Excellent post by Helmut at Phronesisaical:
Remember right after 9-11 when Americans asked that question, “why do they hate us so?” That question was so full of promise. It had seemed that the attacks of 9-11, and their horror, had prompted real self-examination and reflection. I wrote in an academic journal in Spring 2002 that, to the side of the option that would be chosen, one of the (admittedly unlikely) options open to us was,
…a sea-change in policy – of that policy of incommensurability between saying America represents one thing, a set of liberal principles and humane values, while acting in ways that often violate those principles for which we supposedly stand (previously in the countless corners of the Cold War world, and now, perhaps, in the countless secret corners of the global war on terrorism). This would be a change from what others perceive as arrogance and what Americans tend to perceive as God-given rights and the moral certainty of a “chosen” country. Part of this change would consist in a renewed attempt to perceive the actions and beliefs of others through their own cultural lenses. Rather than attempting to export our own self-certainty, we would view the world in its contingency with a hearty sense of our own fallibility. Perhaps it would be a change which would take fully into account our tradition of democracy, fallibilism, and commitment to pluralism…
…the two cultural attitudes – self-admiration and moral absolutism – are especially odd for a pluralistic nation that produced the eloquent philosophies of fallibilism found in Jefferson, Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Peirce, James, and Dewey…
More here. [For explanation of photo, meant as a tribute to Helmut, go to the site.]