My sensing is that the majority do know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JMA
The vast majority of Americans are fine people but they do need to know how they and their country are perceived in the world outside (then they can figure out why this is).
Don't care and are not concerned with a great deal of change. There are those in the US who do have concerns on that score and hope for change, mostly in academe or journalism. They do not reflect the opinions of most Americans. Fortunately.
It is noted a number of people from elsewhere are 'concerned' for America. Touching, that. :rolleyes:
I'm not at all sure you can tell much about logic from that little snippet...
You are, however, quite welcome to come to erroneous conclusions based on your perceptions of what I might think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
blueblood
But they never claimed to be the beacon of democracy. Going by your logic, even Hitler wasn't wrong. He hated Jews, so he killed 6 million of them.
We are a beacon of democracy -- just a tarnished and imperfect model. ;)
With respect to Hitler, yes, he did that -- and if you think that was in his or his nations interest, you, not I, have a rather strange sense of what a national interest happens to be...
We the US have done, do and will likely do a lot of stupid things for all sorts of good and bad reasons but that beacon foolishness is really only spouted by politicians (in uniform and not in uniform) who know better but are too political to be honest. Still, disregarding them, take the bad and the good we've done over the years and one gets a better average than one does for most nations. We do some harm fairly often, much not out of malice but because we're big and clumsy. We also do some good and most of us are comfortable with the fact that we do more good than harm. Not many nations can say that though there will be more that can do so in the future, the world's changing. For now, over the last 220 years, I can't think of anyone else that comes close. Can you?
Quote:
PS: Nazi Germany was a democracy and Hitler was an elected leader.
True and broadly irrelevant. Democracy and elections are important but do little to tell one how nations might behave. What can be a determinant are the continuum of a nations interests over many years. The US only has two long term. We do want free commerce and we do not tolerate threats or potential threats for very long. :cool:
Ask the old retired KGB hands in Ekaterineburg...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
blueblood
Thousands dead, millions suffering and still you find my conclusion erroneous. In the above post you'll find a BBC poll, which projects the same erroneous conclusion.
I think you may have your figures reversed. The US is probably responsible for millions of dead over the years, some reasonable and adjudged legitimate and necessary, others not. The number worldwide directly suffering from US actions is more likely in the thousands and is offset by many more thousands helped with Marshall, Colombo and other plans plus US Aid here and there around the world -- not to mention our disaster responses and the dissuasion of Pirates and military adventurism by others over the last couple of Centuries. Like every nation, every person, we're a mix of good and bad and which characteristics are emphasized in conversations are highly dependent on ones viewpoint.
The Poll shows nothing new. I started wandering about the world outside the US in 1947 -- we were not popular at that time due to excessive wealth and some our more base cultural proclivities. That's been a constant since with some excursions for better or worse -- the Viet Nam era being a far lower point than today. So the conclusion is not erroneous, it is actual and it is pervasive. My question is how much of that lack of trust and / or liking is due simply to the relative size, economic power, cultural influence and willingness to get involved in the affairs of others and perceptions as opposed to real knowledge?
You and I may believe that willingness to intrude to be a part of the problem but it seems to be a function of both that 'free commerce' aspect and having the desire to eliminate threats... :o
Quote:
Why? He considered Jews to be backstabbers and believed that when Germany needed Jews, they simply refused to fight. If I were a leader of a nation which is fighting the greatest war the world has ever seen and particular community is refusing to fight then I too will be pissed off.
Why what? That's a rather erroneous reading of history; his shortsighted mistreatment of the Jews led to their being unwilling to serve in the Wehrmacht -- they weren't welcome in the SS --and that was a self created problem that did not exist in WW I when many Jews fought for Germany. Hitler's insanity with reference to the Jews caused a problem that was not in the interests of Germany, it's that simple. They're still suffering for and from that.
Quote:
So what's with the holier than thou nature? I agree that Americans did some great things but none of them were military in nature.
Depends on your viewpoint, doesn't it? The French, for example might disagree on the military angle -- though they tend to discount it; no one likes to be obligated to another for assisting them with a problem they should have been able to handle themselves.
So might the Koreans, a nation where the generation that recalls the 1950-53 War is very supportive of the US and the younger generations are downright unfriendly. Way of the world...
As to the holier than thou, it's a function of the fact that we are a polyglot crew of people who either themselves or their forebears left other nations to come here and start or build a new nation. As I'm sure you're aware, almost every kid who leaves his or her parents house to do things on their
own has a feeling of superiority. That, too is the way of the world. Good thing, that's how progress occurs. :cool:
Quote:
Yes, I think Brits did a far better job, if we are looking over last 220 years.
Your prerogative. I merely note that a number of trouble spots in the world are a British 'lines on a map' legacy, to include Kashmir -- and much of Africa and the Middle East.
Aside from Dayuhan's good example, the waste that was Crimea (or the closely following Mutiny...) and the imposition of Empire trade rules among others, the British did indeed do a "far better job" with Pax Brittanica than we have with trying to do a Pax Americana * -- but that wasn't the question; that was what other nation has done more worldwide good than harm over those years...
Quote:
Yep, that is the key word.:D
Yes it is, indeed. One of the problems with that approach is that one sometimes sees a potential threat when there is none and sometimes doesn't note one that exists and thus has to scramble and be clumsy at correcting that oversight.
* FWIW, I and many other Americans do not hold with that concept. Regrettably, our Foreign Policy 'elite' did in the aftermath of WW II and the US forced draw down of the British Empire. It was an unwise decision, prompted as much by the USSR and the so-called Cold War as by anything the US really wanted to do. IOW, we thought we had to due to circumstances. That may or may not have been correct but much of our international meddling certainly was not strictly an item of US choice. Those lines the British and French drew on maps were no help in all that. ;)
Dr. Steven Pinker's research on the relatively peaceful era of Pax Americana
In response to the following (and other comments):
Quote:
Originally Posted by
blueblood
No great power is entirely innocent. Abuse of power is a facet of human nature.
At any rate, a NYT article on Harvard Professor Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature":
Quote:
Since 1945, we have seen a new phenomenon known as the “long peace”: for 66 years now, the great powers, and developed nations in general, have not fought wars against one another. More recently, since the end of the cold war, a broader “new peace” appears to have taken hold. It is not, of course, an absolute peace, but there has been a decline in all kinds of organized conflicts, including civil wars, genocides, repression and terrorism. Pinker admits that followers of our news media will have particular difficulty in believing this, but as always, he produces statistics to back up his assertions.
Quote:
To readers familiar with the literature in evolutionary psychology and its tendency to denigrate the role reason plays in human behavior, the most striking aspect of Pinker’s account is that the last of his “better angels” is reason. Here he draws on a metaphor I used in my 1981 book “The Expanding Circle.” To indicate that reason can take us to places that we might not expect to reach, I wrote of an “escalator of reason” that can take us to a vantage point from which we see that our own interests are similar to, and from the point of view of the universe do not matter more than, the interests of others.
http://tinyurl.com/3mfpzbp
His argument is complicated, however, and not related entirely to monopolies of violence, international institutions, or American soft/hard power. Instead, he describes an evolutionary process affecting human cultures 'writ large'. Perhaps his theory is a more illuminating way to look at the development of mankind than clashes of culture or East vs. West?
If Dr. Pinker's thesis is correct, this should have implications for American (and other) Foreign Policy and even for our FP elite.
At any rate, Pax Brittanica and Pax Americana are difficult to compare. For example, on the economy of India during the Raj (a complicated topic much outside my areas of expertise), see the following from Amardeep Singh quoting Manmohan Singh:
Quote:
There is no doubt that our grievances against the British Empire had a sound basis. As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952. Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income. However, what is significant about the Indo-British relationship is the fact that despite the economic impact of colonial rule, the relationship between individual Indians and Britons, even at the time of our Independence, was relaxed and, I may even say, benign.
http://tinyurl.com/8xrgqqp
(Moderator: Should I introduce myself to the Council? I chose not to do so because I am a regular commenter on the SWJ blog :)).