It's definitely not to be more like China. I like the concept of being a more idealized 1950's-style superpower. Far less sexism and racism, while leading the world in science, technology, and culture. The most practical way of achieving that is by taking the best people from other countries and bringing them here into the U.S.
I think it's possible to be a superpower and maintain America's identity while also having the population be as happy as that of Sweden's. That's how I view(ed) the country heading during the 2008-2016 years. Maybe I'm naive but I was seeing a lot of social issues change for the better. We were working towards gay rights. There were discussions around discrimination and racism. We were also bringing a lot more attention to the healthcare issues we have here. There's a trend around being healthy and educated. There was even talk about wages, work/life balance, and the cost of living. I figured things would improve as these discussions began to get louder and take up more of the country's focus.
My views are starting to get a lot more cynical nowadays. I wouldn't mind if the U.S. just turtled and gave up on the dream of being the best. Is it silly to want to be the best country on Earth? Do people from outside the U.S. share that same mentality or is it just some culturally-imposed ideal that the U.S. has?
> Do people from outside the U.S. share that same mentality or is it just some culturally-imposed ideal that the U.S. has?
I think the latter, the whole notion of "The Land of the Free" always feels more like aspirational marketing than something true, and real.
I'm from the UK, although these days I've moved to Finland for personal reasons. I'm proud of the UK, and proud to be from the UK, but at the same time we're a country that used to have an empire, and due to a variety of changes we lost it. Some of the things we did when gaining or maintaining that empire, were terrible, others were generally positive.
But either way I think the UK has largely given up on being a world-leader. In some fields they still have a big edge, in others they're falling behind. Either way I think it is fair to say there is no cohesive push for greatness, just different people/groups/fields individually doing what is best for them. (Which could be extrapolated to extremes, e.g. Brexit.)
> That's how I view(ed) the country heading during the 2008-2016 years. Maybe I'm naive but I was seeing a lot of social issues change for the better.
That wasn't my impression at all. During that time, I lived and worked in Baltimore and Philly. The inner city poverty there was as bad as ever--indeed worse because those cities, like many parts of the country, are getting left behind in the "new economy." In my view, America has a culture problem, not a talent or technology problem. We're people who dish out life sentences for a string of non-capital crimes; in Germany (much less Sweden) the maximum for murder is 15 years. Our state and local mismanagement is more reminiscent of a third world country than a western democracy. Our local governments are insolvent, we're incapable of building infrastructure despite throwing tons of money at it. I just returned from visiting Tokyo. The trains there are so smooth and reliable that they were a revelation to me coming from D.C. Not only do we not have anything like that, I can't even picture how our incompetent governmental units would build something like that.
I'm sure I'm viewing things with rose colored glasses. Germany and Japan are significantly poorer countries than the US, after all. But they manage to get really basic aspects of their society right in a way the US seems culturally incapable of doing.
Things were always far from being good in general, especially when it comes to culture as you mentioned. I just thought maybe there was an upwards trend, you know? Like maybe things now aren't great, but 10, 20, 30 years from now, who knows how much improvement we'll get! The past year has definitely been a shock, at least for me. And like I mentioned in my other comment, maybe I was naive, or just way out of touch with reality.
I think the best example was with gay marriage. I definitely saw how much opposition there was to that, but seeing a lot of the country get dragged into progress made me feel more hopeful. That's the feeling I had in general, about everything. "Here's where we have progress to make; we'll definitely drag along a good portion of the country into it, but we'll get there eventually." Now it seems like the trend is in the opposite direction, or that it'll take way longer than I thought to see any kind of real improvement. Even with the infrastructure you mentioned, it seems like there's a big push to keep things exactly as they are now.
The (delay in) legalization of gay marriage is actually an example of the decline of our institutions, not a reason to be hopeful. When the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage in 1967, more than 80% of the country opposed the practice. It would be 30 more years before a majority of the public would approve. With gay marriage, the Court cowardly waited until more than half of Americans already wanted it legalized. There are very few instances in which the Supreme Court has a mandate to override the popular will. Enforcing the letter of the Equal Protection Clause is one of those. The fact that the Court waited until it was politically acceptable to do so is an indicator of infirmity in the institution.
Is it silly to want to be the best country on Earth? Do people from outside the U.S. share that same mentality or is it just some culturally-imposed ideal that the U.S. has?
Certainly wanting to be the "best" as defined by richest and strongest is limited to a tiny handful countries (Russia, US, China basically), but even Russia and China seem more willing to concede the many flaws in their county. Countries like Sweden on the other hand will happily concede that they'll never be the richest or strongest and so aim to be "best" along other dimensions like equality and social care. Then there are other countries again that would be more than happy to simply make into the next decade more or less in one piece.
The whole "We're number One!" attitude is pretty limited to the US (possibly because they're really the only country that could make a strong argument for actually being "number one").
I think it's possible to be a superpower and maintain America's identity while also having the population be as happy as that of Sweden's. That's how I view(ed) the country heading during the 2008-2016 years. Maybe I'm naive but I was seeing a lot of social issues change for the better. We were working towards gay rights. There were discussions around discrimination and racism. We were also bringing a lot more attention to the healthcare issues we have here. There's a trend around being healthy and educated. There was even talk about wages, work/life balance, and the cost of living. I figured things would improve as these discussions began to get louder and take up more of the country's focus.
My views are starting to get a lot more cynical nowadays. I wouldn't mind if the U.S. just turtled and gave up on the dream of being the best. Is it silly to want to be the best country on Earth? Do people from outside the U.S. share that same mentality or is it just some culturally-imposed ideal that the U.S. has?