America is indeed an empire. Apparently the author was oblivious to this, and her epiphany that empire creates a reality distortion field for all those within it is really not that much of a revelation, except to her. Perpetuating unthinking patriotism is fundamental to empiric survival. Only as long as the populace believes in their inherent superiority (AKA exceptionalism) do their eyes remain blissfully closed to the consequences of their righteousness on others.
The rest of the article (book?) is about the author's slow growing awareness that non-Americans are warped by these distortions of reality too, in ways that are just as self-delusional and self-destructive. Yes, power does corrupt. Absolutely.
Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age 30?
Has this become typical? Even an Ivy League American student can be so insulated that they're not aware that people elsewhere in the world see the world so differently? That their disenfranchisement from power, both locally and globally leaves them bitter and mistrustful of all forms of authority? Who doesn't know this? Jeez. We just elected TRUMP, dammit. Who isn't aware that even the average American feels disempowered by the routine abuse of authority by self-perpetuating elites?
Likewise, I was equally taken aback at the general public's response to "Hillbilly Elegy" as epiphany. Back in the 1970's I lived on the edge of Appalachia, which left me well aware of the subsistence lifestyle in rural America that the book revealed as something new (to most?). Are such wide dynamic ranges of experience in and outside the USA really so invisible to most of us?
If so, that's freaking inexcusable. We live in an era where the ubiquity of the Net can make you aware of virtually every aspect of human experience on Earth in less than a heartbeat. Just open your eyes.
> Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age 30?
Ironically it sounds like you yourself are living in a bit of a bubble. I can assure you that many Americans over the age of 30 share what you describe as a self-centered view of the world.
Articles like this may seem obvious and redundant to you, me and other people that actively reach into the web for information. But there is a large...LARGE community of people that do not actively go looking for new information. They are fine or even scared to see what is beyond there bubble. So just like raising children. Constant reinforcement needs to happen to make things stick and let this information sink in. Eventually the light bulb flickers on for everyone.
I've learned never to be surprised at what people haven't learned yet. Especially if it's not explicitly taught. After all, everyone starts out not knowing anything, and even with good students, there are always gaps.
Calling this "inexcusable" seems ungenerous. It's inevitable.
>Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age 30?
Meanwhile if you go to rural red state America, the 90% of the country that doesn't live in cities where people can remain proud of the ignorance while also not even being aware of it, will tell you, upon being informed the mixed world opinion of America? You will get variably surprise, denial, and anger. And that's for people over 30. They have no idea what the world thinks, some will deny it and others will scoff why they should care what someone else thinks, they're all stupid socialist countries anyway (and therefore their opinions don't matter, sort of logic).
I think you're in deep denial yourself about how deeply ignorant most Americans are by presuming only the young are this ignorant. I'm willing to bet the millennial generation is more well traveled than baby boom generation (I'm X) and most of the ignorant cluelessness about the rest of the world comes from the most clueless waste of space generation in America which is the baby boomers.
If anything, the internet has made us more insular, as every moment in every place can be substituted with the familiar dopamine drip from our friendly information dealers.
In other words, we used to see the Grand Canyon. Now we see it on a screen through a camera, and we spend the rest of our time at the Grand Canyon by posting about it on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit etc.
I think you're being a little harsher than necessary toward the general public's failings in this regard, but yeah, the author does not appear to be contributing anything substantially different from what we learned from the unrest that the U.S. faced during the Vietnam war era.
The piece is stating the obvious, and the reactions in this thread -- predictably -- prove the author's point. Expatriation, even temporary, has so many benefits. I'd be curious to correlate the postures of HN commentators with their provenance and life experience.
A lot of the immigrants I know are very pro-America. Unsurprising when you consider that, unlike most America-detractors, we have first-hand experience with how miserable other parts of the world can be.
The piece is also full of guilt for American foreign policy that's mainly decided by special interests, but then gets blamed on ordinary Americans.
Aren't they lucky - first they get their democracy subverted by multinational corporations, then they get to feel guilty about what those same corporations do.
Exceptionalism always carries with it the danger of supremacism and once that gets you as individual, group or country there is a constant desire to find the 'logic and evidence' to support the position post-facto.
Identity becomes deeply entwined with protecting the purity of the 'exceptional group' with an unhealthy reductive interest in judging others and clearly demarcating the 'unexceptional'. This is a very negative space.
The problem with sweeping articles like this is it requires intense engagement with history, reason and reflection to escape the generalization and find a truth you can be comfortable with.
No one can define you, you can always choose what you want to be. On a wider level people have always been led and as long as exceptionalism remains a low key 'motivator' it works but its a dangerous game as the lines can blur pretty quickly.
It very much glosses over Turkey's own history of (Greek, Armenian) genocide and the very real differences in religious and other liberties between Turkey and the U.S.
My take on the topics raised - US innocence, hostility towards the US, patriotism, nationalism... my take is that these are changes in prevailing opinions and notions. The cumulative of subjective opinions. I'm not American, btw.
There are a few big reasons for what the author is observing and commenting on, that get too little attention IMO.
One is the end of the cold war, and the wars preceding it. The cold war was cold, but the psychology was regular war psychology. Fear, demonisation, rallying around your side... Relative evaluation of conduct and goals, rather than idealistic evaluation.
In the corld-war-world, the US represented democracy, personal liberty and its associated human rights, and (very importantly) culturally icons. US and western police forces behaved well relative to Soviet police forces. US Movies & Music were better. Press was more honest. The comparison was not made relative to an idealised concept of democracy or human rights (or music). It was made relative to the Soviet Union associated states. It was also mostly made in Eastern Europe, where the divide was arbitrary, non-national and highly visible.
That dichotomy world is gone. These days, I think people evaluate these things in a more abstract way, relative to abstract idealizations.
A second effect is US politics' global viewership. This is a product of globalized media, the dramatic merits of US political theater, the genuine impacts of big US decisions and other reasons.
This is huge. I live in Ireland. The majority of people are more knowledgeable, vested and opinionated about US politics than local politics. They have a strong opinion on US health policies, but not Irish ones. This is a recipe for insanity. US politicians are pandering to US opinions, not Danish or Georgian or Irish opinions. Of course they feel unrepresented. When one side loses a heated election, large numbers always feel alienated and angry at the country. It passes, a normal part of democracy. Many Danes (and everyone) were involved enough emotionally to get the same feeling but being non-americans aren't as affected by the normalizing effects that bring everything together in the end.
When Europeans express a frustrated criticism of US politics, they are doing it as insiders. They are criticising it the same way they would criticize a local party coming to power, one which they don't like. Imagine how angry Americans would get at the Danish or Mexican parliament if they were following it like this.
A third issue is the "someone must be driving" fallacy. In this sense being angry at the US is like the constant anger at one's own government. There is so much wrong with everything and it has to be someone's fault.
The US has been having a bad run in foreign policy. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, even N. Korea, ... The US is (rightly or wrongly) held responsible as the guy in charge. Politics rarely rewards successes. The failures are just more visible.
Who do you get angry at for the Syrian civil war? Who's to blame? The UN?
Thank you for this comment. I'm an American but have lived abroad for most of the last 13 years in various countries and articles like this drive me nuts. Yes, the US has made a lot of terrible mistakes in our foreign policy, but we have also paid for and ensured (basically unilaterally) the security of free trade (securing shipping routes, underwriting NATO, projecting force against anyone that tried to disrupt international trade). We did this readily during the Cold War because markets were our strongest weapon against the Soviet Union. Now that there is no equal existential threat, we no longer have much motivation for ensuring global security.
When I read shallow reflections like this article, I think, here's a person that judges the wartime decisions of the past in the peace of the present, and submits to the vapid criticism every government levels against the world's boogieman.
For all their patriotism, Americans rarely think about how their national identities relate to their personal ones. This indifference is particular to the psychology of white Americans and has a history unique to the US.
This is the thesis of the piece. The rest is an extended critique of Americans.
I have difficultly buying into the thesis, so the rest of it reads like a very long-winded opinion piece with the standard throwaway charges about how the U.S. is horribly bad.
This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up. It's nice to see it done in such a talented way. Just not my thing.
Quite a few years ago, I saw a trailer for a movie about the 1950s quiz-show scandal. It included a clip of the producer, Robert Redford, saying something about "the end of American innocence." At that point, I started wondering about the man's smarts.
One thing I find very interesting is how entertainment media, probably as a result of needing to pander to whatever the mainstream sensibility of the moment is, really works as a barometer for how people in America see themselves.
Back when America could do no wrong, America was Rocky, or one of those glistening 80s heros. Maybe a bit flawed, but generally a family man vs. evildoers, a plucky little upstart.
Then America was Bruce Willis in Die Hard, rough around the edges and divorced but still a good guy, trying to do the right thing. Then America was Keifer Sutherland in 24... somebody's gotta do the torturing! For a good cause, though.
The more and more dirt comes out, the more public sensibilities turn to stuff like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and House of Cards, reassuring watchers that nobody's good, that if you try to do the right thing the world will crush you, that all that matters is being top-dog. Sucks, but "that's the way the world really is".
It's super interesting. You'd think the character development in those shows is indicting, but it really is mostly immunizing and pride-preserving.
I'd like to throw in that I wonder if this article is a bit late, and in a way Americans are already coming out of exceptionalism.
I was noticing I cared more about international politics than I previously did, and I saw a lot of other Americans putting more skin in the game than in the past (Although the only way I know this is from the last days of the French Election, where a bunch of tone-deaf English/bad French memes were being pushed to save Le Pen). It is European focused but hey its a start I guess.
More importantly though, is the lack of trust in institutions. When the article started talking about conspiracy theories and the deep state I had be do a double take for a second on whether she was still talking about Turkey.
I'm surprised at how easily another "original sin" doctrine has taken root. I suppose if it works, it works. Still, I'd have expected people to build up some kind of immunity.
The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West - quite ironic given that we live in one the most free, prosperous societies ever created in human history. They are driven almost entirely by resentment, and lack even a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.
"The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West"
Do you mean that "the modern left", that homogeneous and well defined group, discourse is full of unjustified generalizations, where generic labels are apply without qualification?
Without wanting to particularly single you out, it does worry me that people anywhere on the political spectrum so massively misunderstand other positions, whether through wilful ignorance or otherwise.
>and lack even a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.
Because they consider it immorally gotten? Why do you assume that people with completely different value judgements to you ought to think as you do about history and society?
> lack a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.
That's 'privilege', and is something to feel guilty about. It's not something to be grateful to your ancestors for providing, but something you get unfairly by 'accident of birth'. Only when it comes to guilt is your connection to your ancestors and ethnicity more than an accident.
[+] [-] randcraw|8 years ago|reply
The rest of the article (book?) is about the author's slow growing awareness that non-Americans are warped by these distortions of reality too, in ways that are just as self-delusional and self-destructive. Yes, power does corrupt. Absolutely.
Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age 30?
Has this become typical? Even an Ivy League American student can be so insulated that they're not aware that people elsewhere in the world see the world so differently? That their disenfranchisement from power, both locally and globally leaves them bitter and mistrustful of all forms of authority? Who doesn't know this? Jeez. We just elected TRUMP, dammit. Who isn't aware that even the average American feels disempowered by the routine abuse of authority by self-perpetuating elites?
Likewise, I was equally taken aback at the general public's response to "Hillbilly Elegy" as epiphany. Back in the 1970's I lived on the edge of Appalachia, which left me well aware of the subsistence lifestyle in rural America that the book revealed as something new (to most?). Are such wide dynamic ranges of experience in and outside the USA really so invisible to most of us?
If so, that's freaking inexcusable. We live in an era where the ubiquity of the Net can make you aware of virtually every aspect of human experience on Earth in less than a heartbeat. Just open your eyes.
[+] [-] doktrin|8 years ago|reply
Ironically it sounds like you yourself are living in a bit of a bubble. I can assure you that many Americans over the age of 30 share what you describe as a self-centered view of the world.
[+] [-] DonnyV|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skybrian|8 years ago|reply
Calling this "inexcusable" seems ungenerous. It's inevitable.
[+] [-] cmurf|8 years ago|reply
Meanwhile if you go to rural red state America, the 90% of the country that doesn't live in cities where people can remain proud of the ignorance while also not even being aware of it, will tell you, upon being informed the mixed world opinion of America? You will get variably surprise, denial, and anger. And that's for people over 30. They have no idea what the world thinks, some will deny it and others will scoff why they should care what someone else thinks, they're all stupid socialist countries anyway (and therefore their opinions don't matter, sort of logic).
I think you're in deep denial yourself about how deeply ignorant most Americans are by presuming only the young are this ignorant. I'm willing to bet the millennial generation is more well traveled than baby boom generation (I'm X) and most of the ignorant cluelessness about the rest of the world comes from the most clueless waste of space generation in America which is the baby boomers.
[+] [-] rm_-rf_slash|8 years ago|reply
In other words, we used to see the Grand Canyon. Now we see it on a screen through a camera, and we spend the rest of our time at the Grand Canyon by posting about it on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit etc.
[+] [-] psyc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] autokad|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lr4444lr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ionised|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gobugat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DarkKomunalec|8 years ago|reply
Aren't they lucky - first they get their democracy subverted by multinational corporations, then they get to feel guilty about what those same corporations do.
Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
[+] [-] throw2016|8 years ago|reply
Identity becomes deeply entwined with protecting the purity of the 'exceptional group' with an unhealthy reductive interest in judging others and clearly demarcating the 'unexceptional'. This is a very negative space.
The problem with sweeping articles like this is it requires intense engagement with history, reason and reflection to escape the generalization and find a truth you can be comfortable with.
No one can define you, you can always choose what you want to be. On a wider level people have always been led and as long as exceptionalism remains a low key 'motivator' it works but its a dangerous game as the lines can blur pretty quickly.
[+] [-] losteverything|8 years ago|reply
The old saying is "everybody has one novel in them." updated verson: everyone has a blog post in them.
Her words are ok. Not inspiring whatsoever. Not dramatic. Not new.
I take it for what it is. Let her get better at her job.
[+] [-] reptation|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkazanov|8 years ago|reply
She notices similarities between Turkish nationalism and American patriotic world view, and that includes being a very aggressive state.
[+] [-] dalbasal|8 years ago|reply
There are a few big reasons for what the author is observing and commenting on, that get too little attention IMO.
One is the end of the cold war, and the wars preceding it. The cold war was cold, but the psychology was regular war psychology. Fear, demonisation, rallying around your side... Relative evaluation of conduct and goals, rather than idealistic evaluation.
In the corld-war-world, the US represented democracy, personal liberty and its associated human rights, and (very importantly) culturally icons. US and western police forces behaved well relative to Soviet police forces. US Movies & Music were better. Press was more honest. The comparison was not made relative to an idealised concept of democracy or human rights (or music). It was made relative to the Soviet Union associated states. It was also mostly made in Eastern Europe, where the divide was arbitrary, non-national and highly visible.
That dichotomy world is gone. These days, I think people evaluate these things in a more abstract way, relative to abstract idealizations.
A second effect is US politics' global viewership. This is a product of globalized media, the dramatic merits of US political theater, the genuine impacts of big US decisions and other reasons.
This is huge. I live in Ireland. The majority of people are more knowledgeable, vested and opinionated about US politics than local politics. They have a strong opinion on US health policies, but not Irish ones. This is a recipe for insanity. US politicians are pandering to US opinions, not Danish or Georgian or Irish opinions. Of course they feel unrepresented. When one side loses a heated election, large numbers always feel alienated and angry at the country. It passes, a normal part of democracy. Many Danes (and everyone) were involved enough emotionally to get the same feeling but being non-americans aren't as affected by the normalizing effects that bring everything together in the end.
When Europeans express a frustrated criticism of US politics, they are doing it as insiders. They are criticising it the same way they would criticize a local party coming to power, one which they don't like. Imagine how angry Americans would get at the Danish or Mexican parliament if they were following it like this.
A third issue is the "someone must be driving" fallacy. In this sense being angry at the US is like the constant anger at one's own government. There is so much wrong with everything and it has to be someone's fault.
The US has been having a bad run in foreign policy. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, even N. Korea, ... The US is (rightly or wrongly) held responsible as the guy in charge. Politics rarely rewards successes. The failures are just more visible.
Who do you get angry at for the Syrian civil war? Who's to blame? The UN?
[+] [-] cantremember12|8 years ago|reply
When I read shallow reflections like this article, I think, here's a person that judges the wartime decisions of the past in the peace of the present, and submits to the vapid criticism every government levels against the world's boogieman.
[+] [-] stillhere|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|8 years ago|reply
This is the thesis of the piece. The rest is an extended critique of Americans.
I have difficultly buying into the thesis, so the rest of it reads like a very long-winded opinion piece with the standard throwaway charges about how the U.S. is horribly bad.
This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up. It's nice to see it done in such a talented way. Just not my thing.
[+] [-] cafard|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RodericDay|8 years ago|reply
Back when America could do no wrong, America was Rocky, or one of those glistening 80s heros. Maybe a bit flawed, but generally a family man vs. evildoers, a plucky little upstart.
Then America was Bruce Willis in Die Hard, rough around the edges and divorced but still a good guy, trying to do the right thing. Then America was Keifer Sutherland in 24... somebody's gotta do the torturing! For a good cause, though.
The more and more dirt comes out, the more public sensibilities turn to stuff like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and House of Cards, reassuring watchers that nobody's good, that if you try to do the right thing the world will crush you, that all that matters is being top-dog. Sucks, but "that's the way the world really is".
It's super interesting. You'd think the character development in those shows is indicting, but it really is mostly immunizing and pride-preserving.
[+] [-] eregorn|8 years ago|reply
I was noticing I cared more about international politics than I previously did, and I saw a lot of other Americans putting more skin in the game than in the past (Although the only way I know this is from the last days of the French Election, where a bunch of tone-deaf English/bad French memes were being pushed to save Le Pen). It is European focused but hey its a start I guess.
More importantly though, is the lack of trust in institutions. When the article started talking about conspiracy theories and the deep state I had be do a double take for a second on whether she was still talking about Turkey.
[+] [-] bahjoite|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlgorithmicTime|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] evolve2k|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] traverseda|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnrichardson|8 years ago|reply
The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West - quite ironic given that we live in one the most free, prosperous societies ever created in human history. They are driven almost entirely by resentment, and lack even a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.
[+] [-] RobertoG|8 years ago|reply
Do you mean that "the modern left", that homogeneous and well defined group, discourse is full of unjustified generalizations, where generic labels are apply without qualification?
Yes, quite ironic certainly.
[+] [-] boyce|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivanbakel|8 years ago|reply
Because they consider it immorally gotten? Why do you assume that people with completely different value judgements to you ought to think as you do about history and society?
[+] [-] jessaustin|8 years ago|reply
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelRealization
[+] [-] DarkKomunalec|8 years ago|reply
That's 'privilege', and is something to feel guilty about. It's not something to be grateful to your ancestors for providing, but something you get unfairly by 'accident of birth'. Only when it comes to guilt is your connection to your ancestors and ethnicity more than an accident.
Edit: I did not think a 'sarcasm' tag necessary.