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In Reply to: Re: Is this the Cartoon everyone is freakin' about...? Doesn't belong in these forums.... posted by RGA on February 15, 2006 at 00:11:31:
Well...As an agnostic Christian (I half believe half the time) I take some exception to your analysis. I'm rather proud of my nation's history, though I acknowledge its flaws as well. But America has been a much greater actor for good than for evil.
Is America a paragon of moral perfection? Nope. But name me a country or civilisation in which you'd prefer to live?
Follow Ups:
Well the problem is in experience of travel and the value system you have grown up in. Very few people live another culture - they may VISIT via holliday and make snap judgements but to truly get to know another culture is not so cut and dry.I have grown up in Canada which in a great many ways is very much like the United States and if we break down the society it is not clear to me that it should be viewed "as the best." On a spectacle or technological persepective it is the best -- we have running water, fancy shops, Starbucks on every corner, fast cars, computer technology out the ying yang -- yes we can all pat ourselves on the back for having lots of STUFF and being accessible to lots of stuff and even many people who are deemed "poor" still have some sort of shelter and a tv and maybe even a dvd player.
But all of this is still a judgement based off of Stuff we have and we work for big corporations in largely meaningless jobs so that we can be the first on the block to get a BMW.
Even the statement that America has been more good than evil is not really true. Nor would I say it's totally false but there is a fine line here as to what is good on the one hand that does not necessarily turn out to be a bigger problem later. The unfortunate fact remains that a lot of what America is about is built on the American Dream which is basically about the aquisition of Things and is associated with Freedom.
Corporations rule at this time -- they have all the money and Western governments (including Canada so don't think I'm being just negative to America) protect Corporations in an incredible way. Individuals under the corporate umbrella are practically untouchable so no matter how many people they kill (Ford Motor, PP G & E etc) the only punishment is slap on the wrist with puny drop in the bucket fines.
There are many cultures who value family and personal relationships above all else rather than the disconnect of living in an apartment for 12 years and not knowing your neighbors.
My personal value system includes growing up in Japan, and dwelling now in a polyglot and multicultural community. In fact about a quarter of the students in my child's school are first or second generation Americans. Their families came from nations ranging from China to Mexico to Saudi Arabia to India. The extraordinary thing is that they all left their native lands and came to the United States to live. Some came at great personal expense; some snuck away from brutal regimes; but they all came because they wanted better lives for themselves and their children. Material prosperity is a part of that, but by no means the largest part, although the immigrants I know personally have done very well for themselves. I guess one of the areas where I'd disagree withh you is that I think material prosperity is a good thing - as do most people. We can romanticize more 'natural' ways of living, but the fact is there's a reason our ancestors gave up their hunter-gatherer ways.Besides, without technology and material prosperity, we couldn't all enjoy our audio toys could we.
Well it's a question that not everyone that bought into the American Dream are happier coming here. People are sold on the glitz and glamour and "the better life" but also become dissilusioned.Materialism is not a good thing - the fact that there are materialistic people in other countries who wish to come to the west to "do even better" in this regard is not exactly a sound testimonial. Priorities are truly screwed up out there.
Technology is a funny thing in audio because most of the technological advances are miniturization and related to working with the home decor than actually sounding better IMV. I'm not at all saying I am against technological advancement just ones that matter -- the west hardly stands alone in research on things that matter.
I think plays and films like "Death of a Salesman" and "Before Night Falls" reveal some of this. After talking to a Chinese Woman here on a business trip about her Communist rule and freedom well there was no hint of wishuing to come here -- quite the opposite.
The typical American gets into their car goes to a job where they are watched on camera all day for fear of starting a Union, has to take drug tests because they may have in their personal life took a puff of a naturally growing substance that government and religious whackos has deemd the devil's plant (even though scientifically it is far less harmful than booze) and they get into their car (Japanese if built well American if a piece of junk) and drive home stopping at Mcdonalds to get the family meal while picking their kids up from school where the teachers are talking about healthy eating but nobody has time because they're working 12 hour days glues to cell phones and getting paid for 8 hours. (Unions of course are evil). Their kid gets into a fight or does poorly - well that is everyone else's fault - the school, the TV, other kids, no responsibility and since tired parents are there from 6:30 till bedtime glued to the tv where George Bush is justifying spying on you and bombing countries for no good reason and with sports programs diverting intellectual debate then I wonder why this is what people view as freedom.
America is the land of financial opportunity especially, and only (but this is not mentioned) for rich foreigners to get even richer.
Don't get me wrong there is plenty of worse places to be but Capitalism unchecked (which it is) is a dreadful system for society.
Well I guess we'll just have to disagree... The American lifestyle you describe - meaninigless job, shallow relationships, etc.. is a caricature of American life. It doesn't describe anyone I know. Sure, I might agree that entry level jobs seem meaningless to many, but in time we find a fit in life that allows us to do work in which we do find some meaning.I think you're also unfair in your depictiong of "rich foreigners". Let me describe some of these "foreigners" who've touched my life. I remember a Romanian gentlemann who was once my landlord - he escaped Romania by swimming across a river in the night and walking - walking! - several days to freedom. To get his wife out of the country he chained himself to a flagpole in front of the United Nations to shame his nation's communist leaders into giving his wife an exit visa. Then this man - who came here with nothing - slowly build a business doing inexpensive construction jobs - drywalling and framing. In time he put his capital to risk buying buildings and rehabbing them.
Another man was my son's cub scout leader. He and his wife came to America from China. He's one of the hardest working people I know installing some kind of epoxy flooring. After saving for years he treated his family to a real extravagance - they bought a new Honda Accord. He's not at all nostalgic for his Chinese homeland - although he prays for it nightly.
I could go on with some tales of Mexicans who immigrated to the U.S. The theme that unites all these tales is that these are NOT "rich foreigners." They may become richer once here, but I don't think of any of them as materialists.
As for my own ancestors - my Grandfather was an Italian peasant. He emigrated from Italy not so much to come to something, but to escape something: he was desparate to avoid being conscripted by the fascist government in Italy at the time. Material wealth wasn't his objective - he wanted what most immigrants want - liberty and a chance for a better life.
Kind regards,
Bob
Yes I don't disagree with many people of prior generations excaping the likes of a Stalin. Or today escaping the likes of the Taliban.I am talking about younger fairly well educated people who know they could come to America or Canada and choose not to. Life is relative. I have travelled a fair bit and with my degree I could easily move to and work in the United States - and indeed, one day I very well may. I'm not trying to come across as insulting to the west - since I live in Western Canada and can't think of a better place to live. However, I am also the type of person who wishes not to settle on the now. I think the west can do and be so much more than it is and in some ways there is a regression.
Geographically and anthropologically the West has created and continues to create a boxed in parking lot society. We are moving away from personal human contact to internet forums (the irony is in this very message) text messages. We work in cubicles and drive cars shielding away from others. I know people who would be mortified at the thought of taking a Public Bus or Sky-train(subway). That would mean they might see someone not of their "breeding."
I believe the improvement that one reads in 19th century idealism presented in much literature (and in Star Trek) is worth going for...and Western civilization is primed to go there. As soon as the power is taken away from corporate America (or corporate world) and ideas such as Socialism is not referred to as Communism.
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