I'm mad.

Just back from dinner.

I’m mad.

So I’m blogging.

Get ready for a rant disguised as a lecture.

In Brussels, I recently had an argument with a cosmopolitan Nordic that I had met only once before. The discussion started just before a group dinner. It began with a question directed at me early in our conversation, followed by several Scandinavian witticisms.
Did Americans really impeach President Bill Clinton for getting a blowjob from a willing intern? Felled by fellatio, how funny. No European public would ever dare drag a politician’s private parts out for public discussion. Impeaching a president for lying about a
blowjob. Honestly. Silly Americans, puritanical pirates, declaring mutiny on a leader for an act that had nothing to do with his position (his political position). Wink, wink.

My first reaction was irritation. My irritation had nothing to do with the topic. I was irritated by the tone.

To say that Clinton’s impeachment was not a smart or a stupid national obsession for the American public at the time that it occurred is not a topic that offers much real discussion. I simply believe that it’s not my place to determine what is or isn’t worth national scrutiny—nor
is it my Nordic friend’s.

What’s significant to a national constituency is significant to that national constituency. Period. What one country considers important may strike certain of members of the concerned country as well as those external to the country as ridiculous or backwards or silly. But that does not negate the issue’s overall importance to the nation.

National name-calling, or asking a random citizen from the country how his or her fellow citizens can be so “silly” is a bit off-putting, whether or not the person asking the question has a point outside of demonstrating how worldly (and wordy) s/he is.

That isn’t to say a citizen or a non-citizen can’t judge national priorities. If anything, that’s our job as members of the human race—to judge and criticize the concerns of our various human
communities. But judge them with interest, not disdain. Dissent, but don’t dismiss. Look to understand why a national constituency considers a particular event significant. Express surprise and even horror, sure, but don’t blow off the blow up over the blowjob (ha ha, I’m wordy too) as an inexplicable glitch in the American national psyche.

Or, if you do, don’t ask me to join in.

A better question would have been what do Americans expect from their politicians? That is a question that can lead to a dissection of WHY Clinton’s sex life became national headlines. That’s a question that opens up several possible conversations about political strategy, electioneering, the mainstream media, American culture, history—we could go on for days.

Cosmopolitan people know that national communities, regional communities, religious communities, ethnic and economic communities—any type of community is going to produce community caricatures. Americans are hypocritical hyper-moralists, Italians wouldn’t know good governance if it ran for Miss Italy much less Prime Minister, the French are too busy striking to get any work done, and the Nordics mistake their geographical position for a sign of social superiority (Silly Americans!). But the sign of a true international is one that recognizes that these caricatures are the products of a myriad of historical, social, economic, and structural forces. Let’s not collapse these forces into cosmopolitan cultural jokes meant to (wink, wink) establish the cultural hierarchy at dinner.