Representation

[tinyjo]

Listening to the news over the last few weeks and months I've been musing about how different America and Americans seem in the news than it does from meeting and talking to actual Americans. Not just a little bit more laid back, a little bit more accepting but hugely fundamentally different. From it's government, it's public face, America seems to me to be smug and self-satisfied. Insualar. Selfish. Puritianical. Greedy. And yet from meeting and talking to Americans, I know that that's not the only story. Still it's hard not to come away with an impression of the States as a schitzophrenic nation, torn between two very different personalities.

It certainly helps me to understand why many people in the world dislike America - I have had the opportunity to dilute the public face with the private through my access to the net and the fact that we speak a common language but not many do get that opportunity. I think that if I only saw the public face I too would heartily dislike and distrust America. It also makes me wonder what the public face of Britain is like these days. I find it hard to imagine that we come out well to an outsider watching.

When I think about it, I worry about my tendancy (and I'm sure it's not just me) to treat a whole society in this way. It seems to be somehow inbuilt, a short cut based on the fact that they do act together and it does seem that you can know what to expect from a government as a personality but it's dangerous because the temptation is to let it colour interactions with individuals, which unless they are members of the government is rather unreasonable. After all, I live in a representative democracy but I'd hate people to think that David Blunkett represented me. And yet, I do have to watch myself. The instinct, not helped by the language used in the media all the time is to say not "I dislike the American government" but "I dislike America". Luckily I have my friends list to remind me that you're not all like George Bush (or in fact, any of you - I obviously only ever meet one half of the split personality).

Comments

[eudaimonia-nz.livejournal.com]

I think the American people are badly served by propoganda devices used by their leaders. Faced with a criticism of American (usually foriegn) policy, the American establishment will reject the criticism as 'anti-americanism', and not answering the substance of the issue.

I have been thinking along similar lines to you in the last couple of days. I came to the conclusion that many Americans are genuinely embarassed about Bush. Unfortunately American elections have among the lowest turnout in the democratic world. So as long as Americans vote, the world will cheer when the Americans piss on the bushes!

[diffrentcolours]

I doubt that the Americans you meet online are a representative sample of the population, however, since Internet users tend to be more lefty and liberal than not. I'm sure if you went to Buttfuck, Alabama and took a look around you'd find something closer to the public face of America. At least, that's what my lefty liberal Internet-using friends from Buttfuck say ;)

Well, speakin' "for my Peeps"...

[applez.livejournal.com]

0. Firstly, I have a weird perspective, so take that into account with my opinions ... I accept I am in many ways American, but I still fundamentally do not understand this country or its people...in large part because I didn't grow up in the US.

Now to the substance...

1. US society is schizoid ... and I think this mental break between what is said and what is done derives from several sources...

1a. The Revolution of the colonies was to make every material aspect (the press, the government, the local ordinances, the laws, the courts) the 'cup' of all of society's political disagreements. It deliberately distorts a given debate and accelerates divisions to reach a swifter conclusion.

1b. From the very beginning, there has been a crucial division between the rhetoric of the Revolution and its new government, and the reality of how people lived. Whether that is found in such conveniently-ignored inconsistencies like slavery, or in the strong anti-federalist efforts such as the Whiskey Rebellion.

1c. There is a habit in the US to orchestrate or otherwise wait for a situation to develop that regardless of political philosophy, the realities of a large continental country with vested interests forces a sole-choice action. I think Kerry's involvement and erstwhile support for efforts in Iraq, plus the Bush Team's arguments that dismay over going into Iraq at this point are all moot - exemplify this.

1d. All these structures promote monolithic/bloc thinking - and whilst one could get away with such laziness as recently as 1990, it is completely obsolete and dangerous to rely on that in today's world, especially by a remainder superpower like the US. Side-stepping the conspiratorial possibilities of this point for now, but ... Americans generally are busy or are kept busy to such a degree that simplified information is what they mostly seek. The market complies in supplying precisely that. Again, I think this is dangerous for a country as powerful as the US is.

1e. I would therefore suggest that simple universal values and an earnest quest for complex applications has to be the mad dance accepted and worked with - this isn't the case. Especially with the Bush Team.

2. For all the rhetoric of the Revolutionary leader whose going to bust things up and make things better ... Americans are actually more conservative than that. Most are doing well enough that there is no desire for radicals. In this regard, Bush is riding a very dangerous line, and is betraying many core Republican principles.

3. re: Kerry - Given that he's been in government all these years, he certainly cannot play the part of 'rebel outsider' - so naturally he is going to offer rhetorical support for the war in Iraq and other policies. I would translate this into a positive, since he is a known Washington commodity who can play with all the other babies in the sandbox.

4. Classic rule for understanding American politics: don't go by what is said, go by what is done - and follow the money trail. Money really does dominate action, whilst fear dominates the rhetoric.

...what the public face of Britain is like these days...

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

In Lebanon a month ago, it turned out everyone had seen video of the enormous anti-war demos in the UK, and so there was no need to have any discussion about, well, how it wasn't *your* bright idea to go invading places. People were very understanding.

A year before that, in the US, the guy at the Alamo desk thanked us for Tony Blair. It was about 2am UK time by then, so we just grunted and grabbed the keys. He meant well, and he was pretty young - it seemed a bit mean to say, "well you can jolly well have him, then!". Tempting though!

I guess people see what they want to see. But it's hard to take against the US as an entity on the grounds of its foreign policy without reflecting on the fact that Mrs T, Section 28 et al was the public face of Britain for over a decade.

PS I hear you have an iRiver iHP. How did you find the user interface?