Should we Americans care what the world thinks of us?

[lynx]

The article neglects to point out that the US claims a higher standard to those against which it is being compared unfavourably.

Hardly surprising then that when it fails to achieve the standards most people would determine to be acceptable that it receives a higher level of criticism. I feel certain that those countries who fail, by an even greater margin, to reach acceptable standards would be just a severely criticised if they claimed the same high standards in the first place.

In addition, by being in the position of the most powerful country on Earth, failure to meet what are generally regarded as acceptable standards implies an abuse of that power, with the attendant extra criticism that attaches.

[j2k4]

The article neglects to point out that the US claims a higher standard to those against which it is being compared unfavourably.

Hardly surprising then that when it fails to achieve the standards most people would determine to be acceptable that it receives a higher level of criticism. I feel certain that those countries who fail, by an even greater margin, to reach acceptable standards would be just a severely criticised if they claimed the same high standards in the first place.

In addition, by being in the position of the most powerful country on Earth, failure to meet what are generally regarded as acceptable standards implies an abuse of that power, with the attendant extra criticism that attaches.

Okay, then - back to the poll and it's methodologies:

If the question is asked-

How would you rate the positive/negative effect/reputation of (name the country) in the international arena?

-of the United States and whomever else, what polling mechanism denotes/describes the bias you just outlined?

Or is there an arbitrary caveat which reads to the effect of, "based on the standards normally espoused by the country in question"?

One would think that, absent such a condition, countries such as North Korea or China should rate much, much higher, given they claim no standard of acceptable behavior...

As a sidenote, I wonder if I dare query as to Auntie Beeb's integrity in this matter; seems there might be a small matter of commission by omission.

I suppose, too, in the interest of honest play, while I occasionally bristle at some criticisms of The U.S., I don't put much stock in such polls, one way or another.

[devilsadvocate]

Should Americans care? well that all depends on what is trying to be achieved. If the goal is to make people from other nations stop wanting to blow us up then I think yes we should care what they think. This doesn't mean we have to agree with them. If it comes to helping with things like disasters we shouldn't be caring what they think, we should do it because it's the right thing to do and not for any desire for gratituted or respect. On the world stage there is a fine line between us being a good neighbor and being a busybody and we are not the ones that decide which one we are. Even the most well intentioned busybody tends to be resented to some degree.

[lynx]

You need to remember that the foreign policies of the US affect billions of non-US citizens, while the internal politics of North Korea and China affect very few who aren't in those countries.

People will react more intensely to those things that affect them directly, it's human nature, and no matter how you phrase the question it doesn't change the actual way the US is perceived.

Without seeing how the original poll was worded it is difficult to be sure, but I got the impression that (amongst other things) the poll asked about the influence of these countries on the rest of the world. Hardly surprising then that the country which has the biggest influence shows the biggest hit at a time when things are not going well.

If the poll mixed up results regarding external influences and internal policies then the charge of bias is justified, but I suspect that it is just the author of the article who wants to imply that this is what happened.

Remember, just because you don't like the message, that's no reason to shoot the messenger.

[ilw]

In the last 2 presidential terms you have pretty much sunk the geneva convention, the icbm treaty, the kyoto agreement, the torture convention, the nuclear proliferation agreement, the international criminal court...

[Snee]

This sums up my thoughts on this, and how someone might look at it:

You could say american media ought to take some of the blame for how people see America.

Every election seems to involve smear tactics, and the media then blows it up to enormous proportions. Every celebrity, politicians and otherwise go under the microscope, everything gets blown up out of proportion, and the worse they can make something sound, the better.

The world sees all those things too.

Doesn't stop with celebrities or elections, either, if it's possible to make a sensation out of something, it's done.

Sometimes they make you look like idiots, and sometimes it just makes you look bad.

I guess it's a matter of supply and demand, though. If people stopped consuming there'd be no market for it.

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Then there's the arrogance. America's got things like the world series, which is really all about america. Things like that can be construed as meaning that all that matters is America, the world here in actuality being america.

I've also seen excerpts from speeches by Bush and other american politicians where they seemed to imply that the USA is God's chosen nation.

And when americans do something that's actually good, like help with disasters, well, then that gets turned into some sort of metaphorical ritual back-patting for all the world to see, too. Possibly to the point of seeming to imply that the americans helping did better than anybody else, looking at the size of the contribution, rather than the one performed per individual.

And then whatever America considers being generous of them gets brought up at times like this, and the rest of the world are ingrates. Sometimes I hear the ingrate argument, even though americans had nothing to do with the well-being of the person being called an ingrate.

And there's things like the american president being referred to as "the greatest man on earth", and so on, and so forth.

And the myriad of movies where americans save the planet, or whatever.

Most nations on the planet have their moments of extreme patriotism and arrogance, though, but couple America's to the reach of their media and they end up parading it in front of the whole world, again.

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Then there are american franchises, which pop up everywhere. Again it's supply and demand, to some extent, but it doesn't help that there's enough money behind them to soak up huge losses and create a demand via advertising before they start turning a profit. Not everyone likes something like a McDonald's, everwhere.

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And then there's the fact that american companies have enough money to buy everything that runs well, meaning that companies others closely associate with their own nationality end up in american hands.

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And then there are the little things, like Halloween suddenly being celebrated in countries that previously didn't thanks to children watching american movies and some toy-franchise seeing an opportunity to "import" the holiday and sell more dress-up stuff.

Some will look at this and feel that there's a slow ongoing americanisation of their culture.

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As for military efforts, and such:

Like lynx says, foreign policies of countries you consider "bad" are generally not as noticeable. Like devilsadvocate writes, the USA risks being seen as a busybody, in fact I do reckon a lot of people probably already do.

It probably doesn't help that an excuse for the war in Iraq ("WMDs") was a lie or that americans once trained Bin Laden, or that Noriega (possibly) once was on an american payroll, either. Some might say that the USA creates its enemies, and that people suffer because of that.

And naturally, we all know about that, too, thanks to the media, ours and yours. While only a fraction of the bad stuff countries like North Korea are up to gets out, probably, thanks to their press not being free, and them isolating themselves from the rest of the world rather than attempting to influence all of it.

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Before someone starts arguing with me over something I've said, do consider that this is just how it is, or how it can be seen.

I'm not making any value judgements beyond saying that this is how things can be percieved, whether it's entirely accurate to percieve all of it that way, is another matter.


As for the particular article, and me, I think the title alone is pretty arrogant.

America does have a tremendous influence on the world right now, in that the whole world notices what america is up to, and much of it has had it's economy affected by the USA, as well.

Right now America is still doing all right, but should things be felt as intolerable by the rest of the world, to the point of many nations getting together to do something about it, America would certainly feel it.

[thewizeard]

In any case it's too late for the USA, whatever the world thinks about "It" . The balance of economic power is shifting rapidly and soon it will be time for it to pay the bill. The risk of course is that it will feel like a cornered cat.. and behave as one.

[Squeamous]

This is enlightening - read!

I was going to, until you wrote that.

[Biggles]

There are aspects of the commentary that have merit.

It is not a popularity contest and policies have to be measured against political and economic necessities. The US is very active in geopolitics and is therefore always going to be the turkey with the longest neck. Brazil has many social problems but its world face is one of beautiful girls and sublime football players. (Soccer being a currency that has enormous value just about everywhere.) Brazil is not going to get a bad score - that is simply a fact of life. Likewise, Europe is seen as benign and where a lot of nice to have stuff comes from and not particularly exploitative (perhaps an unfair call there but those are the breaks)

Where I think the commentary is weak is the attempt to somehow redress the balance. Israel may be a democracy but it has neighbour problems which frequently hit the headlines and 1/6 in the world are Muslims and presumably some of the 34 countries were Muslim. It is also considered to have an illegal nuclear programme. It is always going to take a hit in any poll because of these things and perhaps a desire in the rest of the world to wish away the whole damned ME problem.

The poll is unlikely to have captured the recent unrest in Tibet and Taiwan is little more than background noise to most people in World. In short the poll probably captured Olympic happy buzz and the supply of cheap large screen LCD TVs. That said China today is a far more open place than even 20 years ago.

Possibly the most ill considered part of the piece is the part regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the most conservative figures have over 100,000 innocent civilians dead in these two benevolent wars. That is not to say that there are no noble motives in these endeavours but a lot of eggs were broken making this omelet and the dish doesn't look ready to serve yet. She skimmed over a hell of a lot of suffering in a couple of glib sentences. Exactly why, one might argue, the US got a low score.

In summary, she is right, it is not a popularity contest and a foreign policy geared to just being popular is wrong headed. Is this the Democrat stance though? Her analysis is, however, weak. People are not being perverse. Countries whose primary global interface are either through sport, culture or trade are going to make a more positive impact than one which has a strong interventionist geopolitical strategy. That is just the nature of things. Iran and North Korea were not popular, by the way, so the world community did not have things upside down - I think it was having to share similar ratings to them that actually irked her

[ilw]

biggles - how would you answer the poll question about the effect of the current administration on the world?
v. positive - v. negative?


edit: and its not soccer its football.