March 17, 2004
Travel writer as ambassador? Not.
You've heard of the Ugly American? Welcome to the latest incarnation of ourselves abroad: The Anti-American American.
John Kerry's absurd belief that it's good to win the approval of anti-American elites reminds me of a topic I've been meaning to address for some time now, that of the leftish American traveler disparaging her homeland to foreigners -- people who have highly positive impressions of our nation!
There's an irritating example in a Bay Area travel writer's book, 
Somebody's Heart Is Burning. Tanya Shaffer travels in Africa, doing her best to tear down the country that gave her the historically unprecedented freedom and wherewithal to be a woman journeying halfway around the globe:
Traveling in Africa brought my Americanness acutely into focus. Everyone I met had such strong ideas about the U.S. that I found myself adjusting my descriptions to counter each individual's perceptions. Since most Ghanaians imagined a promised land, I was quick to paint for them a troubled nation, rife with injustice [emphasis added]. For the Europeans who believed all Americans were fervid imperailists, gung ho to impose our brand of corporate capitalism on the world, I hastened to explain that the American people aren't the government -- that there is, in fact, a vibrant counterculture within the U.S that rejects our role as a global bully. [emphasis added] (pp. 182-83)
This is the voice of a politically correct, incredibly privileged American who deigns to right the misperceptions of Ghanaians who dared voice the mistake of thinking the United States sounds pretty darn good. Oh, please. This drips with the condescension of the "right-thinking" postmodernist for whom everything Western is bad, who can't wait to share the news with those backwards West Africans who retain the common sense to correct assess, for themselves, the opportunities for themselves and their families in the West vs. the Third World.
Isn't a tad arrogant to lecture people perfectly capable of coming to their own conclusions? Being an Anti-American American requires swallowing whole a vision of matters wholly confined to U.S. campuses, Sweden, Greece, Britain, and certain elites in Continental Europe and fringe Canada. Anyone who is open to a wide swath of information -- including Ghanaians with cousins who drive taxis in Chicago -- has a far more balanced and positive view of the United States than those living in the Echo Chamber of Envy.
The "global bully" remark also begs for an explanation. Let's see, who have we bullied ... the Taliban? Saddam Hussein? Kosovars?
Most people around the world are quite proud of the land that nurtured them. Whatever they can justiably brag about, from historic high points to the local soccer team, will be happily proclaimed. National or at least ethnic pride is close to a universal trait, in my experience.
The left-wing Westerner, and especially the anti-American American, must be a pitiable, confused creature to anyone from anywhere from Bolivia to Thailand. She has so much to be grateful for, they must think. I just don't understand. That is the land that raised her. Is she confused, or ungrateful?
I give a talk called "Becoming the Beautiful American" loaded with examples of hip, culturally sensitive Americans who far outshine European travelers in empathy and good behavior abroad. I also discuss the Beautiful American (p. 237) in my chapter on Brazil in An Amateur's Guide to the Planet.
At the same time, I stress that Americans should be proud to say who they are overseas. Leftists who put the Canadian flag on their backpacks thinking to fool foreign critics are as lame as it gets. Be who you are. All you do is confuse the heck out of foreigners dying to move here by hiding your nationality, or heaping criticism.
By all means, give a balanced view of your homeland. Hollywood depicts us as a nation of the outrageously rich (Dallas and Dynasty had huge worldwide impact) and also as a place of mean streets ridden with criminals.
Everywhere I've traveled, people have been obsessively curious about what is not on display in Hollywood's products, that is, routine suburban life: our grocery stores, houses, cars and jobs. Conversing with foreign people about daily routine, and honoring the U.S. genuine founding vision as a place of opportunity, are the hallmarks of the Beautiful American.
