For July 4: What does the world like about America?
Over the last twelve years, and especially during the Bush years, it often felt as if we (the U.S.) had managed to anger the entire world, or a large part of it. This came out the strongest during the Iraq war, and has come back to life (though I think to a lesser degree) with all the recent NSA surveillance revelations. Goodness knows we've made some big mistakes of late.
On this eve of July 4th, I'd like to remind myself, and anything else who might be interested, that others are more sophisticated in their views of Americans and the U.S. in general. When I've traveled internationally, I've found that people have been uniformly friendly to me individually, no matter what they thought of our government. And in reading and watching foreign media, it's not hard to find cases where people openly admire some aspects of our society or culture.
To take a few examples:
1. Technology. When NASA landed the rover Curiosity on Mars after a complicated landing process, the foreign media was as fascinated as we were. They viewed it as more a human achievement than an American one, of course, but they still admired the U.S. for being able to accomplish this. (Some British commenters even wondered why the U.S. could do this at a fraction of the cost of hosting the Olympics, which were going on at the time. For the record, I thought the London Olympics were very well done.)
2. Sports. People overseas have no trouble cheering for American athletes. British commentators were full of superlatives about Michael Phelps at the London Olympics. They wonder if Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player of all time. They like the opportunities our athletes have to train and compete-- especially what the NCAA system has done for women's athletics.
3. Universities. People all over the world still want to come to the U.S. to study. Our K-12 education may not be the world's best, but in terms of quality and quantity, our university system stands out. In fact, I'd say we're very lucky that way-- we attract other countries' best and brightest, who often stay on afterwards, become Americans themselves, and end up contributing to our society. Almost all of the foreign students I met really liked their time here-- even the ones who went home took back fond memories and favorable impressions.
I wish that this could be the face we present to the world. A country that leads by example--in space, in sports, in culture (movies, TV, etc.), in education, and other human endeavors. When the thought of American military intervention evokes Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima instead of Iraq. I think we were mostly there in the 1990s. I hope we'll be back there again soon.
Please add to this list if you have ideas. I'd love to hear more examples if you have them.
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