American Cola

Source.  

We Americans who care about the opinions of others are sometimes known for our touching eagerness to be liked. We are liked, aren't we? The reality of the situation is, of course, a complex version of "it depends." Sometimes we seem to me to be some kind of outsized teenager; the world has to figure out how to put up with our undeniable creativity, enormous energy, and clumsy attempts at adulthood. As with many teenagers, we think we know far more than we do, and we have adolescent immortality, too; somehow we think our imperial status is permanent. In our disdain for the conventional wisdom of the rest of the world, we exalt our own high ideals, comparing them with the hypocrisy and cynicism of "old Europe," and rarely noticing when we betray those same ideals ourselves.

Yet there's still something attractive about that creativity and energy. What else would explain why so many people, perfectly capable of seeing our flaws, still consume a big diet of American culture, and millions each year seek to relocate to the USA? Many of them seem to be able to differentiate between the America that represents a rich seedbed (though hardly risk-free) for personal and family opportunity, and the America that refuses elementary provisions for access to health care, makes educational financing as complicated as possible, and whose national leadership seemingly believes that obstinate stupidity is a virtue.

So the SPAR supermarket chain seems to believe that branding their house cola as American Cola gives it valuable credibility. ("Genuine taste, genuine cola," it says on the bottle I bought at the SPAR grocery store across Yalagin Street from me, just past Elektrostal's McDonald's. The product's motto: "If you can't taste the difference, why pay for the difference?") I guess they're not conducting their marketing with fearful backward glances at Mecca-Cola. I was glad to have a bottle of that genuine taste as I sat in this kitchen, preparing my materials for the American country studies class I'm teaching at the New Humanitarian Institute. So reassuring that the adjective "American" still stands for something!

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Here are some of the "first principles" I'm using to shape the American studies class:

1. emphasize American values and their sources, without concealing our failures and compromises in implementing them
2. provide links to the experiences of the Russian nation without invidious comparisons
3. describe and demonstrate complex interplays of geography, culture, and politics with actual stories
4. don't bite off more than we can chew: trace themes and provide cases, don't insist on unrealistic comprehensiveness or chronological rigidity.
5. contrast different methods and approaches (example: typical high school text book compared with Howard Zinn)

Today, some of the stories I used to illustrate the theme of idealism vs realism were the decisions faced by Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War, and the overthrow of the Arbenz administration in Guatemala in 1954.

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Arriving in Elektrostal; second day of classes.

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Righteous links: Putin-watching has certainly become even more interesting. ~~~ Here's a helpful primer on conscientious objection, presented by the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. ~~~ Barclay Press's online book discussion for this month is on Mary Darling's and Tony Campolo's The God of Intimacy and Action. Co-author Darling is serving as moderator.

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Two very different Texas videos! (1) The State Bar of Texas unveils a video contest to "Capture the promise of justice for all." (2) The Thunderbirds present Lou Ann Barton.