I just read Brad Miller's wonderful piece at TPM, "Does McCain Understand The Music?", in which he points out that our diplomacy is built around a very narrow set of interests and perceptions:

...Anne Applebaum observed that we usually place our trust in world leaders for "their excellent English or their preference for Scotch whiskey, their interest in 'doing business with us' (in the Saudi case), or in liberalizing--even democratizing--their countries (as in the case of Bhutto)," when those very "western" qualities "are precisely what some of their countrymen hate most about them."

He goes on:

We've made enormous misjudgments because we acted on our estimation of leaders, not an understanding of the societies over which they presided. Norman Mailer claimed, perhaps obnoxiously, to have asked President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, "Don't you understand the enormity of your mistake--you invade a country without understanding its music?"

It's true.  I want to talk about this for several different reasons.  Follow me below the flip...

Narrated by British Historian Basil Davidson, Africa: The Story of a Continent attempts to correct historically bigoted and supremacist attitudes about Africa and its indigenous populations.  Using the "different but equal" model, Davidson alludes to civilization as a premise to anchor his argument of pre-colonial African advancement.  Davidson explains throughout the film, that contrary to the accounts of European thinkers, Africans were indeed the pioneers of civilization who harnessed a rich and extensive history to prove it. Rich in abundant resources, cultures, languages, customs, and laws, the film argues that Africa is without a doubt not only the birthplace of civilization as humanity knows it, but the birthplace of humanity itself.

My husband and I leave for our university teaching assignments in China in 29 more days (yeah!) and so, we've been researching China and Chinese culture quite a bit. We're also taking our almost 16-year old son with us, and so, we've made this a family project. It's been pretty cool learning Mandarin together each day, and trying to gather information about our new home.

In our research, we've concluded that Americans are ethnocentric - and this may explain in part why we're getting our asses kicked in the global economy.

  I remember where I was when I stopped being afraid of "foreigners" in this post 9-11 world.  It was in a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru.  It's maddening to write those sentences, they seem to mock and condemn me as a redneck half-wit. That's probably only half true.  But this isn't about intellectual understanding.  It's about who I am, and how I feel in this world around me.