Article

2003-06-03

Foriegn Elites Cause of Global Anti-Americanism

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Posted by SL 2003-06-03 03:14 pm|| || Front Page|| [9 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "Elites in much of the world hate the USA."

And so? Elites in the USA hate the USA too.

Posted by JP 2003-06-03 15:52:52|| 2003-06-03 15:52:52|| Front Page Top

#2 The fact that the elites hate us proves we are on the right path.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2003-06-03 16:07:45|| 2003-06-03 16:07:45|| Front Page Top

#3 The question is, what to do about it. Do we go the politically correct way, blame ourselves for their hatred of us, and try to make things right? Or do we give them our collective middle finger salute?
I honestly doubt that the reason they hate the US is because we are oppressing their culture and causing pain to their fellow countrymen in their view. It is more simple than that. When they look around, all they see is American culture and see it as something to yearn for. They also perceive American culture as superior to their own. They may not admit it, but they do.
In other words, they hate the US because they view Americans as being better than them. And better than their own countries and countrymen.
That's a petty reason, and for that I suggest we go with option number 2.

Posted by RW 2003-06-03 16:59:28|| 2003-06-03 16:59:28|| Front Page Top

#4 Nice flashback Fred - I remember the Bugs and Elmer "Barber", particularly the scalp massage and barber chair lol

Posted by Frank G 2003-06-03 18:32:50|| 2003-06-03 18:32:50|| Front Page Top

#5 Outstanding analysis, Fred. I only have one minor quibble. Socialism did not cause zero-sum thinking. Rather it provides already zero-sum cultures with a justification for continuing the zero-sum game that has been going on for millennia in some cases. I am always reminded of the old (probably apocryphal) tale of the Peace Corps volunteer. Near the end of his tour of duty, he finds that he cannot make sense of the poverty and squalor that surround him. Confused and wanting to somehow understand the reality that that turned out to be so very different from his youthful preconceptions, he turns to a native that somehow seems wiser than all the rest. "Mahmoud," he asks, "I don't understand. The people here are as smart as Americans, and work as hard as Americans. You have plenty of land and a goodly amount of natural resources. Yet your people are stuck in squalor and poverty and ignorance and don't really seem to want to climb out of it." Mahmoud replies, "I'll explain it to you. Let's say that in America, your neighbor gets a goat. You will work hard all year and at the end you will have two goats. Here in Elbonia, if your neighbor gets a goat, you go home and prays that the goat dies." This understanding is important because eliminating socialism (of the second, third or fouth international variety) doesn't eliminate the problem. The "problem" is embedded in vocabularies and underlying cultural assumptions. I wonder if any of the game theory folks have ever created a "meta game" in which a zero-sum and non-zero-sum game clash at their boundary. I don't have the math or programming skills, but my guess is that this is an incredibly unstable combination. One must destroy the other.

Posted by 11A5S 2003-06-03 20:15:50|| 2003-06-03 20:15:50|| Front Page Top

#6 Thanks. You're right about the zero-sum thinking predating socialism. Socialism had Europeans roots. It's the land-based history that gave rise to it. When wealth is based on land ownership, it is a zero-sum game. If you get five more acres, it's because your neighbor gave it up, because they're not making any more land. America at its founding didn't have that problem, since there was lots of land for the taking.

There was something else involved in the divergence, though, and I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. Otherwise, everywhere from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego would have the same attitudes we do â but zero-sum is still the rule in Latin America...

Posted by Fred 2003-06-03 20:50:32|| 2003-06-03 20:50:32|| Front Page Top

#7 Fred: It's the old theory of settlement versus exploitation colonies. The US, Canada and Australia are settlement colonies and are pretty good places to live. Most of Latin America and the Philipines were under the encomienda ( ultra exploitative) system and are therefore pretty crappy places to live. The exception is Costa Rica which was a settlement colony. I think Costa Rica is what Latin America could have looked like if the Spaniards hadn't been such rapacious bastards -- low growth but not especially violent. One could argue that California would be similar if the Franciscans had been allowed to continue their experiment. Overall, I think that the settlement/exploitation colony thing accounts for about 40% of the zero-sum mentality in Latin America. Much of the rest is correlated to the cultural revolution that occurred in England starting just before the Magna Carta: common law, political power devolved to commoners, the State more or less keeping its nose out of private enterprise. So generally, former English colonies tend to be pretty nice places, while Spanish, French, Belgian, Portuguese colonies tend to be shitholes.

Posted by 11A5S 2003-06-03 22:40:56|| 2003-06-03 22:40:56|| Front Page Top

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