Thursday, July 28, 2016

Joe Biden speaks for America

I heard that Joe Biden's speech to the Democratic National Convention was really good so I had a look at it. It surely was a classic American speech. Its very accurate and very straightforward attacks on Donald Trump were appreciated too. What I really noticed, however, was this how the speech revealed something I've noticed before in American rhetoric. Americans have no problem believing and saying that their country is unique and uniquely good, that it includes all the virtues of all of humanity, and always has led and is leading the way into the future, which America owns. (That last bit was pretty much exactly what Biden said at the end of the speech.) How many countries in the world can believe this about themselves? Most of us who do not live in the United States or say China perforce have to take a considerably more modest view of our place in the universe.

1 comment:

Kirk Poore said...

Americans believe in the perfectibility of everything. Something went wrong? We can fix it. Something went right? We can do even better next time. This can lead us into traps (see the No Child Left Behind act, where every school had to improve every year), but it certainly keeps us from settling for "good enough". Some areas, such as California, have distilled this attitude to a lifestyle.