Being in bed with an elephant

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 23 2001 - 22:37:38 MDT


Some Americans on this list wonder why there does seem to be
rather strong anti-American sentiment expressed here from time
to time. Examples aren't really hard to find, and even among
the most rational posters, sometimes their resentment toward
America leaks out.

Americans should probably try to do a little bit better modeling
of what's probably going on in our overseas friends' minds. It
seems perfectly understandable to me that if your newspapers,
television, and radio were constantly bombarding you with a lot
of nonsense traceable to one particular locale on Earth, you
couldn't help but get kind of annoyed at that place. I think
that it was Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada who once said that
trying to properly anticipate shifts in the Canadian economy was,
thanks to their gigantic neighbor, a bit like being in bed with
an elephant. Well, the same thing is true of culture, or in the
case of Western civilization, lack of culture.

But on the other hand, non-U.S. posters to this list might try
being a little more sympathetic to Americans. Sure, if you do
give voice to some annoyances or resentments, you can naturally
inspire an almost automatic defense mechanism. Isn't that to
be expected?? But try to imagine actually having to *live*
(at least conceptually) in the same country as Madonna, Mr. T.,
Pat Robertson, tobacco farmers, Bill Clinton, Baywatch and McBeal
TV, Microsoft, and so on, and not have a lovely huge ocean
separating you from all that! That would be no picnic either!
Surely any foreign person of refinement and taste will, if
he or she stops to think about it, be rather grateful that
most of these noxious influences can be thought of as *over
there* rather than *right here*. Try to understand that for
those of us living here---and being completely unable to do
anything at all about some of these baleful phenomena---
having also a comfortable standard of living is only just
compensation.

Lee



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