America's shallowness?

Being shallow isn't just restricted to Americans. It is also a heavily class ridden word, writes Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta.

You may have come across the recent PEW study, which showed how most of the countries in the world dislike Americans. The surprising exception was that of India, where a majority of the Indians liked America (ns). That said, nobody was really that surprised with the feeling of anti-Americanism being prevalent across the world. As can be expected, the reasons are myriad, ranging from foreign policy to military policy and interventions, to cultural exports and so on and so forth. We have heard all this before, it's a perfectly good and well-known human tendency to poke fun at and hate countries, which are more powerful than yours. But there is a deeper angle, which I would like to explore. Over the past few years, the feeling of anti-Americanism has deepened from hating USA's policies to equating Americans with their country's policies and therefore hating the Americans themselves. One of the most common epithets that are levelled against them relate to them being 'shallow'. Why are they called as shallow? What does it mean? Is it true?

I have to point out that being shallow isn't just restricted to Americans. It is also a heavily class ridden word and is frequently found in conversations with snobbish people or people inordinately proud of their intellect or intellectual achievements. I use the word snob advisedly, because this behaviour is often seen in public. Oh! She is so shallow, all she can talk about are nails and hair extensions; he is so shallow " all he can talk about is football and pubs; he is so shallow all he can talk about are girls and cars; she is so shallow all she reads is the TV Guide and celebrity magazines, they are so shallow - all they want is hamburgers and coke, so on and so forth. This is, as opposed to, deep activities and topics such as reading Thucydides, Herodotus, Ibn Khaldun, Adam Smith or the Gita; discussing the existence of the soul; handing out leaflets about the poor people in Mongolia; getting very exercised about the religious dimensions of how many angels does it take to dance on the head of a pin or what is the real god given procedure to pick your nose. Not that these are bad or anything, but besides doing these intelligent and noble activities, the sneering tone that others, who do not do this, are 'shallow' is well known and seen.

Before I progress further, I have to confess that I admire the Americans for various reasons. Admittedly, there is much to be criticised, but there is good and bad in every section of society and in every country. Stereotyping and condemning a whole nation, by attaching a label, just tells me that the person is at best a snob and at worst a bigot. This is a slippery slope, and as we have seen over the ages, almost every group of people have got discriminated against at some point in time because of this human tendency. Whether looking at it from a religious perspective (Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims) or from a racial perspective (Black, White, Brown, Yellow, Green) or from a country perspective (British, Indians, Americans, French...), or even an ethnic perspective (Kurds, Gypsies, Hispanics, Tootsies, Hutus) they all have suffered. In the worst-case scenario, it can lead to really bad things happening. But I digress, back to the Americans.

Americans are called as shallow mainly because of snobbish reasons, and it is usually driven by events which could be as far fetched as the public poll for the greatest American, or the holding of entertainment events like the Oscar ceremony, or at political events such as the presidential or gubernatorial elections and so on and so forth. It's funny, but it almost always follows the same pattern. "Oh, these Americans are so shallow most of them can't read a book without text balloons; they cannot elect a president to save their lives; they cannot watch anything serious, but spend their life watching "Desperate Housewives" or "Baywatch"; they spend their lives watching semi-naked women cavorting around cars; they prefer their huge SUV's to nice little scooters and petrol efficient cars; they are so shallow that they don't care about what their government is doing in the outside world; they are so shallow and so materialistic, that only a very small proportion of their population has passports and have visited abroad and, all in the same vein." As I mentioned before, this is a particularly class ridden thing. Frankly, for the people on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder, ask them about America or better still, would you prefer to be living in 'shallow' America and then watch their reactions, across wide swathes of the world, they would be jumping up and down to move there. Shallow? Bring it on, babe.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (an American) said: "I hate this shallow Americanism, which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods through pretending that they sell, or power through making believe you are powerful, or through a packed jury or caucus, bribery and 'repeating' votes, or wealth by fraud. "Let's take this one at a time. The first aspect, in my point of view, is the imperial hubris syndrome. According to this theory, the Americans are shallow and do not realise that their country is acting in an imperialist manner with significant imperial overstretch. Hmmm, is it really so? Some may point to overstretch in terms of the federal deficit, significantly increased military spending and lack of internal growth. That said, we have seen exactly these factors in the early 1970's and well, over the past 35 years, it doesn't look like it is collapsing. Colonialism is another factor, the significantly large majority of Americans don't really pay that much attention to foreign policy, in common with most of the world, their concerns are with taxes, health care, pensions, crime, environment etc. Does this make them shallow? Nope, I cannot see the logical connection at all.

Let us not forget that for people, who moan about America's foreign policy, up till WWII, USA followed an isolationist policy and it got slated for its stand. Then came the status quo phase, where the emphasis was on the cold war and protecting the then existing world order. The first President Bush moved just a bit ahead, but still was going for the status quo; otherwise he would have taken out Saddam Hussein in Gulf War I itself. Then came the hand-wringing do-nothing time of the Clinton era. It is only now in President Bush II's time, that the foreign policy has moved into some kind of forward mode, or neo-conservative policy so to say. Unfortunately, all this tells me is that USA is going to be hammered no matter what. The shallowness accusation is simply an illogical sentiment to cover up the lack of reasoned argument.

The second aspect concerns the book reading aspects of the Americans. Said in a sneering tone, apparently they don't read anything, they don't produce anything literary and they prefer sound bites. Actually, this is a significantly and even dangerously facile way of looking at them. The number of books published in the USA, even adjusted for population (which may not be right) is at or near the top of the rankings. Literature is well and truly flourishing in that country. Libraries are frequently core pillars of any American community, providing a vast range of services ranging from books, periodicals, local information, research, internet access etc. and they are heavily used. That said, why call them shallow? Mainly because of ignorance of the sheer depth of scholarship in America. A look at the Nobel Prize winners in scientific fields, Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism and the myriad of American winners in diverse arts, peace and science fields should clarify that once and for all.

The third aspect which people forget is the absolute prevalence of American sciences within the modern world. Starting from medicines, technology, engineering, to meteorology, chemical and agricultural sciences, the prevalence of American brains is simply gob smacking. What we don't see when we accuse Americans of being shallow is their intellectual ability, curiosity and thirst for knowledge, which drives the betterment of entire mankind. Yes, there is a significant proportion of Americans who may not even have heard of Scientific American or Popular Mechanics (to mention two examples of popular science magazines) and who prefer TV Week, but assuming that the great mass of Americans are dumb is a seriously flawed measure and just indicates blind hatred or is it envy?

The fourth aspect is the ability of accusers to pick up ONE fact, which relates to a particular time, for a particular place and extrapolate it to a broad generalisation. This is surely lazy thinking. Take the Hollywood or MTV winner's nights. A huge number of Americans, along with a significant proportion of the whole world joins in. The funny thing is, this particular fact is seized and taken as an indication of the shallowness of Americans. Leaving aside the scientific absurdity of trying to establish a fact on the basis of a sample of one, just what does that tell you? The UN says that the USA officially gives less than 0.7% of its GDP in aid and critics seize upon this fact and say that the USA is stingy, forgetting about the fact that USA's primary giving is private and philanthropic in nature. But then, it is easier to develop a lazy judgement than to have a balanced one.

The fifth aspect is the accusation that their enemies are simplistic, at least in conception. For example, the Nazi's were fascists, the Commies were the evil empire, Al-Qaeda hates their way of life. One of the classical conundrums, which I have yet to resolve, is the common accusation that the Americans helped Al-Qaeda to be born. Ok, so I can understand that the Americans, with hindsight, are facing blowbacks from using the jehadi's to fight the communists in the first place. Simplistic? Shallow? Hmmm, maybe not foresighted. But what does that tell us about these jehadis? How DID they allow these shallow infidels to use them as cannon fodder? Hmmm, not shallow but definite signs of stupidity.

The sixth aspect is the sneer that only a tiny proportion of Americans have a passport and travel outside their country. Needless to say, one would usually see this accusation coming from people who are relatively rich and able to afford travel or come from small countries. What people may not realise is, that the USA is a huge country with huge immigrant populations and frankly, they have almost a tiny world inside their country. Geographically or culturally, they can get all that they want by jumping into a plane or drive off in any direction. Mountains, deserts, canyons, savannah, rivers, valleys, plateaus, deltas, gulfs, you name it, they have it. Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arab cultures, they got it. I have noticed the same behaviour in large populous states such as China, India and Russia and from what I have heard, in Brazil, Indonesia and Argentina. Are all of these nationalities shallow as well?

The next aspect, which needs to be considered, is the related factor of melting pot and meritocracy. The fact that a poor immigrant (legal, of course) can come into the country and by dint of sheer hard work and merit, become rich is something, which is significantly unique in the world. If we draw up a table with countries where this scenario is replicated and draw a cross section of immigrants (if they are even allowed), track them over a period of a generation or two, see their socio-economic status change, I can bet that USA will come further up the table than lower down. Assimilation is higher in USA than in many other European or even Asian countries. This is not to say that there is no inequality, it is higher than in countries such as Sweden for example, or that there are no problems with assimilation, integration or racism. Yes, Sir, they do exist, but to what extent? That is the American dream and would you actually say they are shallow for believing that (facts aside) or is that coming because we cannot consider this kind of upward movement because of our prior experience in other countries?

The final aspect, which I would refer to, is their political system. A young country, sneered at by the older civilisations and countries for being young, brash and shallow. That said, a significant proportion of the recent developments in politics has been driven by Americans. Starting from George Washington and the framers of the US constitution who came up with an amazing far-sighted document; to Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson to JFK, to Ronald Reagan to Abe Lincoln, giants of political ideology strode the stage. Not only that, generally we have seen powerful political and social figures, such as Martin Luther King to Ronald Reagan who have emerged and have shaken the political system up. In other words, cometh the moment " cometh the manâ" seems to be more appropriate in the USA than other countries. Yes, money plays a big part and yes there are challenges such as re-districting, expensive campaign requirements, presence of lobbyists, etc. but are they really shallow? I do not think so. There is plenty to disagree with the above, but by and large, I have concluded that the accusation of shallowness does not really hold water (if you excuse the rather sad pun).

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

(The opinion expressed herein are strictly the author's and do not reflect the positions, official or otherwise, of any firm or organisation, that the author is associated with at the present or has been in the past or may be in future. Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta, currently lives in the City of London and works there in various capacities in the Banking Sector.)