For decades now the US has been closing its cultural centers and trying to whip up enthusiasiam for cheap substitutes which surveys have shown to be ineffectual. The rationale for the cost cutting jag? That old end of history canard. Once the Cold War was over, there’d be no need to promote the American brand. We’d won. The future was us—the U.S.
The Greeks were so right about the need for self-knowledge and the dangers of hubris. Our joy and relief when the Berlin Wall came down were so extreme that we thought the U.S. would be on top for ever—well, there were some level headed sorts who considered such thinking to be absurd, but they were pooh-poohed. We cut back on our public diplomacy programs, and within ten years our public diplomacy agency went poof! Gone. In all fairness, I need to add that the Brits were cutting back on British Council expenditures, the French were less generous to their Alliance Française operations and the Germans were closing Goethe Centers, too. The West, in general, was pretty smug about winning the Cold War and was determined to reap financial dividends.
But history, as it will, moved on. Islam exploded, Russia refused to play the role of deferential poor provincial cousin, and if the 20st century was the American century, the competition for which country will dominate the 21st century seems to be constrained only by the never properly appreciated or understood efforts of India to deny the honor to the Chinese. However, the Chinese are looking so good that the Russians, evidently, have decided to follow the Sino one-party-capitalism model to prosperity.
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