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Post by tingramretro on Jun 7, 2016 6:32:43 GMT -5
It's rather sweet that you would believe that.  |
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Post by foxley on Jun 7, 2016 6:34:58 GMT -5
Hollywood seems to think the US was the only country fighting on the allied side. Possibly the nadir of this was U-571, which took a heroic achievement of the British navy, and recast as an American achievement. Undoubtedly they already planning a remake of Sink the Bismark! in which the US Navy sinks the Bismark months before the US joins the war.
But this is a digression that probably belongs in another thread.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jun 7, 2016 6:36:41 GMT -5
It's rather sweet that you would believe that. I know you're laughing at me, but I can't tell what for... |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 7, 2016 6:36:45 GMT -5
Oh, we also firmly believed that we won the war (and, as a nation, had and still tend to have a deeply ingrained resentment of Americans suggesting they won it, when they clearly arrived two years late to the party after we'd done all the preparation; the attitude of many Brits to Americans during the war was summed up in the famous phrase "overpaid, oversexed and over here", and my five great-uncles never let that go, even thirty years later). The average Brit after WWII also had, I believe, no sense of having "lost stature"; as a kid, I was raised with an unshakeable sense that Britain was still the greatest place on Earth, we just didn't need to shout about it. Overt nationalism is definitely not the British way. Or at least, it hasn't been for a very long time, though it's on the rise at the moment as the EU referendum looms ever closer. Interesting. Listening to Eddie Izzard, I'd always assumed British nationalism plummeted after WWII ("the Ex Exmpire" as he called it. I don't personally think America won the war on its own or any moreso than The UK did; my point is that we were able to come out untarnished and stronger for it. Therefore it gave us unequivocal pride and a Superman-like feeling of invincible rightness. Actually, as far as the war in Europe goes, I think if you look past everyone's national pride, it was pretty much the Russians who won it, with a great deal of help from the weather. I like Eddie Izzard a lot, BTW, but I don't think he's really representative of the views of most of our countrymen. |
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Post by shaxper on Jun 7, 2016 6:42:05 GMT -5
At the risk of an unwarranted generalisation, I think this is an important cultural difference. Americans seem to be able embrace unironic jingoism, and cheer at the idea of being American as if it is some kind of accomplishment in itself. And have this odd belief that everyone in the world wants to be American. As an Australian, I really don't want to live in a country with America's attitudes towards health care, gun control, etc. I am always puzzled by American talk show where a guest will mention the name of a city/town and the audience breaks out into wild cheers. What are they cheering? The fact that their hometown exists? That a famous person has mentioned it? I'm sure if someone said "I breathed oxygen today. Anyone here breathe oxygen?", there would be wild whoops from the audience. (My apologies to the many Americans reading this to whom these comments undoubtedly do not apply. My intention was not to stereotype an entire nation, but to comment on a perception of how 'being American' can be viewed overseas.) That's pretty much the perception in the UK, too. It all seems very OTT if you're from pretty much anywhere else on the planet. Americans seem to self identify with their country far more than citizens of many, if not most, European nations. Why, I don't know. But yes, the apparent belief that everyone else must actually want to be American can be irritating. I live in a coastal village near two international ports, which gets an inexplicable number of foreign tourists, and I remember about twelve years back an American guy visting the local pub bitterly complaining about the fact that nowhere he'd been in Britain accepted US dollars, something he'd clearly believed every country in the world did. I suspect that he hadn't travelled abroad a lot, and had watched a lot of sixties Hollywood spy movies. I think the one thing America had a right to pride itself on (though it has been corrupted into this idea that ours is the only nation that is "free") is that we did Democracy first. The French Revolution tried it first, but that became a nightmare. The freedom most other countries enjoy today happened, at least in part, because of our example. Yes, Britain had the Magna Carta, but you also still have a royal family eating up resources and political influence for no good reason. I do believe America is less free than many other nations of the world today, but I also think those nations owe their freedom, in part, to the example of the first ever fully functional fully representative government, regardless of what it's become since. |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 7, 2016 6:45:17 GMT -5
It's rather sweet that you would believe that. I know you're laughing at me, but I can't tell what for... It doesn't matter where you go in the world, the one complaint you will always find coming from the people is that the government never listens. That's becoming even more evident in the UK right now, as the EU referendum debate has polarised opinions but the one thing a lot of people on both sides of the argument seem to agree on is that the results of the vote will not have any effect on our staying in, as the government will simply find a way around the situation if we vote to leave. |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 7, 2016 6:48:25 GMT -5
That's pretty much the perception in the UK, too. It all seems very OTT if you're from pretty much anywhere else on the planet. Americans seem to self identify with their country far more than citizens of many, if not most, European nations. Why, I don't know. But yes, the apparent belief that everyone else must actually want to be American can be irritating. I live in a coastal village near two international ports, which gets an inexplicable number of foreign tourists, and I remember about twelve years back an American guy visting the local pub bitterly complaining about the fact that nowhere he'd been in Britain accepted US dollars, something he'd clearly believed every country in the world did. I suspect that he hadn't travelled abroad a lot, and had watched a lot of sixties Hollywood spy movies. I think the one thing America had a right to pride itself on (though it has been corrupted into this idea that ours is the only nation that is "free") is that we did Democracy first. The French Revolution tried it first, but that became a nightmare. The freedom most other countries enjoy today happened, at least in part, because of our example. Yes, Britain had the Magna Carta, but you also still have a royal family eating up resources and political influence for no good reason. I do believe America is less free than many other nations of the world today, but I also think those nations owe their freedom, in part, to the example of the first ever fully functional fully representative government, regardless of what it's become since. I think the historical evidence points to the world's first true Democracy being in ancient Greece, in fact. |
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Post by foxley on Jun 7, 2016 6:53:13 GMT -5
Many countries have made a contribution to democracy. New Zealand was the first country to give the vote to women, and Australia was the first country to introduce the secret ballot (and to pay members of parliament a salary, which meant that you did not have to independently wealthy to sit in parliament).
But I'm guessing these contributions are not widely known in US. (Although, to be fair, I'm not sure how widely they are know outside of Oz and NZ. I know the women's suffrage issue used to be well-known in the UK, as the British suffragettes pointed to the examples of New Zealand and Australia as part of their campaign.)
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jun 7, 2016 7:53:25 GMT -5
I think the one thing America had a right to pride itself on (though it has been corrupted into this idea that ours is the only nation that is "free") is that we did Democracy first. The French Revolution tried it first, but that became a nightmare. The freedom most other countries enjoy today happened, at least in part, because of our example. Yes, Britain had the Magna Carta, but you also still have a royal family eating up resources and political influence for no good reason. I do believe America is less free than many other nations of the world today, but I also think those nations owe their freedom, in part, to the example of the first ever fully functional fully representative government, regardless of what it's become since. I think the historical evidence points to the world's first true Democracy being in ancient Greece, in fact. Point taken. First modern world example of a functional system of representative government (which, to be fair, wasn't actually a Democracy), setting an example, that other nations then followed. Going further, while the US has blundered many many times since then, it was also the first world power I'm aware of to take an interest in promoting peace across the globe without attempting to expand its own empire in the process. To be fair, we created a tremendous amount of problems in the process, and one could argue we created more war than we prevented, but the example, itself, was also a noble idea. Some have argued that we tried to expand our power surreptitiously through puppet governments, but we apparently gave them enough leeway for virtually all of them to eventually turn on us. So again, the implementation was terrible, but the ideal of being a world power that didn't just expand itself and colonize everything within its grasp was a noble and important example. And, while the atom bomb was, in some respects, a terrible tragedy, our use of it also deterred war among Western nations since the time of World War II. The United Nations also came about largely because of US leadership. And yeah, that's another severely flawed implementation, but the idea was right. If I were to write an epitaph for the US, it would read as follows: "It set some truly admirable, world-changing ideals; it just sucked at living up to them." |
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Post by shaxper on Jun 7, 2016 8:03:35 GMT -5
So, to get back to the original question, maybe "The American Way" is trying your best to do the right thing. I don't think that's what the writers necessarily meant or what the audience necessarily heard, but I guess that's the good that I see in America's legacy.
Which is not to say that there aren't many times when America explicitly tried to do things that weren't the right thing, of course.
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 7, 2016 8:09:07 GMT -5
So, to get back to the original question, maybe "The American Way" is trying your best to do the right thing. I don't think that's what the writers necessarily meant or what the audience necessarily heard, but I guess that's the good that I see in America's legacy. Which is not to say that there aren't many times when America explicitly tried to do things that weren't the right thing, of course. that other countries don't do their best to do the right thing. |
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Post by shaxper on Jun 7, 2016 8:12:30 GMT -5
Many countries have made a contribution to democracy. New Zealand was the first country to give the vote to women, and Australia was the first country to introduce the secret ballot (and to pay members of parliament a salary, which meant that you did not have to independently wealthy to sit in parliament). But I'm guessing these contributions are not widely known in US. (Although, to be fair, I'm not sure how widely they are know outside of Oz and NZ. I know the women's suffrage issue used to be well-known in the UK, as the British suffragettes pointed to the examples of New Zealand and Australia as part of their campaign.) I actually was aware of this. My point about America, though, is that it actively tried to transform the world around it by setting high ideals for itself and the nations around it -- representative government, deterring war, promoting peace and mutual cooperation. It screwed up epically in many instances, but at least it tried to make the world better through its example. Australia may have gotten it right in many respects, but it never tried to be a global leader and to convey its example to others. It's easy for citizens of other nations to sit back and armchair referee global politics. You can call the US out on a million things and be right about each of them, but at least the US actively tried -- committed serious resources and attention to trying to make a better world. No one has ever succeeded at that, and the US was the first to make serious efforts to try. I think it deserves respect for that, even if it largely failed, and even if, many times, individual politicians put their own self interests and ignorant biases ahead of the greater good in the process. Can any nation truly say it would have done a better job? And can any nation truly say that the US shouldn't have tried? Can any other nation, suddenly finding itself to be a world power among a community of war-battered nations, be so sure that their country would have acted with as much selflessness in trying to make the world around it a safer place for all? I'm not saying the US is better. I'm saying the US was placed in a unique situation that no other nation was in, and tried things no other nation tried. Thus, any judgment or comparison is innately unfair. |
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Post by shaxper on Jun 7, 2016 8:12:53 GMT -5
So, to get back to the original question, maybe "The American Way" is trying your best to do the right thing. I don't think that's what the writers necessarily meant or what the audience necessarily heard, but I guess that's the good that I see in America's legacy. Which is not to say that there aren't many times when America explicitly tried to do things that weren't the right thing, of course. that other countries don't do their best to do the right thing. See my comment below yours. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 7, 2016 8:22:55 GMT -5
Back in 1978 I was 17 years old and "Truth, Justice, & the American Way" meant you try you best and you have an opportunity to succeed if you work hard and never give up. The American Dream is built around that saying. It has gotten over politicized since then but I still think you have opportunity, although I acknowledge that the US is far from perfect. But that imperfection has less to do with borders and more with mans sin nature.
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 7, 2016 8:37:34 GMT -5
Many countries have made a contribution to democracy. New Zealand was the first country to give the vote to women, and Australia was the first country to introduce the secret ballot (and to pay members of parliament a salary, which meant that you did not have to independently wealthy to sit in parliament). But I'm guessing these contributions are not widely known in US. (Although, to be fair, I'm not sure how widely they are know outside of Oz and NZ. I know the women's suffrage issue used to be well-known in the UK, as the British suffragettes pointed to the examples of New Zealand and Australia as part of their campaign.) I actually was aware of this. My point about America, though, is that it actively tried to transform the world around it by setting high ideals for itself and the nations around it -- representative government, deterring war, promoting peace and mutual cooperation. It screwed up epically in many instances, but at least it tried to make the world better through its example. Australia may have gotten it right in many respects, but it never tried to be a global leader and to convey its example to others. It's easy for citizens of other nations to sit back and armchair referee global politics. You can call the US out on a million things and be right about each of them, but at least the US actively tried -- committed serious resources and attention to trying to make a better world. No one has ever succeeded at that, and the US was the first to make serious efforts to try. I think it deserves respect for that, even if it largely failed, and even if, many times, individual politicians put their own self interests and ignorant biases ahead of the greater good in the process. Can any nation truly say it would have done a better job? And can any nation truly say that the US shouldn't have tried? Can any other nation, suddenly finding itself to be a world power among a community of war-battered nations, be so sure that their country would have acted with as much selflessness in trying to make the world around it a safer place for all? I'm not saying the US is better. I'm saying the US was placed in a unique situation that no other nation was in, and tried things no other nation tried. Thus, any judgment or comparison is innately unfair. The thing is, while you may not believe it, I think that yes, a lot of people in other countries can and do say that America frequently shouldn't have tried, because what you see as America trying to make a better world, many others see as America rather arrogantly interfering in the affairs of other nations which don't concern them without anybody actually having asked them to. Sorry, but that is basically how a lot of people in other nations see it, and they're quite vocal about it. They don't want or need America or anyone else trying to be a "global leader"; they'd rather pick their own leaders. People do not generally appreciate other countries meddling in their nation's affairs, however well meaning they are. It always leads to resentment, and frequently to violence. The best way any country can try to set an example to others is to solve all its own problems first and let the rest of the world see that it's done it. Sadly, nobody seems ever to have succeeded in doing this. |
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