Lost in Translation

I am convinced Americans essentially fall into three categories.  The first are those that have no idea a world outside of America exits.  If asked, they can't find anything on a map.  They might aimlessly drag their finger over the various colored shapes but when asked to identify Japan they will point toward the Middle East.  These are the folks that despite tens of thousands of American war dead don't have a clue where Iraq and Afghanistan are.  They live simple lives migrating between home and work.  I don't know if their simplicity should be abhorred or admired. There is most certainly always comfort in ignorance.  I guess it wouldn't make a difference if they were not given equal power to make decisions over all of our lives through one man one vote.  They tend to be single issue voters.  The one thing most important in their lives is their gun and based on that all decisions are made.  I don't hate these people but I don't understand them either.  They frustrate me.  I can't identify with their culture or system of values.  It was not the system I was raised with and it is not the way I have chosen to live my life.  Still, it is an example of American culture.  It is an identity of a large swath of our population.

There is a second category of those that keep an eye on the world and life yet also are primarily concerned with their own existence.  These people can come in many forms.  They can be completely self centered considering little that doesn't directly impact themselves or they can be outgoing and accepting just slightly naive.  This is not a result of education because many of our corporate leaders fall into this realm.  Their primary motive is profit above all else.  Everything else is secondary, people, national identity, patriotism.  They are the bedrocks of our economy and the bane of our identity. 

The third category is by far the smallest.  These are people that have crossed international and sometimes simply cultural boundaries.  They have identified a place in the world and see themselves as a piece of a much larger puzzle.  I have noticed surveys trying to quantify this by asking the question, do you view yourself as a citizen of the world?  I am a part of this group.  Some of my identity was developed around fortune and opportunity.  I am lucky to have been educated and to have spent considerable amounts of my life living abroad.  For this reason I maintain many friendships in the colored blocks on that giant map so difficult for most Americans to identify.

America has always suffered from an infection of simplicity and ignorance.  Many of our preceding generations came to escape a national identity and live instead with simply a cultural one.  For large parts of our history we have chosen to look inward as a nation.  While politically and militarily this has progressively changed since the Spanish American War commenced the era of American colonialism among our people, little is different.  In many ways I think today it is worse than ever.  When our son's and daughters departed to fight in the First, Second, Korean and Vietnam wars we at least cared enough to discover more about the conflict that would consume many of their lives. 

I think the most frustrating thing is when my friends abroad contact me about something they have seen in the news.  American violence is an ever present topic.  They don't understand why we are a society governed by guns and in truth I am not sure why either.  There are a multitude of excuses yet in truth there always seems to be a counter.  We were a frontier society is the most popular.  Yet this fails to explain how nations like Canada and Australia with very similar experiences moved beyond our present condition. 


To be fair, those in other lands see us

Rep Joe Barton (R) The face of ignorance

through a looking glass with partial blinders on yet the simple fact is, they see us.  The other day a Swiss friend asked me about the Sequester and American budget problems.  "Oh it is all over the news here." she said.  I couldn't help but wonder how many Americans could describe something happening in Switzerland or Europe or even find the continent on a map?  Sadly not many.  The unfortunate reality is the world sees us as simplistic, arrogant and ignorant.  How could global warming even be a debate in America when 97% of climate scientist agree it is happening?  How can we have an elected politician seated as a congressman from Texas (Rep. Joe Barton - R)  that actually says the great flood of the Old Testament is proof global warming is not real?  A number of the Congressmen sitting on the Congressional committee responsible for science and technology do not believe in evolution.  How can we even debate science? To do so is to discount our own minds.  It is as ignorant as a Plains Indian hiding from thunder and saying the sky god is angry.  While void of explanation at least they seemed to understand the value of clean air and clean water and living in natural harmony.

When faced with these questions by my foreign friends  I honestly don't know how to respond.  I don't know how to explain a nation that experienced the horrendous massacre of grade school children at Sandy Hook Elementary yet is unwilling to pass the simplest gun restrictions.  I don't know how to explain ignorance.  I don't know how to explain leaders that are unwilling to look beyond our national experience and learn from others.

Lost in Translation

One of my most favorite films is Lost in Translation.  It spotlights many cultural oddities and how it is hard for one people to understand another.  Still, the oddities it highlights are simplistic when faced with the overriding truth of reality.  I would gladly trade a Japanese woman dressed up like a bunny over an American with no concept of the land she inhabits.


There are so many excuses for ignorance.  Some are more acceptable than others but none are ultimately tolerable to my sanity.  It could be a lack of education or educational standards so low they don't actually teach, only guide a student toward a diploma.  It could be religious faith.  This is maddening because it encourages the human being to set aside rationality for the irrational simply because someone told them to do it.  It could be convenience.  Discarding truth for profit is often rational thought in the minds of many.  What it can't be is something fundamentally human because so many other thinking societies are not affected with this disease. 

Sadly what I don't have for my European friends is answers.  I can try to rationalize the irrational but I ultimately can't explain the overall societal condition.  I like to think things are changing.  Perhaps in some ways they are.  Today more people are in favor of  sensible gun legislation than like Italian food.  A majority of the population now supports civil rights for homosexual couples.  In ten years marijuana possession will likely be legal in the majority of states.  Still it seems like we have so far to go.  I have come to believe that the strongest chain that binds our society is the political forces that rule our land.  They are so beholden to special interests and their own stupidity the interests and opinions of the people are rarely considered in their decision making process.  The majority are ideological miscreants that see their election as a justification for their opinions regardless of if they every truly expressed them to those that elected them.  There is little if any recognition that they represent many more people than the thin majority that put them in office.  How else can you explain people that place funding scientific research in a category so low on the budget change the sequester has slashed it.  It is a strange for a nation that counts scientific advancement as our greatest achievement to hold it in so little regard.  What happened to the nation that learned to fly, cured polio, flew to the moon and was a center for scientific and medical research?

The problem with life in America is when you are that third category of people you tend to look out at the world and think that perhaps there is a better way.  At the same time your voice to explore that better way is so small and insignificant.  I can't help however but feel there is a deep seeded desire among those that rule our lives to keep the people of this nation ignorant and afraid.  As Hitler discovered 70 years ago, those are the easiest to rule and manipulate for the fulfillment of your own wishes. 

Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today but all I can think of is please science, prove I am wrong.