The Outgoing Spirit - Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America - page 34

ants. It would not occur to many Americans abroad not to experience as much as possible,
whereas an Irish friend of mine once spent three weeks in Paris, a city he had never visited
previously, without once leaving his hotel room. His general attitude to abroad was that
once you had seen one bit of it, you had seen the lot. Cynics are those who feel much the
same about humanity.
Despite America's self-involvement, then, one should recall the insatiable curiosity
about the rest of the world that so many of its citizens reveal. It is a desire which drives
them to every nook and cranny of the globe, from Moroccan villages to Indonesian temples.
This thirst for experience, so characteristic of American culture, shows up well when con-
trasted with British inertia. A good many of the British do not approve of abroad, whereas
some Americans cannot get enough of it.
Nor is it true, as the stereotype has it, that they throw their weight around when they
arrive in foreign parts. Far from being loud-mouthed and domineering, some Americans
in Europe are more likely to smart under the sense that the natives regard them as flashy
and dim-witted. They are sometimes quite right to suspect so. By and large, Americans
abroad are a remarkably civil, courteous bunch, which is more than can be said for spew-
ing, scrimmaging British football fans on the rampage in France or Italy. One might point
out, however, that some of this spewing and scrimmaging springs from a curious embar-
rassment on the part of British working-class youths who feel culturally out of their depth
away from home, and who react by smashing the place up, rather like a child who is out
of control because he has lost his coordinates. Britain, too, is a notoriously insular nation.
There are many senses in which it can rival the States in this respect. Ireland is smaller than
Britain but much less insular, not least since it never had an empire. The most inward-look-
ing nations are usually those with their gunboats in everyone else's harbours. The Irish also
needed to emigrate. For a long time, there have been many more millions of them living
outside the country than in it.
The good news for Americans is that most of the world does not regard them as arrogant
and thick-headed, though once upon a time it did. American military personnel stationed
in Britain during the Second World War were handed a leaflet advising them that the nat-
ives expected them to “swank” (brag), and warning them not to. The bad news is that a lot
of people see Americans not as thick-headed braggarts but as uncultivated ignoramuses.
Ignorance is not the same as lack of intelligence. European attitudes to the United States
typically mix a degree of admiration for its inventiveness and never-say-die spirit with a
mildly patronising contempt for its culture. Many a formidable power has been both feared
and mocked, and the United States is no exception. On the whole, ruling powers have been
more tolerated than admired.
On American Loquacity