> I know it's not a common topic of conversation for Americans, but the world hates us now. We're the number one threat to peace and stability since 2003, and only getting worse. Yes, I am ashamed of us. We had so much potential.
Okay maybe calm down with the Saint/Devil complex. (I’m not an American.) The way a European might have perceived America in the 90’s would have been through Hollywood. And the same person in 2005– would have perceived America through fast and ubiquitous Internet. (Thanks American State Research?)
The perception moved from pure fiction to meme-filtered, sensationalized reality. So even if America itself hadn’t changed in that time (but I guess it did) the outsider perception of it would still have changed.
> Okay maybe calm down with the Saint/Devil complex.
No. If you don't want people pointing out devilish deeds, don't do the deeds.
Global opinion on this isn't due to a "complex", but a very natural reaction to the events of the last couple decades. I know it's hard to accept. Most Americans I mention this fact to literally can't accept it as true. They get quite upset if they ask for evidence, and then receive exactly that. There's loads of evidence. All the polls broadly agree, and people state the reasons why - in a nutshell, psychotic foreign policy, an easily led populace, and greed.
> The way a European might have perceived America in the 90’s would have been through Hollywood
Opinion didn't change because 'Friends' ran its course. It changed because in 2003 America's leaders chose to lie to America and the world, condemning millions to death for the sake of cheaper resources (yet again).
> The perception moved from pure fiction to meme-filtered, sensationalized reality.
This is how you disregard the opinion of 8 billion people? Memes?
Hollywood and the Internet have roles in all this, sure, but don't get it twisted. It was the war crimes. The murders, bombings and assassinations. The systematic torture of people who never had a trial. The displacement of tens of millions, the support of genocidal regimes, the murderous sanctions.
Flippantly dismissing all this is the American Way. Sure, it feels good to be blissfully ignorant of how detested we've become, and how far we have fallen in the eyes of the world. How unfathomably low the floor has become. But from the outside, it's clearly just sticking your head in the sand. The gleeful and flagrant disregard of the rest of the world's opinion is really old at this point.
> So even if America itself hadn’t changed in that time (but I guess it did)
America and the world has changed, and so have perceptions. But the perception that America is an existential threat to peace and stability hasn't. It rocketed in Iraq, and has continued ever since.
It probably dipped a bit when the US helped defend Ukraine, but the Gaza thing has quite reversed that.
I think it's important that we talk about these very real problems. But it's so much easier to con people, than show them they've been conned.
> No. If you don't want people pointing out devilish deeds, don't do the deeds.
What I was trying to point out is that it’s not about you. No reasonable person is either going to (1) thank you personally for landing on the Moon or (2) blame you for killing half a million Iraqis.
Most bad things the US does is done by the government. And the US is not terribly democratic anyway.
So you can chill out.
> This is how you disregard the opinion of 8 billion people? Memes? […] Flippantly dismissing all this is the American Way.
I keep becoming an Honorary American.
> Sure, it feels good to be blissfully ignorant of how detested we've become, and how far we have fallen in the eyes of the world.
“Fallen”.
It seems you interpreted my whole comment as an excuse for what America does. When what I said was:
- Europeans seemed to love the US when their interpretation of “the US” was by way of the US (Hollywood)
- Europeans seemed to start disliking the US when they saw what America is like by way of the Internet
I can’t fathom how that is a compliment.
Your pre-2003 amnesia is interesting but oh well; it seems that it can go in either direction.
Okay maybe calm down with the Saint/Devil complex. (I’m not an American.) The way a European might have perceived America in the 90’s would have been through Hollywood. And the same person in 2005– would have perceived America through fast and ubiquitous Internet. (Thanks American State Research?)
The perception moved from pure fiction to meme-filtered, sensationalized reality. So even if America itself hadn’t changed in that time (but I guess it did) the outsider perception of it would still have changed.