Checking out of 'Hotel America'
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Checking out of 'Hotel America'
1–10 of 58 posts
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#2That was surprisingly good. Thanks.
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#3That piece resonated with me. In the spirit of Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America), sometimes it takes a fascinated outsider to draw a properly nuanced picture of what it really means to be an American.
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#4What a terrific article! I know a comment like that doesn't add much to the discussion, but as a native American, I'm not sure I have much to add to it anyway. :)
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#5"You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave"
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#6That was surprisingly good. Thanks.
Agreed. Very well written and thoughtful. Born and raised in the US, I enjoy these kinds of perspectives. We generally aren't treated to enough.
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#7This sums up pretty much exactly how I feel about America having lived here for 6 years. I both love it and hate it here. This bit was particularly good:
A nation which will one day mass produce a cure for type one diabetes, could not, would not, save little Kara Neumann from the bovine idiocy of her religious parents.
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#8This article was strong because it balanced critique with commendation. It's an interesting observation that America's "bigness" in many things is simultaneously it's largest advantage and disadvantage.
I've often felt that Americans tend to have a kind of naive optimism compared to folks from other countries. In fact, while living abroad I've felt judged by Western Europeans in particular for that quality in myself (some of my best friends are German and French, FWIW). But I think that attribute is what has contributed to much of the success in America, particularly in the entrepreneurial crowd.
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#9This sums up pretty much exactly how I feel about America having lived here for 6 years. I both love it and hate it here. This bit was particularly good: A nation which will one day mass produce a cure for type one diabetes, could not, would not, save little Kara Neumann from the bovine idiocy of her religious parents.
"A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill." - Robert Heinlein
Re: Checking out of 'Hotel America'
#10This article was strong because it balanced critique with commendation. It's an interesting observation that America's "bigness" in many things is simultaneously it's largest advantage and disadvantage. I've often felt that Americans tend to have a kind of naive optimism compared to folks from other countries. In fact, while living abroad I've felt judged by Western Europeans in particular for that quality in myself…
I suppose Americans do have a naive optimism--I've always perceived British culture in general to be cynical and negative, but that may simply be in comparison to my own optimistic culture. I attribute a lot of that to history. The fall of Europe's empires in the 20th century was the failure of their grand national experiments, and on top of it, much of the world faced immense death and destruction during the wars of the 20th century. Europe, China, and Japan were destroyed in WWII, Korea and Vietnam faced significant destruction in their wars, and most of the communist states faced significant internal destruction through mass murder of various kinds. America largely escaped this level of destruction.