{"id":2834,"date":"2010-07-29T13:08:45","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T18:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=2834"},"modified":"2010-07-29T13:08:45","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T18:08:45","slug":"were-1-at-thinking-we-are-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2010\/07\/29\/were-1-at-thinking-we-are-1\/","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;re #1 (at thinking we are #1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lisa Wade at Sociological Images posted a fascinating chart on the level of patriotism citizens of different countries exhibit &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/SociologicalImagesSeeingIsBelieving\/~3\/ShNJ5H0ihy0\/\">details here<\/a>.\u00a0 Predictably, the USA ranks #1 in thinking they are #1 (although not by much).\u00a0 But what was more interesting was a passage Wade quoted from <a href=\"http:\/\/madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com\/2010\/07\/21\/were-1\/\">Claude Fischer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We believe that we are #1 almost across the board, when in fact we are  far below  number one in many arenas \u2013 in health, K-12 education,  working conditions, to  mention just a few. Does our #1 pride then blind  us to the possibility that we  could learn a thing or two from other  countries?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When does national pride become an unproductive hubris?\u00a0 This isn&#8217;t a new question, but the data makes concrete a key paradox in American culture.\u00a0 How can a country be both innovative, dynamic and multicultural while at the same time exhibiting a reluctance to embrace ideas from other countries?\u00a0 Is it just sunny optimism to believe erroneously that your culture is better than others, or is it a lack of national and personal\u00a0 maturity to cling to a myth of national superiority?\u00a0 I prefer to live in a country with a relentless optimism and even maybe arrogance to a measured realism, even if a bit misguided.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a certain charm in thrusting oneself headlong into an uncertain future.\u00a0 However I do wonder at what point does national conceit turn into a farce?\u00a0 As the US loses its share of global output and productivity, does a maturing of national character need to take place to keep us from becoming a caricature of our current selves?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lisa Wade at Sociological Images posted a fascinating chart on the level of patriotism citizens of different countries exhibit &#8211; details here.\u00a0 Predictably, the USA ranks #1 in thinking they are #1 (although not by much).\u00a0 But what was more interesting was a passage Wade quoted from Claude Fischer: We believe that we are #1 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2835,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2834\/revisions\/2835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}