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American Dream, American Exceptionalism, American Liberty, Barack Obama, Civilisation, Defend the modern world, DTMW, Europe vs America, Happiness, Health, Patriotism, Placebo, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, White Teeth
Britain and America are famously kindred countries with many elements in common. We have the same language for example (almost) and the same expectations of representative democracy. We have always fought against the same enemies from the moment we stopped fighting each other. Our senses of humour are, whilst different, mutually intelligible. Our friendly regard for one another is as natural as rain.
Of those things which divide us meanwhile (and there are many), one essential difference I find is adequate to explain them all. It is not a difference rooted in wealth, race, geography or history, but rather in attitude.
The historian Michael Howard once observed that American foreign policy (then in a state of imperial excitement) often seems to act on the assumption that the human being is ‘perfectible’. America that is, works towards an ideal, a dream of the perfect. Most people would concede that this was true; for example in the eras of uncontested patriotism (the 50s etc…) but I believe that it remains true today, even as the methods for its expression have changed.
Beyond politics, American society is filled with subliminal motivations toward an ideal way of living and being. Through media, music and sport, an uncomplicated optimism radiates across the nation and has real social effects. The American brightside way of thinking is not racially based (and how could it be in America), and nor is it accidental. Rather, it is washed into the American mind from birth. The idea that teeth should be kept attractively white is as well understood by US schoolchildren as the virtues of Juche are by their counterparts in North Korea.
British people by contrast are embarrassed by the idyllic. Our attitude to health is appalling. Our media in particular tends toward the nasty and the self-critical. Nobody could create a show like ‘Friends’ in Britain; a sitcom which in a benign, apolitical way demonstrates a form of social perfection. It is typical though for America, which has always specialised in producing representations of serene health, popularity and financial ease – the American Ideal.
Everything in English art has to have an edge to it, and usually a cynical one. Even our childrens programmes and nursery rhymes have sinister undertones. Let’s consider two examples of this disparity.
If you can ignore the subsequent misadventures of its young star, Hannah Montana is perhaps the most successful teenage idol in American history. Millions of American girls still aim for the replication of her example; her health, moral innocence and social success. In the show itself, Montana is clearly defined as economically privileged, boundlessly happy, youthfully energetic, physically pretty and successfully industrious.
In Britain, the most acclaimed teenage sitcom is called ‘Tracy Beaker’ and documents in a dryly comic style the dilemmas and misfortunes of a child abandoned to social services… I’m not sure I need to elaborate.
Let’s be harshly honest here. We are making ourselves miserable. In our desperation to be more earthly than the Americans, we have thrown our seeds on barren land. Self-belief, positivity and even dental hygiene are now considered alien, inappropriate and pretentious. And that is quite a set of virtues to reject.
Though my tone might seem light-hearted here, I am serious about the following point: Aiming for an idyll is not simple-minded or stupid. As a philosophy and trick of the mind, it can be transformative.
If you aim for perfection, you may not reach it, but you will go much further in life than you would had you not aimed for it. An unreachable goal makes us stand up straight, makes us reach beyond the bounds of what we would – in dull sobriety – consider possible; in its intoxication, we find hidden corners of ourselves – new talents, abilities, and resources.
The American ideal, or if you prefer the ‘American Dream’ is not designed to be universally attainable (something socialists misunderstand) – it is meant rather to stand high enough above the people that it makes them grow by reaching for it. And look how well it works.
D, LDN
that it makes them grow by reaching for it.
The American worker/middle class has been so economically disenfranchised they don’t have the arms to reach for anything.
I’m sure America will recover. Unlike Europe…
As an American and an Anglophile — meaning that while I’m not English, I pay enough attention to England to have at least some vague notions about the culture — I think you have a point. There’s a book called “Understanding Europeans” that argues that a typical American admires a ‘self-made man,’ someone who started with nothing and climbed to the top, while many Europeans (including Englishpeople, if I recall correctly) would regard such a person as a bounder, someone who doesn’t know his place, etc. I can’t comment on the second half of that observation, but the idea that Americans admire people who make their own destiny is absolutely true. But this aspect of American-ness, though real, is far from perfect. Americans often feel miserable in part because they believe everyone *should* be able to make it to the top and that if they don’t achieve wild success, there must be something wrong with them. It’s easy for Americans to spend most of their time worrying about career success and little time developing relationships (Morris Berman has written some devastating books on this subject — I think he overstates it, but he does have a point). Finally, there are some areas in which I think we Americans experience cultural pressure *not* to reach for excellence — mostly in intellectual arenas. For example, British people seem to feel quite comfortable using “big words” that, in America, could make someone think you were “trying to show off.” America has a worrying anti-intellectualism that I don’t see so much in England. When I listen to BBC radio online, I hear taxi drivers and shopkeepers using a full range of English vocabulary, seemingly unconcerned that they’ll be accused of being elitist. Nevertheless, I think you have put a finger on something that is genuinely part of the American character, and I agree with you that — shortcomings aside — it is something much to be appreciated. It’s just that it could use a little balancing-out, at times. Actually, I think that if we could put together the best of our two versions of English-speaking culture, we would all be far better off. Winston Churchill wrote that as long as the English-speaking peoples stick together, we will be able to accomplish great things and the world will be a better place, and I think he was right.
Very interesting comment. Thank you. I especially agree with your call for more Anglophone fraternity. Britain should look to America far more than Europe in my opinion. What America has, Britain sorely lacks, and vice versa.
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