The reason why I’m rooting for Americans and against Russians in the bid for world domination is simply that American society is vastly superior. I know both, so I can judge. The way of life that Americans created is also vastly superior. So is their way of relating to themselves and each other.
Sadly, the truly superior never realize that about themselves. It’s only the barbarians that scream about their superiority. All Americans want to do these days is discuss the ways in which they are not perfect. What they are forgetting is that in the world of mass communications everybody is listening.
“You see?” Russians are exclaiming triumphantly. “They are not perfect. They said so themselves! Now we, on the other hand, represent real perfection.”
“Yes,” Americans say. “They really must be perfect. Why would they say so otherwise?”
When Columbus first came to the Americas, he had no idea what he was seeing. His frame of reference was quite limited, and after throwing around a few possibilities, he had his answer.
“This is paradise!” he exclaimed. “How come I didn’t know from the start? I have found heaven!”
But it wasn’t paradise. It still isn’t. And Americans will never stop beating themselves up for not living up to Columbus ‘ s fantasy. The need to wake up every day and try to create paradise is a great strength because it leads to incredible achievement and to the most comfortable lifestyle on this planet. It is also a great vulnerability because you are doomed to fail. Every day.
If everybody else needs simply to avoid creating hell to be successful, you put yourself at a disadvantage when you promise to come up with heaven.
America is a place where those who have been rejected by the rest of the world come together and take their revenge on the world by showing what the planet’s outcasts can do. It is no wonder their dream is so grand.
Clarissa's Blog 
If we can get people out of their metaphysical mindsets, so that the learn to evaluate models in a very cold, not at all emotional way, that will be very good. It ought to be possible for people to read a book from a perspective that is not their own, perhaps even one they think is fatally flawed, and still be able to gain some knowledge and some nourishment from it. By contrast, if everything is put under the microscope to determine its moral flaws, we will only learn to fine-tune our criticisms in a way that makes us focus more and more on imperfections.
The cure for such petty self-flagellation and flagellation of others is to move beyond relativist paradigms, which always feed our emotional needs to feel important, and to look at reality as an engineer would look at a blueprint for a machine. We could, for instance look at Russian society and evaluate that (let’s suggest a random figure for now), 30 percent of all mental effort is directed toward the struggle for survival. Then we could look at US society, which may involve a smaller percentage typically. Of course, as with all engineered projects, the blueprint itself may not turn out to be perfectly right. Indeed, my analogy itself breaks down at certain points, since reality is not set up to facilitate what we humans like to view as perfection — reality is what it is, not a measure of our human desire for pre-existing order.
in any case, a person having lived in two different cultures could possibly furnish us with a graphic to help us to gauge her sense of the differences between one culture and another. If that person were scientific-minded and thoughtful, that would probably turn out to give us a much deeper appreciation of the general distinctions between Russia and America.
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Your mileage may vary.
Steely Dan — “Any World (That I’m Welcome To)”:
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I also present the “Flyover State Version” for your consideration:
Charlie Daniels Band — “In America”:
🙂
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Most Americans, though, think this is the best place in the world. I think you read a lot of writing by people who have just discovered that US is not virtuous and are horrified, or by people like me who always angry at the latest iniquities and also well aware that what is pleasant here (like weekends) are not just cute customs but things people fought and died for. But talk to the average USian and they will say this is paradise or that it is the best of all possible worlds.
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Believing that you live in the best possible world is a sign of profound psychological health.
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Or extreme ignorance — not knowing any better. And it is also just something they have learned to say. They may feel their marriage, their town, their school, their family, etc., etc., are the worst ever but they have learned one must say America is the best.
I am like this as well — educated to believe US had certain characteristics and institutions and not others, was best at x, y and z. Some of those things were not factual but it took education to find that out and also willingness to see. If you have your entire self esteem bound up in the idea that your country is the best and nobody in it could do wrong, then it is hard to get objective.
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@musteryou “By contrast, if everything is put under the microscope to determine its moral flaws, we will only learn to fine-tune our criticisms in a way that makes us focus more and more on imperfections.”
True, and also true is that looking for moral flaws is really not the way to go. It is hard to criticize any part of US policy to an American because they will respond “But I am a good person, you cannot accuse me of this!” That kind of focus on ego and guilt is all very childish and is at the same time a way to evade the responsibility of thinking rationally. I can’t say at the moment what the psychic mechanisms are that go into this reaction but I think you and Clarissa have both discussed them.
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I’m not disputing anybody ‘s personal experience, but the American people I’m meeting are interested in nothing but criticizing the US. To the point where any other topic of conversation makes their eyes glaze over in boredom. My post “America” is not popular, as you can see. But I could bring thousands of readers here if I wrote one of those weepy posts on torture that everybody else is churning out.
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Yes, but I think you have a fairly narrow range of acquaintances and they fit a fairly narrow range of views. An actual leftist would not be in the hand wringing phase of discovering that US has had imperial designs for a long time and so on and so forth … and the majority of regular folks are all U.S.A! U.S.A! Seriously believe country is a force for moral good in everything it does, is exceptional, can do no wrong, etc. This is not to say they have great love for their fellow countrymen or anything like that, but they do believe in the perfection, superiority, value, etc., of an entity and place they call the U.S.
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…which is very different from saying something like: I prefer it over other places for certain reasons, or I am from here and home is where the heart is, or it is my country and I feel it is my responsibility to work on it and with it, or I am seriously interested in / attracted to certain aspects of the place, things I do not find elsewhere and do not want to live without, or any number of other rational things that could be said to explain preference for US.
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In my experience, the anger of even the most convinced ultra-conservatives when I criticize the US is nothing compared to the rage of even the most lukewarm progressives whenever I say something not entirely negative about it.
“Yes, but I think you have a fairly narrow range of acquaintances and they fit a fairly narrow range of views.”
🙂 🙂 And now let’s contrast this with my constantly reiterated respect for your personal experiences. 🙂
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I am then in the position of having disrespected your personal experience, yet not feeling that I have, and I don’t want to offer than nonapology, “I apologize if you were offended,” or say you do not have a right to consider this disrespect.
I do have the impression, from what you report, that you’re mostly talking to just a few types — largely liberals of the bleeding heart type, and other sentimental people. I also wonder whether people voice dislike of US to you as a way of being polite, as a way of compensating for the nativist talk they may fear you have to hear sometimes.
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“I am then in the position of having disrespected your personal experience, yet not feeling that I have, and I don’t want to offer than nonapology, “I apologize if you were offended,” or say you do not have a right to consider this disrespect.”
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P.S. although: many of those who say they love US do seem to hate it in fact. They are for fracking, drilling, destruction of national parks, and are hostile to their fellow citizens, etc. From that point of view I would say a majority does not only criticize, but actually hates the US. They also oppose the governmental structure, most provisions of the bill of rights, etc., many of the Enlightenment ideals the country was built on. So, yes: very many people in US are in fact anti US !!!
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More thoughts and this (and I don’t dislike the post itself) —
***right-wingers do tend to say disagreement with any imperialist action of the US government, or discovery of any corruption, and so on, is “hatred of the United States”
***it is not Columbus’ commercial fantasy, it is certain ideals about justice, a lot of them (though not all) from the long middle of the long 19th century
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