In the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of FP (Foreign Policy) magazine several political celebrities wrote brief answers to one question: “What single policy or gesture can the next president of the USA make to improve America’s standing in the world?”
One person simply wrote “listen.” He said the highest priority should be to persuade people around the world that we “hear them.” That answer was given by none other than Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House.
While I usuallyI don’t agree with his political beliefs, in this instance we have a total meeting of the minds. I love it that he went on to say that the new president, immediately upon being elected, should tour the world just asking questions. He even said: “Not one moment need be spent trying to demonstrate American power and dominance.” What a wonderful, revolutionary idea for 2008.
Not only should America listen, but it should talk and negotiate also. This is one of the key themes of Anne-Marie Slaughter.
Slaughter, author of The Idea That is America, is Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and who is a talked-about-candidate for the next administration’s Secretary of State, argues that we must return to America’s key principles, one of which is humility.
As this picture illustrates, the American iPod (& cell phone) generation can’t hear what the world is saying at extremely loud volume.
In recent years world opinion of America has soured. That gives us even more reason to learn from other countries by holding them, as well as America, “up to the light” to see inside them at the same time. We start by seeing differences, then extract ways in which we can improve, and appropriate these ideas into our own culture.