America's Sense of Self

While many would like to attribute Bush's perspective on being right on all things to him only, this tendency is one that we should examine in America in general. As we end the Bush administration and enter in to the Obama administration, it is interesting to listen to the way in which the outgoing president portrays his decisions. Hearing Bush deny that the U.S. has an image problem or is seen in negative ways, that he has worked with strong allies beside the U.S., and that we have helped lead the world as a beacon of liberty, is truly an amazing thing. What is interesting to me about it, however, is how much of a sense of self we have as a nation, and how hard it seems to view things from the point of view of the other.

There are several reasons, I believe, for this orientation. Among them is the idea of rugged individualism that seems to have caught on as a founding principle of our nation. While this may be true, when one reads documents by those founding members of our country, they are also living, wrestling with, and most importantly, dedicated to the notion of what we do for one another. The idea of service and duty are laid out frequently as part and parcel of citizenship, whereas it is now the case (as the Bush administration once suggested) that we best demonstrate our citizenship by buying and consuming goods to fight terrorism. Perversely, we consciously are encouraged to work and spend as individuals, while the notion of community has taken a holiday.

When I travel abroad, I see another aspect of how we see ourselves as central to the world, through the media. It is fascinating to my students to travel in Latin America, for example, and notice that the news is not Gringo-centric, i.e. stories that involve two actors may actually be written which do not include the U.S.A. as one of them. It is natural for citizens in most societies to have an element of ethnocentrism, it is why virtually all cultures have a creation stories of which they are the focus. However, I would argue that with few possible exceptions, no country has become so practiced at its self importance as we have. This is exemplified in our outgoing president, who literally cannot conceive of the idea of acting in concert with others, at least not in the sense of actually taking their views into active consideration.

As I listen to Bush defend his eight years in office, I must admit that while I am angry about the loss of life (which he still believes was justified in our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) I am also deeply saddened. It is tragic to me that we had a president who consciously or unconsciously, believed that being a leader was merely "making tough decisions." Even as he justifies policies, decisions, and entire wars, the framework is one which centers around himself, his life, his views, and his personal narrative. He is literally incapable of even understanding that there ARE alternative narratives, much less that he could be wrong.

And so we need to accept to, that he is not so different from many of us in this country. We are a people who need to get out more, listen more, acknowledge other viewpoints as legitimate far more often, and accept that others can come up with good ideas that don't have to be ours, necessarily. We have become a divided nation, not necessarily through arrogance, but certainly through a lack of practice at being humble.