Why Does the Bush Administration Hate American Culture?

US Secretary of State Condi Rice's take on what UNESCO's Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity means in real-world terms is mostly right, but not totally. She has argued that it will "incite authoritarian regimes to violate the right to freedom of expression and minority rights." I can see where it might be used toward that end. But what she didn't say in that objection (the US and Israel are the only two members of UNESCO to vote against the declaration, which was passed in Paris last week with 148 votes for, two against, and four abstentions) is what everyone knows she really means: "the real impetus behind Rice's opposition would appear to be a desire to maintain [US] cultural hegemony and the economic benefits that come with it."

Of course, I know, the way to spin Rice's position, both cynically and idealistically, is, respectively, because we dominate already, we have nothing to gain by supporting other nation's cultural protectionism and second, free market open exchange and survival of the fittest IS American culture, so we're essentially arguing for the same thing the nations who supported the Declaration are. Both of these are easier to argue while you're on top, and although the second spin is certainly arguable, it's not exactly the aspect of our culture I want to be remembered most for by future generations.

But there's another way to interpret this. The reason other nations want to take measures to protect their cultural identity is because they value their cultural identity...they're proud of it. Sure they'd love to have the monopoly on global culture that the US has, but more than that, they want their culture to survive, so their posterity can see what they've accomplished. In that context, one can interpret Rice's objection to the Declaration to be a rejection of the importance of US culture. Perhaps it's not worth protecting in her eyes. Even she must be able to imagine that US culture won't dominate forever. With China and India rising, economically and culturally, we may see the day in our life times when we're glad the initiative passed.

Living in New York, where every other week it seems, we're celebrating our Irish or Italian or Jewish or African or Carribean or Colombian or Greek or Chinese or whatever heritage, it's odd to me that we don't understand, as a nation, why those native cultures feel threatened by the money and muscle behind promoting US culture to their children. It's one thing to stand on cold-hearted capitalistic principles when dealing with cars or computers, but when the product in question symbolizes the very identity of a people, I'd rather we not be the nation leading the charge to marginalize them. I like and am proud of American culture, but I'd be bored stiff if it were the only offering available for me to learn about (it's nowhere near old enough to answer many questions). I want the older cultures that don't have the resources to promote themselves globally to survive locally. If a bit of protectionism is needed to do so, then so be it. We're not talking about refrigerators here.