Amara:
> Mike:
> >The fact is that most of the resentment the rest of the world has for
> >Americans and our government is for those things we do not for our
> >self interest, but from our altruism, our best intentions.
>
> Sorry no, Mike. From my perspective, the two biggest things gets
> many non-U.S. peoples (and my) temperature rising is U.S.'s
>
> Hypocrisy
>
> Arrogance.
If both the occipital and parietal lobes of the brain are damaged
something called Anton's syndrome sometimes results: the victim is blind
but does not notice it. They stumble, miss things and give erroneous
reports of what they are seeing, but steadfastly refuse to believe that
they are blind.
This thread reminds me a bit of Anton's syndrome.
I have noticed how many Americans simply don't understand and can't
notice when their reality doesn't fit the reality of the rest of the
world. It is of course not a particular American thing, I have seen the
same among many groups of people, but when coupled with the power of
America this kind of Anton's syndrome becomes at once hillarious and
deeply frightening. The perceived hypocricy and arrogance of the US is
due to this - while from an american perspective many actions make
sense, they are widely perceived as hypocritical (such as supporting
many non-democratic governments) and arrogant (when getting involved in
far-flung geopolitics). When the americans then react with
incomprehension that their nice intentions are so horribly
misinterpreted, this in turn is interpreted as even more arrogance -
they don't even care to understand the views of others!
I think we are seeing a big collision of cultures here. And it fuels
behavior that leads to even bigger collisions.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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