Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Miss Manners: Inferiority can be fought with culture

Judith Martin Universal Uclick

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have had the good fortune to both go to the U.S. and have American visitors here in Sweden many times. I love the U.S., the American hospitality and the positive attitude most seem to have, except regarding one thing that I don’t know how to address:

So many have a negative attitude about their own country, calling themselves ignorant, lacking any form of refinement or culture and, even worse, presuming that I, as a European, should share their negativity about the U.S.

I tell them that I go there because I love the country, I think American novelists, playwrights, directors and so on may be the most influential of all, and I am happy to learn about historical landmarks and so on.

Yet I very often get things like, “This is the oldest building in this town, but I guess it is nothing to you.”

Sometimes it seems that the only way to get out of it is to say, “Yes, I guess you are right, the U.S. sucks.” Then they would surely change their tune, but I refuse to go there.

GENTLE READER: Wouldn’t you think there is enough lamentable anti-Americanism in the world that Americans wouldn’t want to add to it?

But what you describe, and Miss Manners deplores, is a peculiarly old sense of inferiority, echoing the sneers of Europeans two centuries ago, when the U.S., as a “young country,” was denigrated as rough, ignorant, uncultured and ill-behaved.

Considering America was then represented abroad by such people as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, it was not an observant assumption. It is even less so now that the American arts are world-class.

Jingoism is also offensive, Miss Manners hastens to add. Those who boastingly claim that everything is perfect in their country, whatever it is, are as unpleasant as they are unbelievable.

But consider people who air specific complaints may not be guilty of either extreme. Feeling free to dissent is actually a point of pride in America.

She hopes that when you hear such talk, you will gently counter it with your own more informed views.