These articles reminded me of the very strong point that Bill Clinton made when he was here in October. He made two basic statements that resonated with me:
1) Americans need to know how lucky we are and embrace it (carefully)
2) Americans need to realize how much we have to learn from (and about) other countries and cultures
These authors support this idea by exposing some of the struggles that exist (especially politically) for people in foreign countries. But they also carry the message that Western ignorance can exacerbate these struggles when the society’s clash. The problems, as Abu-Lughod argues, quite often arise from our failure to look past the surface and beyond what defines people as “other.” Basically, because cultural differences are the easiest way to mark differences in western vs non-western groups, we often assign “wrongness” to them simply because of unfamiliarity.
The established international power of our nation implies a certain amount of responsibility to the people of the world in need. The argument made in “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving” is that we should over come our unexplainable fascination with cultural differences like veiling and focus our strengths and efforts on systemic/political change that allows more freedom to choose how they live rather than encouraging people to live in ways we assume are “better” because we enjoy them more.
Furthermore, as Bunch points out, we need to be careful of polarizing mentalities, like Bush’s “with us or against us.” This type of thinking is a scare tactic used to garner unquestioning support; it minimizes people’s ability to deviate for the better, and it adds strength and numbers to “the enemy” by marginalizing people who think outside the narrow range of “with us.” We should always strive for our right to challenge the status quo in order to broaden perspectives and avoid austere dualities.
I completely agree with you Mike. I think that Clinton is correct when he says that American's can be extremely ethnocentric. It is common for us to think that we are the best and look down at other people. This is unacceptable practice because there is no one way to live. I also like your point about how, as an international powerhouse, we have a responsibility to the rest of the world. While the United States is less of a hegemon than it used to be, it is still a dominant force in the world. It is important that the US leads by example and does not frown on other nations. Another thing that I thought of that would make for an interesting argument is whether or not media has helped or hindered the way that American's view other nations. While on the one hand it could expose more people to other cultures at which point more people would frown upon them OR it could expose people to other cultures more frequently, making people accustomed to them and more accepting. From what I have seen from American society, it seems that the former is more likely than the latter but we are currently in an age of a media boom so what is to come in the future is unknown to all of us. I truly enjoyed your post. Very relevant and interesting.
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