What is wrong with America?

I think I have finally put my finger one what is wrong with Americans…

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When I lived in the US, I knew about other cultures and I knew they were “different”.  Exactly what made them different was only vaguely clear.  As an example I could fundamentally understand that Asian cultures placed more importance on ancestry and that altered how they saw the world.  But in all my years living in the US, I never knew what my cultural heritage was.  I did not know what about American was different from other cultures.  I think I have found one bit.

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There have been several moments in conversation where I’ll say something conceptual that I felt was fairly obvious only to have my Kiwi co-workers smile politely and ask me why that was important.  This usually revolves around the ideas of price competition and in general beating our competition.  I began to realize that while a competitive nature is healthy and alive in Kiwi’s, it isn’t ingrained in their thinking.  It isn’t cultural.  I then began to realize that Americans are really obsessed with competing and, more importantly, with winning.  

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In this epiphany I saw clearly all the ways Americans act and re-act in a competitive nature to win.  In all our negotiations we strive for the “win-win”.  In all of our most popular sports—only Americans compete.  The World Series, the NFL, NBA, NASCAR—all of them are American sports and predominantly only played in the US.  We don’t compete in truly world sports significantly.  I would theorize that this is because we don’t like losing.

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By the American definition, winning is making the most money and having the most power.  Always being able to get what you want when you want, regardless of what others may want, is what the American Dream is really all about.  We have some mental picture that all Americans can achieve this and we just assume the wealth will come from “somewhere” and we don’t particularly care from where.  As an extension of this “ideal” we see the US as a nation of unequalled wealth and military power.  To put it simply, the US is winning.

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What we don’t realize is that the culture of winning (read as, Obsessed with winning) is not universal.  Certainly other cultures value wealth, success and even competition, but the zeal that Americans have is still unique to Americans.  When you are inside a culture and have little exposure to other cultures you can’t see these traits.  We naturally assume that the rest of the world is, more or less, just like us only with slight “differences” like placing more importance on ancestry—but still… everyone likes to win and likes winners, right?  

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Here is the fatal mistake.  We assume that because we are winning, that everyone else would naturally like to win too and therefore they will probably try to copy us—in fact, they probably even admire our ability and respect us!  Or at least they should… We’re Winning!  Because we are so good, we obviously have the best of everything… OR if we don’t have the best, then we’ve had to make a sacrifice in a few areas to ultimately remain the winner.  

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We are blind to the value the rest of the world has to offer.  We implicitly believe that if other cultures were as good as ours, then they would be winning and not us.  We have very little awareness of how well the rest of the world operates and no awareness of how completely stupid we appear.  We have not come all that far from the “Might makes Right” philosophy.  The leadership of New Zealand (for example purposes only) has every bit of the brain power possessed by the keenest US politician.  Perhaps not the same set of cut throat experiences, but at least the same level of empathy, compassion, and wisdom.  This is true of most nations.  Truth is not contained in one nationality.  Yes, the US may be the biggest economic power.  Yes, the US may have the strongest military.  But these two qualities do not give the US more wisdom than other nations.  It does not give the US more right to say how they should govern.  It in no way implies that the opinions or vision of a US politician are better than the wise men and women around the world.

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The US has in the past delivered some great goods to the world.  It will certainly deliver more in the future.  But we must lead together.  We have a lot of power.  Do we have the wisdom to use it?  The very wise know that they are not wise.  If we were to assume that we are not wise, then we should be listening to others.