The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
  • Login
  • Register
  • Login
  • Register
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
  • 1

    Song Joong-ki marries British woman, expects baby

  • 3

    Suicidal pedestrian saved over Han River bridge

  • 5

    Kim Jung-hyun returns to small screen with 'Kokdu: Season of Deity'

  • 7

    Youth, foreign drug offenders increase threefold in 5 years

  • 9

    NK rejects alleged arms trading with Russia, warns of 'undesirable result'

  • 11

    'Someday or One Day' cast says film spin-off has new plot

  • 13

    Plum trees, pheasants and promises of old Korea

  • 15

    Base taxi fare to rise by 1,000 won to 4,800 won next month

  • 17

    3 dead, 4 hurt in upmarket Los Angeles neighborhood

  • 19

    NATO chief calls for stronger security ties with S. Korea to counter China

  • 2

    Japanese teen romance film attracts 1 mil. Korean viewers for 1st time in 21 yrs

  • 4

    Korea to lift indoor mask mandate Monday

  • 6

    US four-star general warns of war with China in 2025

  • 8

    INTERVIEWBusan has potential to be world-class city, says mayor

  • 10

    Samsung to introduce low-carbon diet for employees to help tackle climate change

  • 12

    Seoul International School celebrates 50th anniversary

  • 14

    K-pop releases for February

  • 16

    Main opposition leader faces pressure to resign in case of indictment

  • 18

    S. Korea mistakenly fires machine gun near border with N. Korea

  • 20

    Bank operating hours return to normal amid union opposition

Close scrollclosebutton

Close for 24 hours

Open
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
Opinion
  • Yun Byung-se
  • Kim Won-soo
  • Ahn Ho-young
  • Kim Sang-woo
  • Lee Kyung-hwa
  • Mitch Shin
  • Peter S. Kim
  • Daniel Shin
  • Jeon Su-mi
  • Jang Daul
  • Song Kyung-jin
  • Park Jung-won
  • Cho Hee-kyoung
  • Park Chong-hoon
  • Kim Sung-woo
  • Donald Kirk
  • John Burton
  • Robert D. Atkinson
  • Mark Peterson
  • Eugene Lee
  • Rushan Ziatdinov
  • Lee Jong-eun
  • Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho
  • Bernhard J. Seliger
  • Imran Khalid
  • Troy Stangarone
  • Jason Lim
  • Casey Lartigue, Jr.
  • Bernard Rowan
  • Steven L. Shields
  • Deauwand Myers
  • John J. Metzler
  • Andrew Hammond
  • Sandip Kumar Mishra
Tue, January 31, 2023 | 00:31
Deauwand Myers
US: The most popular kid in school
Posted : 2014-12-29 17:06
Updated : 2014-12-29 17:08
Print PreviewPrint Preview
Font Size UpFont Size Up
Font Size DownFont Size Down
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • kakaolink
  • whatsapp
  • reddit
  • mailto
  • link
By Deauwand Myers

There's a kind of paradoxical, even nonsensical dynamic at work when some people encounter Americans. On the one hand, people admire and envy the accomplishments of the world's longest democratic experiment, one that's built the wealthiest, most powerful nation in human history.

I've lived in China, Japan, and Korea. Lots of citizens in those respective countries admire America. For all the nationalist fervor (and anti-Western rhetoric) ginned up by the Xi administration of China, or the anti-American beef protests during the Lee Administration in Korea, wealthy and middle-class Chinese and Koreans often send their children to American high schools and universities.

In the 2012-2013 school year, American tertiary education welcomed the highest number of international students in history, with 819,644 undergraduate and graduate students, many of them from China. (Chinese enrollment in American colleges and universities increased by 21 percent, nearly a quarter of a million people). Koreans, Chinese, and Indian students make up nearly half of all international students entering institutions of higher learning in the U.S.

On the other hand, particularly during and after George W. Bush's disastrous presidency, there's the critique of America's role in the world; its involvement in foreign countries (the United States has bombed fourteen Muslim nations over the past generation or so); its hyper-consumption of the world's resources, far and away the highest, per capita, of any nation; its ethnocentric, myopic view of the international community, and its religious, anti-science, individualistic philosophy on guns, universal healthcare, social welfare programs, and social justice issues.

I've encountered this viewpoint, about the brutish, spoiled, ill-mannered American needing a good dressing down, while living in Japan. A few years after September 11th, out of the blue, a British national said to me in the break room at work: "No one cares about 9/11. It happened. So what?" I said to him, in effect, "You're rude and you lack breeding." Then I left.

Anyone who reads my work knows I'm all for a vigorous critique of America. I tell other fellow Americans: patriotism and nationalism are two very different things. Being proud of your country means you praise its virtues and critique its faults. Nationalism is, in the end, a kind of destructive religion enabling a nation's decline and ultimate ruin.

Many American conservatives miss this point. They often whitewash the evils of America's past: the genocide and land theft of the indigenous people of America, slavery, Jim Crow, the creation of banana republics, etc. Denying or obfuscating about America's sins and challenges means a possible repetition of past ills, and never resolving social injustices hindering our union.

However, critiques, unsubstantiated by facts, are where I draw the line. A reader's correspondence about one of my articles on American foreign policy asserted some things about America I had to correct. A European, he argued America's safety net was not as generous as it could or should be due to its belief in self-actualization and the vigorous defense of individualism.

He's right, up to a point. America as a land of opportunity buttressed by a meritocracy is one of the central myths in the United States' ethos: Work hard, and you'll succeed. Thinking people know this to be, kindly, an incomplete ideal. More harshly, it's an untruth. Plenty of people, particularly colored women, work hard, and have worked hard, for generations, and haven't much to show for it.

Single, American black women's wealth averages about $100, even as they're nearly at parity with their Asian and white counterparts in achieving tertiary education. One hundred dollars; let that sink in for a minute. Moreover, black women support their households, extended family, churches and mosques, and their community disproportionately more than any other demographic, all while working longer hours for less pay to boot.

The reader argued America spends the majority of its budget on the military. America spends more on its military than the next eight nations combined ($640 billion in 2013), but that's very different from saying the majority of the American budget is spent on war and defense. The notion that America's military budget is its biggest expenditure is patently false. Around 19 percent of the American budget is devoted to the military, while over 75 percent is allocated for social programs (Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, for examples).

Empirical evidence is a beautiful thing. I get that being the most popular kid in school is sometimes tough: The envy. The jealousy. The simultaneous edifying and denunciation. Yet, America saved the world from fascism, helped win the Cold War, and may very well keep the new, red wave of an ascendant China from washing over the earth. All this, without asking for money, or even gratitude. The kid's popular for a reason, and it's not just because of her/his new shoes or good looks, either.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.

 
Top 10 Stories
1[ANALYSIS] Pandemic awakens demand for data-driven automation ANALYSISPandemic awakens demand for data-driven automation
2Koreans reluctant to unmask on first day of eased indoor mask rule Koreans reluctant to unmask on first day of eased indoor mask rule
3Busan seeks to take lead in expo race after BIE's April visit Busan seeks to take lead in expo race after BIE's April visit
4Over 76% of South Koreans support development of nuclear weaponsOver 76% of South Koreans support development of nuclear weapons
5Retailers seek to bolster beauty product sales as lifting of mask mandate approaches Retailers seek to bolster beauty product sales as lifting of mask mandate approaches
6Biohealth geared for growth Biohealth geared for growth
7Stock-leveraged investments rise again amid bullish KOSPI Stock-leveraged investments rise again amid bullish KOSPI
8Korea-US defense talks likely to bring up extended deterrence Korea-US defense talks likely to bring up extended deterrence
9NK slams NATO chief's Seoul visit as 'prelude to war'NK slams NATO chief's Seoul visit as 'prelude to war'
10Seoul mayor accuses liberals of leading nation in wrong direction Seoul mayor accuses liberals of leading nation in wrong direction
Top 5 Entertainment News
1Song Joong-ki marries British woman, expects babySong Joong-ki marries British woman, expects baby
2Kim Jung-hyun returns to small screen with 'Kokdu: Season of Deity' Kim Jung-hyun returns to small screen with 'Kokdu: Season of Deity'
3'Someday or One Day' cast says film spin-off has new plot 'Someday or One Day' cast says film spin-off has new plot
4K-pop releases for February K-pop releases for February
5Itaewon music fest brings love to the healing process Itaewon music fest brings love to the healing process
DARKROOM
  • Nepal plane crash

    Nepal plane crash

  • Brazil capital uprising

    Brazil capital uprising

  • Happy New Year 2023

    Happy New Year 2023

  • World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

    World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

  • World Cup 2022 France vs Morocco

    World Cup 2022 France vs Morocco

CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Services
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Site Map
  • Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Ombudsman
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group