Bulls, Dogs, and China Shops

This post was almost called:
Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and a book called Exile.
But I believe we can all agree that was too clunky. Don't know if my current title is any better.

You know, we Americans have been compared to many things. Sometimes we’re the teenagers on the block. Sometimes we’re the gigantic, well-meaning dog with the huge, sweeping tail (or bull in a china shop if you prefer). Sometimes we’re so repressed that we try to enforce our “Puritan Values” on others. Sometimes we’re such degenerate consumers that our products are a vile plague designed to corrupt civilization. The world continues to try to understand us.

That’s okay. We’re likewise trying to understand the rest of the world.

I read this book called Exile, a fascinating story about an American Jew caught up in a Palestinian terrorist assassination. Over and over again I found a compelling theme: characters in the story would try to explain their plight to this American, explain their position and their hatred (which was usually portrayed not so much as hatred as determination, but it was hatred when applied). Over and over again the American would ask a counter-question or even offer an immediate solution. One that, to me (an American of course), made perfect sense. The characters in the story would even say that the American didn’t get it - that it would never work.

I could see, though this was not a comedy, that the American wanted to pause, eyes to the side, hands stuffed in pockets, realizing that there was going to be no mutual answer because a mutual answer was not wanted.

I can understand that the world is frustrated with America and Americans. While our own country is not perfect (and I can get in major trouble stating from where I believe the biggest problems come) we do believe in finding mutual answers - not necessarily compromises, but answers. We believe that it is possible not so much to sacrifice as to change.

Americans are not only free to change, they are encouraged to do so. We have the liberty to uproot ourselves and start somewhere else. We actually spiritualize things into thoughts, or concepts. That is to say, we take the time (often short enough, I will grant you) to think about what we really want - what it represents, not what it physically is - and find a way to achieve or acquire the qualities we’re looking for. We see many solutions, many goals.

In American phraseology, the problem more or less comes down to our classic argument about means and ends. To the ends justify the means or do the means justify the ends? This gets to the core about what frustrates us about the world, and what frustrates the world with us.

In general, I would say that Americans put means ahead of ends. We certainly have our goals, or ends, that we wish to reach, and we strive for them, but the ends do not justify the means - the means have to be acceptable as well. In fact, the end may be redefined along the journey. In general, it seems that the strife or conflict that confuses us are those issues where the participants believe not only that the ends are fixed, unchangeable, but that they must be reached by specific means, which can be ends in and of themselves.

Yes, our solutions seem oversimplified to others. Their problems seem over-complex to us.

In the end... which would you rather have?