Saturday, May 24, 2008

U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

I keep finding myself in situations where I’m defending America or U.S. foreign policy. It’s strange. For example, the other day Jenny and I were having a coffee in the break room (have I mentioned how much I love that coffee maker? because I really love it) and the discussion turned to supporting American troops. I think Jenny and I took the position of “while we don’t support the policies of the current administration, we recognize the sacrifice that the men and women in uniform have made, we think that it’s noble, and deserves our support.” I thought this statement was innocuous, but the Germans at the table started it me incredulously. “I thought only Republicans felt that way” said one. Now first, that’s a pretty low blow. I dislike being told that I think like a Republican, but I kept my feelings inside. “But, like, they could die. I mean, they do die!” I said. “Because they’re trying to keep America safe for Democracy.” I realize that I lapse into a lot of clichés during these conversations. “Don’t Germans recognize that serving in the army requires a pretty serious sacrifice?” Apparently not. German men are required to do a couple of years of either military or civil service, and the people at the table couldn’t understand why anyone would choose the military.

Of course, as I suspected and as the Germans confirmed, the difference in opinion is related to each country’s history. Perhaps you’ve heard of World War II. Americans were the heroes – Germans were the bad guys. We are taught to feel proud of our military. They’re taught to feel ashamed. This sort of came up again last night at the bar where I was celebrating my birthday. I was discussing stereotypes of Germans and Americans. It’s a fun conversation as long as the discussion is superficial. “Americans are loud, Germans are efficient” – that sort of thing. Instead the conversation went something like “Americans are overly patriotic and want to bring democracy to the world without really understanding other cultures.” I don’t really disagree with that statement (but I was tempted to chant U.S.A., U.S. A. over and over again, and maybe sing that Toby Keith song anyway).

And then the conversation veered to the American invasion of Afghanistan. This is actually something I don’t have an official position on. On the one hand, the Taliban was a brutal and oppressive regime that was clearly in cahoots with Al Qaeda – who attacked the U.S. on September 11, killing thousands of innocent people. On the other hand, war is bad and the killing of innocent people doesn’t really justify the killing of other innocent people. I was speaking to someone whose position was more or less that Americans were freaked out because we’ve realized that we’re vulnerable, and so overreacted – in part because we don’t have the long-term perspective of Europeans. Since then I've been trying to figure out what I find so irritating (sorry, Jan) about his position.

Partly, I think it's because I think think he dismisses the suffering of the victims of Sept. 11 too easily (he pointed out that really, not that many people died. Not nearly as many as in the recent earthquake in China). Partly I'm tired of having people roughly my age explain to me how limited my world view is (I get it! Clearly your 20 something years on the planet have been better spent than mine). Partly, of course, it's that Jan's argument is too close to home.

I explained to someone the other day that the Americans feel inadequate when compared to Europe. You know, since they've got all the culture and the history and stuff. And so we walk around with big guns, making ourselves feel important. But clearly Europeans have equally complicated feelings about the U.S. They find us arrogant and impulsive, but everywhere I go I hear American music, and I can watch "South Park" dubbed in German on MTV.

Anyway, I woke up this morning still thinking about how Germans (and other Europeans) perceive America’s place in the world. I realize that I don't have anything particularly insightful to say about the nature of trans-Atlantic relations, but since most of my posts contain very little substance (I mean, I took pictures of myself wearing elf ears and filled an entire post with complaints about the bathroom) I’m going to go ahead and post it. Because it seems like someone could do a better job of speaking for our country than me, feel free to tell me what you think about stuff. I'll be walking around Jena wearing a Hawaiian shirt, asking people if they speak English slowly and loudly, and complaining about the scarcity of elevators and air conditioning.

5 comments:

anaeromyxo said...

I just yesterday replaced my war/earthquake bumper sticker with one which reads, "The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men. -Plato." I'm not sure what this implies about my behavior but voting and ranting are my personal choices for living out this particular assertion.

I'm asking Kevin to help us out here, because he has very well-developed political opinions. I don't always agree with him but he tends to have all sorts of (made up?) dates and data and numbers to back himself up and sound convincing. I'll be back shortly with his response. I'm almost always against war, as you know, but it's because I try to be a pacifist, not because I didn't think that, in war lore something needed to be done in response to our having been attacked.

I'll tell you, firstly, that I'm not super proud to be an American when I'm surrounded by Americans but I find that, when I meet people from other countries, I don't usually find that they have some sort of legitimate position of superiority. I find that those who claim this position are not, as they seem to think, profoundly better informed than I am, so much as just sort of judgmental and condescending in the same way as nationalistic Americans.

Honestly, who lives in a country that hasn't been an oppressive and arrogant pile of crap from time to time? Maybe if I point out that I'm 1/16th Cherokee because of my orphaned grandfather, I can start talking loudly about the big stinking piles of arrogance the Europeans were towards my people such that I'm bastardized and my culture is diluted to the point of oblivion and how my ancestors were victims of genocide. Damned empirialism (imperialism?). Ahhh, shifting the blame really takes a load off. Actually, this may be the best argument for pacifism. If we lose our position as a world super-power, we can start throwing stones at whomever replaces us. India, now there's an arrogant and impulsive country, right? They're always keepin' me down.
Very oppressive and uncultured group with loud and obnoxious tourists (tongue in cheek). Who's with me? Amisha?

anaeromyxo said...

One more thing: Canada and Switzerland seem to be countries with legitimate claims to moral superiority but maybe I'm wrong...also, I think there's a blog about how I should be expected to think that...

Reforming Soccer Mom said...

Well, as far as Switzerland and Canada go, who is protecting them? Someone is. Switzerland also, I should recall, has a lot of mountains and is holding all the money for the rest of the world. And, a lot of it was Nazi money. Canada, well, they are part of the Commonwealth. And who is their biggest trading partner? Yeah, US.
So, as far as the US and hypocrisy goes, yep, pretty hypocritical. I guess I think of the US as doing somethings really well (say, the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, civilian control of the military, economic growth, and freedom of the press) and others really badly (American Indians, slavery, health care, and urban renewal). We have a lot of freedom to fail here. And, that results in stuff like Iraq as well as stuff like going to the moon and vaccines and cell phones (we might not have invented cell phones). Another thing you might want to throw out in your bar debates is the Turner Thesis, which is the argument that the when the frontier in America officially closed (1900 or something) we (as the American people) had to find new frontiers, naval fleets on the ocean, space, imperialism (which we got caught up in during the late 19th century just like everyone else--see post Colonial Africa). I should think about this some more but these are my first few thoughts.

Anonymous said...

As a Canadian, I can say that Canadians (former Europeans) treated the native people they found in their new land just as badly as Americans (former Europeans) did. Oh, but in fact I'm not really Canadian, my parents are Czech & Swedish. Now, the Swedish, they might have a legitimate claim to superiority. And no one needs to protect them because for the most part they don't offend anyone, except with Abba (which I'm very proud to claim as part of my heritage).

Reforming Soccer Mom said...

that swedish comment julia made explains A LOT about my spouse and family...they are really in to swedishness...and, well, self-confident.