“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear…” so wrote Walt Whitman in his poem, “I hear America Singing.” Whitman, undoubtedly one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century wrote brilliantly on America, among other topics. However, if one were to question a room of students on Whitman or some of his poems, there would be a greater possibility that the students would be able to recite lines from last week’s “Jersey Shore,” than any of Whitman’s works.
Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Cummings, Steinbeck, Salinger, Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning…Poets, writers, artists, all American and yet, it is hard to distinguish if these great men and women are part of American history or American culture. Dr. John Brown argued that Americans define the United States in terms of ideas, whereas Russia defines itself in terms of its culture. Brown quoted Sumner Welles, stating that the “concept of culture is foreign to the United States. One wouldn’t expect the State to assist with culture.” Brown explained that the Russian educational system emphasizes culture and Russia’s superior culture. Of course with writers such as Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy, it would be difficult to argue against.
The United States would gain much from following Russian example. However fantastic the ideals upon which the United States is built upon, there is an American culture; one more fulfilling than Snooki and Pauly D. The great artists and writers of the past and present use the American ideals of freedom of speech, religion, and politics to write moving stories and create innovative works of art. The ideas of America and its culture can be combined, but only if the American people advocate for this synergy. There need not be an idea of an imperialistic American culture, it would be advantageous though, to discuss and share the cultures of other states and American culture. John Paul Lederach in his book on peacebuilding, The Moral Imagination, he mentions the positive effects of two men building trust and a relationship over their mutual interest in philosophy and Sufism in post-civil war Tajikstan. One can only imagine of the diplomatic possibilities if people were able to connect on topics of culture, building relationships and trust and then confronting greater challenges.
Fallowing the thought of the culture, I fully agree with that, it is an essential tool in Public Diplomacy, which with mutual understanding can create a great relationship between countries. However, I would like to also emphasize the earlier thought about American culture, that it is significantly hard to distinguish the great men of America as a part of American culture. And as of today all over the world thinking about the United States’ culture we do not consider Ernest Hemingway and his “The Old Man and the Sea”, Mark Twain, or John Singer Sargent but we think of McDonalds, Apple, hamburgers, Statue of Liberty and freedom of speech. Therefore, “the Brown argument that Americans define the United States in terms of ideas” not in terms of its culture, could be one of the reasons why this country have problems in understanding and acknowledging other cultures while conducting their foreign policy, as it was seen throughout history. Doctor Zaharna in her work mentions that “Culture is integral to communication between nations and foreign publics.” However, “U.S. public diplomacy appears to have its distinct style of communicating,” which had mostly a negative implications among other civilizations. Very often Americans do not notice that “principles and practices once thought to be universal are actually Western and are not shared by other cultural groups” (Zaharna, 117). There is many aspects that needed to be acknowledged while intercultural dialect. For instance the cultural context (high or low), which have a major impact on the communication. High context cultures are concentrating on the context. While, low context cultures like the United States is fully focusing on the direct massage. Moreover, American foreign policy is very often strongly promoting its values and customs among other states, which could be seen as an attack on the other cultures. Nevertheless, in order to create beneficial communication and successful public diplomacy, one sided cultural understanding is not the resolution; the crucial aspect is the mutual understanding on all cultural levels.
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