I don't know if it's the Olympics, the traveling or some latent form of home-sickness, but I've had nationalism on my mind quite a bit these days. The real impetus for me writing this post is this article, which has been making its way around the interwebs of late. It's an entertaining piece, but the way it's written made me start thinking about the way we process our time abroad.
The “most Americans” that this article addresses are of the same type that Europeans typically think of: brash, egocentric, ignorant and insular. My Roman CouchSurfing host outlined the typical influx of American university students during prime study-abroad time: they never leave the city center, party constantly, always frequent the same bars (including one that lets you play beer pong inside), and don’t learn a word of Italian. These are the “bad” American tourists – the ones that bring the US to Europe and refuse to interact with, let alone assimilate, any foreign cultures.
Manson, by contrast, is one of the “good” ones. Not only has he lived abroad, but he has actually made friends from other countries and learned other languages. He has talked to enough Europeans to understand some of the many cultural differences between their societies and ours. Most Europeans would have you believe that these types are exceedingly rare – one of the most common and frustratingly back-handed compliments I’ve received is that I’m “not the typical American,” the implication being that “typical” equates to “bad”.
The duality proposed by Manson’s article is an easy one to embrace because it gives you a clearly defined rule of thumb for visiting other countries: don’t be that guy, be this one. But the reality is that these stereotypes are just that: unrealistic and oversimplified to the point of insult. I’ve met Europeans (and Americans) who refuse to look past these two groups, and that prejudice can poison a cross-cultural exchange as severely as an American behaving “badly”.
What draws us to the “good” type as outlined in Manson’s article is its apparent espousal of a stance of infinite openness. We aspire to learn all of the nuances of another culture in a purely objective way, and this model seems to present that ideal. But in reality it’s not that simple. The very act of cross-cultural comparison requires a judgment, and we should stop fooling ourselves into thinking that it’s possible to avoid the subjective.
Manson's duality is thus not really about openness, but rather the extent to which an individual’s values conform to an “American” or “European” viewpoint. For a European who insists on holding to these stereotypes, a “good” American is only open-minded insofar as he agrees with European values. In Rome, I got the “not a typical American” compliment while discussing poverty and income disparity in the United States. But when I maintained that I still believe in the American Dream, I only received a condescending smirk.
The point here is that close-mindedness is not unique to Americans. Take this passage from a fantastic New Yorker piece about Chinese tourists in Europe for example:
The Chinese tourists in this picture fully embody the "bad" type: they refuse to see the benefits of a Mediterranean lifestyle because they are too caught up in their own values, and it's easier to pass that judgment because these tourists are on a 10-day bus trip where they only speak Mandarin and go to Chinese restaurants. But if a Chinese tourist hangs out with Italians for six months and comes to the same conclusion, is that really a problem?
I’m worried that Americans who read Manson's article will react in one of two polarized ways when they go to Europe – either by rejecting instinctively an attack on American values or ingratiating themselves to a European way of thinking without serious reflection. For some reason, “Europe” (which really means Northern Europe) seems to be a trendy, pseudo-Utopian place for young American liberals. But there are problems with Germany, just as there are problems with the United States and every other country on Earth. I have to pay taxes for that awesome universal health care system they have here, even though I’m already covered by a better, private insurer through my program. For most Germans this is just part of the social contract, but for me it’s redundant and wasteful, and understanding that helped me realize why American healthcare reform had to pass in the way it did.
These are the kinds of discussions that we need to have while we’re abroad. If you’re going to blindly accept the values of the country you’re in, then you’re not going to develop as an individual any more than you would if you didn't expose yourself to those values. To get the most out of your time abroad, it helps to straddle that line and not worry about being “bad”.
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