I was intrigued to come across The World Citizen's Guide, up for a Webby, a website acknowledging that "for a number of reasons, 'favorablility' ratings for America are declining around the world." The site gives advice to American tourists on how to behave and better promote their country.
According a listening exercise by Business for Diplomatic Action:
Four root causes of anti-American sentiment... are: our U.S. public policy, the negative effects of globalization, our popular culture and our collective personality.
It's easy enough to think of examples of the first three. I presume "public policy" means "foreign policy"; America has been often in the news of late invading this sovereign country or that (oil-rich) sovereign country with apparent disregard for the wishes of the UN. In terms of globalization, for example, the US received bad press over not doing its part, as the world's biggest polluter, to help stem climate change. Not to mention this book. Popular culture might be exemplified by McDonald's, and the Super Size Me backlash.
I've previously written about my own preconceptions as a first-time visitor to the States. But I would struggle to define an American "collective personality". The site says:
The negative stereotypes about our collective personality are something we travelers can help change.
So I decided to "reverse engineer" the 25 simple suggestions for appropriate behaviour to discover what the original data may have said we non-Americans think of Americans. What follows is the list I came up with. Americans are supposedly:
- ignorant;
- false (I heard somewhere that "Have a nice day!" is loosing popularity);
- show-offs;
- insular;
- impatient;
- all like the TV sterotype;
- expecting others to like what they like;
- not willing to learn the civilities in other languages;
- know-it-alls;
- "me me me";
- insensitive;
- full of clichés;
- arrogant;
- Christian fanatics;
- loud and rude;
- uneducated;
- arguementative;
- opinionated;
- naive;
- disrespectful;
- baseball-mad;
- not trustworthy;
- ugly [not sure about this one—"show your best side"]
- treating other countries like Disneyland.
Wow! I'd love to know how these ranked... If this is the perception, they have every reason to be concerned. Somebody at least has woken up to this:
While it is true that the rise in negative feelings toward us may result from perceptions more than reality, it is also true that perceptions are powerful opinion makers.
The site features a graphic that demonstrates how "un-American" and truly diverse the world actually is. Perhaps this is the best way for Americans (and others) to get a quick perspective on their place in the Greater Scheme of Things:
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