It's such a pity that the whole world is in a mess. It was created by a singe nation. America. The greatest country in the world has led the world into a mess that was completely uncalled for. For decades we have revered America and aped everything American. Now suddenly the whole world wakes up to realize that most of what they so proudly espoused was actually a pile of filth. A hell of a lot was wrong with America and no one ever realized it.
There is no denying that Americans have been pioneers in a vast majority of fields. Their values of individualism and enterprise have given the world a lot of what it holds dear in terms of true advancement. But that doesn't give a nation the licence to engineer disaster. And that is what America has repeatedly done during the course of its dominance of the world. It has created unprecedented crises time and again.
America, for all its cries about being the champion of democracy and responsible leadership was the first and only nation to use a nuclear weapon against the civilians of another nation. The Atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the origin of the nuclear arms race. Then came Vietnam where America conclusively proved that it doesn't deserve to be the self-righteous leader of the free world that it claims it is. Iraq and Abu Ghraib were shameful corroborations of the irresponsibility of the Americans.
The current financial crisis is America's doing. A nation that doesn't save and spends what the rest of the world invests in it is also the same nation that claims it has the right business lessons for us. America is a nation founded as much on credit as it claims to be on 'liberty and justice for all'. Borrow to spend is the philosophy that the Americans have followed for so long and so shamelessly while driving the world into an economic cesspool. If we claim that an economy is booming just because people are borrowing more to spend more, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the Economics that the world has taught itself.
BIG is a synonym for America. Because Americans want everything big in their lives. They drive obscenely large inefficient fuel guzzling cars, eat unhealthily large meals, carry extra-large bodies and do just about everything on a big, albeit unsustainable scale. This is what they have taught the rest of the world through their capitalist corporations and their political dominance. Even the most staunch capitalist would admit that capitalism is founded on the twin emotions of greed and fear. The interplay of greed and fear is what fuels the economic cycles in the world today. But the scale on which these interactions have been affecting the world order in current times is simply appalling. Screw ups of the magnitude that we are witnessing today would never have been possible without the "BIG" thinking that Americans typically bring to the table.
Every culture has its own unique traditions that get ingrained in its psyche over a period of time. A distinct identity of a race evolves from the experiences that the race collectively participates in and the reactions of people from that race to what happens to them. America has thus developed a culture of free-thinking individualism. Americans, through their historical upbringing have a sense of unbridled ambition that is fuelled by a desire to do more for themselves. No holds barred consumerism is only a by-product of this tendency that Americans have developed over the decades.
I do not dispute the fact that there is much to learn from our American friends. They are probably the only civilization that truly respects the sanctity of the individual and holds his rights to be sacrosanct. Americans respect enterprise and risk-taking more than any other people in the world. That having been said, one would do well to remember that no single model of living would fit the whole world today. We are all distinctly diverse in our own ways and socio-economic models can never be imposed on any race without disturbing results. We need to come up with our own models of living and working based on the cultural identity and values of our own race. There are things that we are certainly better at that we must seek to leverage in order to hold our own and excel as a nation or a civilization.
Last, but not the least: God seriously bless America.
