Source: Economist
Joining other experts in an online debate, Mark Medish defends the proposition that "Brand America will regain its shine."
A few weeks ago when I was visiting London, a taxi driver struck up a conversation. When he learned I was from America, he shared his views about the former British colony. He said he knew that many people found Americans overbearing and naive, but he saw things differently. He said that the United States, despite its faults, had shown the world "greatness as a nation". He spoke of America as "a source of new ideas" and "a land of self-made people".
I did not get the taxi driver's name, but his optimistic thinking stayed with me. From across an ocean, it captured something fundamental about America.
It reminded me of Walt Whitman's great line: "O America because you build for mankind I build for you."
Whitman wrote those words at a time of impending crisis—on the eve of civil war—but with a clear sense of America's winning purpose.
Today America finds itself in crisis again, mostly self-inflicted. It is not difficult to see that the US global image has suffered in recent years. The Iraq war, was misguided and has taken an enormous toll in lives and treasury. Confidence in the market economy has been deeply shaken by the financial meltdown on Wall Street.
The names Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have joined Korematsu and My Lai as deep stains on the national reputation. And the names Enron and Madoff are the new shorthand for greed and corruption in the market economy.
Pessimists talk about national decline and even make comparisons with the fall of Rome. But, if the pessimists were right, America would have declined long ago.
Yes, the United States has made some big mistakes, even lost its way. But it would be a profound misunderstanding to conclude that America cannot regain its shine. To the contrary, history shows that America has an uncanny ability to pull itself together, mend its ways and reach new heights.
Indeed, history gives me more, not less, confidence that America will rise to today's challenges and shine again.
The United States has endured major national challenges and low points. Think of slavery and the Civil War, the destruction of Native American tribes, the Great Depression, the internment of Japanese-Americans during the second world war and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy period.
I grew up in the era of Vietnam and Watergate. I watched a US president resign in shame, and I can clearly remember how badly tarnished Brand America was then.
But in any serious narrative, the dark chapters are merely prologue to new births of freedom, peace and prosperity. The headline of history is not that America failed, but that America finds the wherewithal to overcome evils and disasters. It will do so again.
There is no question that America today faces enormous challenges at home and abroad. But there is no reason to doubt America's innate ability to meet them. As President Obama promised in his inaugural address, "they will be met". One could almost hear the lips of millions of rapt listeners whispering to themselves, "Yes, we can".
I would venture that if Americans cannot rise to the challenges the world now faces, no other nation can. And most world opinion shares this view. Isn't this why so many people around the world were so closely watching the US election campaign last year—remember the crowds at the Brandenburg Gate—and watching Barack Obama's inauguration?
America is a country, and America is also an idea. America the country is a nation-state, with its own borders and national interests. It belongs to its citizens. But America the idea—the idea of limited government by the people, the idea of "liberty and justice for all"—belongs to every citizen of the world.
John F. Kennedy said: "Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history—but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind." His point adds an important psychological dimension to the notion of global interdependence with US leadership.
We are talking about eternal aspirations that belong to humankind. Americans have no moral superiority over other peoples. America has no monopoly on hopes and dreams, but in our time this country seems specially positioned and called upon to lead the way.
Immigrants have come to America's shores for centuries and become Americans. But you need not be an American, immigrant or native-born, to share the American idea.
America the country may at times fall short of America the idea, but the big idea lives on, and the big country eventually catches up.
To repeat: America is not perfect. As a nation, we are proud, and at times arrogant. As a people, we are diverse, at times incoherent. We are dynamic, at times excessively so. The United States is a big country, and it can make big mistakes.
So, what then accounts for the undeniable resilience of Brand America? It is simply this: America does not fear change.
America's brand is change. In so many countries and in so many cultures, the governing instinct is to deny mistakes, to hide errors and to suppress dissent, in the name of order, tradition or some ideology.
Yet American culture has embraced the opposite view. It demands transparency, encourages criticism and asks us to come to grips with our own mistakes. It can be a messy, unflattering and difficult process. There is nothing automatic about success. It all depends on the unfettered voice of the people and the undaunted will of individuals to do better.
This capacity for change and reinvention is quintessentially American. Largely self-made throughout their history, Americans know how to make and re-make themselves. They are builders, as Whitman said.
Kennedy said in his famous 1963 speech, "Peace is a process, a way of doing things." His words well describe the nature of the American idea: it is a process, a way of doing things. America is in motion. America the idea is a journey to the future, not a final destination or a resting place.
America is often considered an adolescent republic compared with the wise countries of the Old World, such as the mature social-democratic countries of the European Union, or China in its latest incarnation as an authoritarian emerging market, to take two examples.
America is indeed relatively young. And the American way of life is in many ways adolescent: boisterous, impatient and wasteful. Yet, in the broader perspective, American democracy is wise beyond its years:
"The quality and spirit of our own society," said Kennedy, "must justify and support our efforts abroad." In other words, change begins at home. As he said, "[We] should begin by looking inward."
Last year, a clear majority of Americans looked inward and implicitly agreed with many of the concerns about their country's direction voiced worldwide.
On election day 2008, Americans chose between Achilles and Odysseus: between John McCain, who spoke a great deal of the long wars ahead, and Barack Obama, who promised a journey homeward to America's founding ideals. The people's choice has been greeted with hope and expectation around the world.
Electing Barack Obama, the brilliant son of a black African and a white American, is a sign not of fear or anxiety about the United States, but of confidence in America's inner strength and the fundamental health of the American model. What could be a more decisive first step in yet another journey of national renewal?
Again, Whitman: "The Republic is ever constructive and ever keeps vista".
President Obama knows that we must rebuild America's credibility and that the country must demonstrate through deeds that it can make good on the American idea for a new generation both at home and abroad.
Millions and millions of people around the world seem to be looking to America to lead the way out of this time of global peril, economic, security, environmental. They would appear to believe that America can and will regain its shine, for its own sake and for theirs. They would be right.
Click here to read the full debate on the Economist website.