The Ugly American

America is a vulgar place. To say that our culture lacks refinement and etiquette is a serious understatement. Last fall, I was away for a few weeks in Northern Italy, where la dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) is an art form. Upon arrival at New York’s JFK Airport, even the air seemed dirty and stressed. Last month, I traveled to Seoul, South Korea to promote one of my books. Seoul is a city of 25 million citizens who all seem to embody Korean jeong: a feeling of respect, love, kindness, and affection for one’s fellow man. I cannot think of a single English word that is comparable. We have been labeled “Ugly Americans” for good reason. We are extremely aggressive, overdriven, overwrought, and competitive.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1831. In it, he warned that America is a land of equal opportunity but that Americans were very practical, commercial-minded, and showed little interest in the arts or literature. He then said that our constitutionally protected equal status at birth produces a compulsive need to demonstrate our special worth. He felt that the lack of any class system—at least in comparison to Europe—produced an anxious need to accumulate observable evidence of one’s proper social place to avoid shame. Welcome to the world of conspicuous consumption. His remarks were incredibly prescient, and Democ-

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racy in America remains one of the most definitive texts on the American character. His point about our lack of interest in the arts and literature remains relevant.

For 10 years, I had a syndicated column for the Journal Register Company and was asked to review both sports and the arts. I recall watching Yankee games in front of sell-out crowds of 55,000 screaming fans per night and the next week attending a performance by Shen Wei Dance Arts, which was China’s leading modern group. Shen Wei was barely able to fill a 300-seat theater at Jacob’s Pillow. I realized then how little Americans care about the arts. The baseball player Derek Jeter was making about $20 million per year, whereas Hou Ying, the leading dancer in China, made about $25,000. The reasons that Americans are vulgarians have multiple determinants. Based upon de Tocqueville’s writing, I feel we are essentially a masculine nation. We like sports, war, commerce, and all things practical. It seems that we do not care much for our aesthetic or feminine nature, which is so valued and supported in the arts. Aesthetics serves to soften destrudo, or the aggression that Freud referred to as the death wish. Thus, we are left with foul mouths and vulgarity.

All our anger is related to the way we live. We no longer have a sense of community. Our growing sense of isolation and the resultant loneliness produces a depression that remains unacknowledged and masked in most Americans. America’s obesity and overuse of drugs are directly related to this masked depression. This combines with our compulsive competiveness, aggressiveness, conspicuous consumption, and finally, depletion. Edward Shorter, a Professor of History at University of Toronto (From the Mind into the Body, 1994), reported that the single leading psychosomatic symptom reported today is chronic fatigue.

Political figures often have difficulty dealing with these aspects of the population. Obama has failed to address the nation’s underlying sense of anger, unhappiness, and discontent; in fact, this almost cost him the election. But one can’t blame him for turning a blind eye to all of this malaise. Perhaps one of his advisors reminded him what happened to the last president who consulted with a historian and social critic. President Carter understood our great American malaise back in the 1970s and brought Christopher Lasch

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(The Culture of Narcissism, 1976) to Camp David to help him with one of his major television addresses on the oil shortage. The address was known as Carter’s “Malaise Speech” and was one reason he was voted out of office after one term.

America is a dynamo of capitalistic opportunity unmatched in the world. But our shadow side is aggression, entitlement, arrogance, and vulgarity. To feel la dolce far neinte and all the beauty and refinement of Europe or Asia is a marvelous thing. But, alas, I am like most Americans and addicted to overwork and all those irresistible consumables that money buy, like a new Lexus, a country club membership, or a fashionable summer home in the Hamptons. Ah, yes, the American Dream.

And so it is for all those smiling immigrants that come to our shores with high hopes in their hearts. This is the land of the free with equal opportunity for all. “Bring me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Democracy in America is alive and well, but for my money it needs a little bit of polishing up. Maybe some Korean jeong or some of la dolce far neinte one feels when in Italy. The joy of doing nothing is not very cost effective but it sure does feel good.

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