I once knew a former hippie woman whose son was into Jim Morrison, had long hair, and was having all sorts of adventures. I heard her call him a poser.person would never think of coming to America. A French person who does come to America must really want it. Such a person is more likely to be patriotic than would a person from a place such as Nigeria, where sentiment is highly pro-American and many
My response is that if someone is doing something when it is not a part of a trend, then he must really want it; which means that he is more the genuine article than someone who does it when it is part of a trend.
There are some in America who do not want to have immigrants coming over from France. These people are not thinking straight. In France, the media culture is very anti-American, and people are relatively well-off. This means that a regular French
I had a girlfriend from Portland, Oregon, who found the โEuropean pretentionsโ of Portland yuppies to be annoying. She was not looking at why they had these โpretentions.โ These people wanted to have in their lives some kind of style; and ifthey were going for that to Europe or to Japan, it was simply because these places were better at doing style than was Portland.
Were they โpretentiousโ or โposersโ or โsnobsโ? No. In fact these people improve their country by bringing into it something from another place that has value. The Europeans are better at culture and style than Americans, and that has alegitimate appeal to people in America. By bringing something good into one's country from another place, one improves one's country.
The person from India or China or Russia who looks up to American political or economic systems is likewise not a โposerโ or a โsnob.โ He is someone who sees something that Americans do better than do the folks at home. And he improves hiscountry by bringing that influence into it.
Similarly people improve other countries by bringing into them worthwhile things from abroad. A Russian immigrant to America brings education and culture that exerts a positive effect on America. And a man from American feminist culture immigrating toAustralia brings better ideas of how to treat women, likewise improving the country to which he comes.
Countries grow that way; cultures grow that way. In all cases, there are people loyal to bad habits and wrong ideas who object to this โ such as people in Portland seeing yuppies as โpretentiousโ or โsnobs,โ or folks in Australia postingslander against me. That is because they want to maintain their inferior habits and are threatened through introduction of better ways. These people think that they are loyal citizens, but actually they exert a destructive influence on their home society.
America benefits through introduction of style from Europe or Japan; and Australia benefits through introduction of more gentlemanly attitudes. Similarly Russia benefits through introduction of American or Australian ideas of how to do politics andeconomics. The people who oppose any of the above in the name of patriotism or โtheir way of lifeโ are either deluded or lying. Countries grow through introduction of good ideas from abroad. And that is the case with every country.
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