Thursday, November 11, 2010
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
Bruce Bawer: The Real 'Ugly American' - The ugly American still exists. Nowadays, however, he's arrogant not about his country's virtues but about his own. - '...When William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick published their book The Ugly American in 1958, later adapted in 1963 into a film version starring Marlon Brando, it became a byword for American bravado abroad, for an arrogant breed of homo americanus that had no interest in other cultures and believed Uncle Sam had all the answers. The ugly American still exists. Nowadays, however, he's arrogant not about his country's virtues but about his own. Among non-Americans, he's eager to make sure everyone knows how morally superior he is to his homeland. He's been a student all his life. And he's learned absolutely nothing.'
