Finally, something we’re still Number One at! This post at 3Quarks Daily by Adam Ash dissects the characteristic of national superiority that defines a handful of nations — China, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, the U.K., and, of course, the U.S. — and wonders if the world wouldn’t be a much better place if they gave up their over-inflated self-importance. Frankly, it’s a nice breath of fresh air for a piece like this to acknowledge that we Americans are not the only ones who cannot see beyond our own noses; the Big Three European powers certainly have had their moments, and certainly the xenophobia-cum-racism of both Chinese and Japanese exceptionalism rate high on the scale of general assholery.
For me, the money quote is this section where he talks about how America reacted (and is still reacting) to 9/11:
What in fact did we do after 9/11? Instead of taking the moral high ground, a pedestal upon which we were suddenly thrust by the rest of the world — in Iran they held candle-lit vigils for us, Le Monde thundered “We are all New Yorkers now” — we sunk lower than sharkshit into the deepest assholumbra of assholectonomy. Instead of using our elevated moral position to examine ourselves, and come up with a measured look at ourselves and a suddenly changed world, and to render a semi-mature judgment about what had happened and how a civilized nation should respond, instead of thinking and weighing and reasoning the whole thing out among ourselves like the democracy we’re supposed to be, instead of stepping up like adults, we behaved like a child who stubs his toe and hits the smaller kid next to him for relief. We did not rise to the occasion. We did not even stoop to it.
It brought out the demon in us which, heart-breakingly, might be what we really are.
Definitely worth keeping in mind this week as we all sit glued to our television sets watching most of these World Assholes duke it out through the proxy of men and women in oddly-colored skintight superhero suits and goofy helmets.
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