It is commonplace to note that Americans have a positive "can do" attitude and to contrast this with the more negative British approach to life. Piers Morgan put it neatly not so long ago on the Andrew Marr show on Radio 4 when he said that Americans really believe "yes we can!" while the British ask "why should we?". (I can't believe I am quoting Piers Morgan...may as well go the whole hog and give you a link to his website http://http//www.officialpiersmorgan.com/2009/03/10/god-bless-america/)
I would go further. For Americans (a generalization obviously) life is not a zero-sum game. They can applaud success because it does't threaten their own. They can wince at someone's misfortune and sympathize without the clandestine shiver of schadenfreude....
Not a bad principle to live by actually. Of course it's easy to cite examples where this principle is taken to the extreme (like the belief in the free lunch - the "nobody should be worse off" Energy Bill seems to buy into this) or contradict it all together. But for now, I salute the attitude.
Thursday 4 June 2009
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