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Well I guess my opinion is that the US is not intentionally malicious or hegemonistic, but rather the view that culturally speaking, it is rather like a belligerent teenager that doesn't quite know what to do with itself.
In 2003, when we were very busy discussing the Iraq war, I was very much in the anti-war camp, and I feel somewhat vindicated now but I digress. A lot of people here had the same view as me; that the US probably intended well but by forcing its own cultural values on others (via military action or globalisation) it was only going to inflame things.
My mistake, in my opinion, back then was to consider the US as a homogenous force, which of course it isn't. IMO there's more difference between East+West coast culture and Mid-West / Southern cultural values, than there is between East+West, and the UK.
From my frequent debates on the subject of religion, it has become clear both to me, and generally to many in Britain, that there are many uneducated and misguided people living in the US, but crucially, to hold such backward views as young Earth creationism and fundamentalist Christianity, there require people to misguide them, so to speak.
Of these people, and I think there are many, we could easily ascribe many of America's perceived ills, whether that's fair or otherwise. Something like the Scopes "Monkey Trial", or the recent trial that dealt with the same issues, the treatment of Bertrand Russell on his appointment to a New York college in the '40's, and even the passing of the PATRIOT act, would have never happened in the UK under anything but the MOST extreme of social circumstances.
Perhaps it's our cultural idiosyncracy, and not the US's... after all we have a custom of non-extremism in this country. I fear that the US with its decentralised education system and desperate search for historical validation (being a relatively young nation), is particularly vulnerable to extremists, be they political or religious. History has shown this repeatedly throughout the 20th century, the influence of the KKK being a good example.
So my main concern with the USA is the ease with which popular opinion can be manipulated, and this is a reciprocal thing with government for obvious reasons. One wonders where it will lead. And that's my two cents
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In 2003, when we were very busy discussing the Iraq war, I was very much in the anti-war camp, and I feel somewhat vindicated now but I digress. A lot of people here had the same view as me; that the US probably intended well but by forcing its own cultural values on others (via military action or globalisation) it was only going to inflame things.
My mistake, in my opinion, back then was to consider the US as a homogenous force, which of course it isn't. IMO there's more difference between East+West coast culture and Mid-West / Southern cultural values, than there is between East+West, and the UK.
From my frequent debates on the subject of religion, it has become clear both to me, and generally to many in Britain, that there are many uneducated and misguided people living in the US, but crucially, to hold such backward views as young Earth creationism and fundamentalist Christianity, there require people to misguide them, so to speak.
Of these people, and I think there are many, we could easily ascribe many of America's perceived ills, whether that's fair or otherwise. Something like the Scopes "Monkey Trial", or the recent trial that dealt with the same issues, the treatment of Bertrand Russell on his appointment to a New York college in the '40's, and even the passing of the PATRIOT act, would have never happened in the UK under anything but the MOST extreme of social circumstances.
Perhaps it's our cultural idiosyncracy, and not the US's... after all we have a custom of non-extremism in this country. I fear that the US with its decentralised education system and desperate search for historical validation (being a relatively young nation), is particularly vulnerable to extremists, be they political or religious. History has shown this repeatedly throughout the 20th century, the influence of the KKK being a good example.
So my main concern with the USA is the ease with which popular opinion can be manipulated, and this is a reciprocal thing with government for obvious reasons. One wonders where it will lead. And that's my two cents
.
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