of authority by self-perpetuating elites? Likewise, I was equally taken aback at the general public's response to "Hillbilly Elegy" as epiphany. Back in the 1970's I lived on the edge of Appalachia, which left me well aware of the subsistence lifestyle in rural America that the book revealed as something new (to most?). Are such wide dynamic ranges of experience in and outside the USA really so invisible to most of us? If so, that's freaking inexcusable. We live in an era where the ubiquity of the Net can make you aware of virtually every aspect of human experience on Earth in less than a heartbeat. Just open your eyes.

DonnyV 9y ago
Articles like this may seem obvious and redundant to you, me and other people that actively reach into the web for information. But there is a large...LARGE community of people that do not actively go looking for new information. They are fine or even scared to see what is beyond there bubble. So just like raising children. Constant reinforcement needs to happen to make things stick and let this information sink in. Eventually the light bulb flickers on for everyone.

losteverything 9y ago

My take. She is a journalist. They have to write. She writes. We read. The old saying is "everybody has one novel in them." updated verson: everyone has a blog post in them. Her words are ok. Not inspiring whatsoever. Not dramatic. Not new. I take it for what it is. Let her get better at her job.

RodericDay 9y ago

One thing I find very interesting is how entertainment media, probably as a result of needing to pander to whatever the mainstream sensibility of the moment is, really works as a barometer for how people in America see themselves. Back when America could do no wrong, America was Rocky, or one of those glistening 80s heros. Maybe a bit flawed, but generally a family man vs. evildoers, a plucky little upstart. Then America was Bruce Willis in Die Hard, rough around the edges and divorced but still a good guy, trying to do the right thing. Then America was Keifer Sutherland in 24... somebody's gotta do the torturing! For a good cause, though. The more and more dirt comes out, the more public sensibilities turn to stuff like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and House of Cards, reassuring watchers that nobody's good, that if you try to do the right thing the world will crush you, that all that matters is being top-dog. Sucks, but "that's the way the world really is". It's super interesting. You'd think the character development in those shows is indicting, but it really is mostly immunizing and pride-preserving.

eregorn 9y ago
I'd like to throw in that I wonder if this article is a bit late, and in a way Americans are already coming out of exceptionalism. I was noticing I cared more about international politics than I previously did, and I saw a lot of other Americans putting more skin in the game than in the past (Although the only way I know this is from the last days of the French Election, where a bunch of tone-deaf English/bad French memes were being pushed to save Le Pen). It is European focused but hey its a start I guess. More importantly though, is the lack of trust in institutions. When the article started talking about conspiracy theories and the deep state I had be do a double take for a second on whether she was still talking about Turkey.
bahjoite 9y ago
One recurring theme of US entertainment seems to be 'good people fighting bad people and doing "whatever it takes" to get the job done'.

evolve2k 9y ago

Summary of Americans responses here: "Oh no, this doesn't apply to me"