Christopher Hitchens: This July Fourth, ignore polls on America’s image

The Examiner ^ | July 4, 2006 | Christopher Hitchens

[West Coast Conservative]

Here’s what I want to know, and here’s why I want to know it. At what point in history, exactly, did the Pew Center decide that it knew how to measure world opinion?

I ask this because almost every week I seem to read a study of how the rest of the globe thinks (or at any rate feels) about the United States. The polls in this country are unreliable enough and are often used to measure intangibles, such as “approval ratings,” which is why there is so much fluctuation within and between them. But who’s doing the random samples in Somalia and Tajikistan and Ecuador?

I ask because these polls tend to inform Americans that the rest of the world has a decidedly low view of them. That this is true in large parts of the Middle East, and among large swathes of European intellectuals, is something that I can already tell you from experience.

For that matter, it was at one point true that the majority of Pakistanis, say, believed not just that all Jews had left the World Trade Center on time, but that (therefore) they had all reported for work on time, hung around for a bit — presumably whistling and wearing unconcerned expressions — and only then left; doubtless offering some clever Semitic excuse. Not even al-Qaida’s pilots had as exact a schedule as that.

Nonetheless, and despite the absurdity and hysteria of much of what is said and believed, we seem almost ready for a poll of Americans on what they think the rest of the world thinks of them in opinion polls, where the “finding” would be that most of those Americans polled think that most other people polled think they stink.

There are several possible responses to this.

One of them — no doubt to be found in the presumed “red states” — is to say “who gives a flying flip?” Another is not to surrender to impressionism, and to do some work of one’s own.

Large numbers in India, for example (another multiethnic federal and secular democracy), report highly favorable views of the U.S.

A very important poll in Iran (where polling is illegal) found that a huge majority of Iranians considered better relations with America to be the single most urgent priority. One of those who conducted the survey was a former American embassy hostage-taker, who was jailed for publishing his findings.

Then there is the question of method. Polling in the U.S. depends on finding a lot of people who are identifiable by name, and at home in their kitchens when the poll-taker calls. How is this feat replicated in the Andes, say, or in the Congo? Who pays for the work? When is it decided that the time is right?

For example, I am quite certain that an opinion poll of any kind, taken in the Muslim world in 1992, would have discovered enormous resentment at the failure of the United States to intervene militarily in Bosnia. But this ingredient in the famous mixture of Islamic grievances is seldom, if ever, mentioned, and certainly wasn’t head-counted at the time. As a result of that just and necessary intervention, large numbers of Orthodox Christians, not just in Serbia, now record strongly “anti-American” opinions. Which goes to show that you can’t please everybody.

It also goes to show that you probably shouldn’t try. A country that attempted to be in everybody’s good books would be quite paralyzed. The last time everybody said they liked the United States (or said that they said they liked the United States) was just after Sept. 11, when the nation was panicked and traumatized and trying to count its dead. Well, no thanks. This is too high a price to be paid for being popular.

Measurements of opinion are in any event static, and they assume passivity, and a consensus upon knowledge. If you had asked people in 2001 whether they thought it was likely that Afghans and Iraqis would be holding free elections in a couple of years (not that any polling group ever did even suggest such a question), I doubt you would have got a very good response. And how, in any case, could people have known enough to know what they were supposedly talking about?

If I was to interrupt this article every few sentences, asking you whether or not I was making a good impression on you, I hope and believe that you would think I was a servile jerk. Yet this is what our politicians are doing in every speech (most notably in the absurd recent debate on “flag-burning”) and this is apparently what we hire Karen Hughes to do in our public diplomacy.

Faced with a complete beast like the late Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been trying to kill us for several years, millions of Americans appear to believe that he only appeared in Iraq because in some way we made him upset. Well, even if this was true — which it is not — it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. (What would you say to a policy that made him contented, instead?).

Thus, for a Fourth of July message, I would suggest less masochism, more confidence on the American street, and less nervous reliance on paper majorities discovered by paper organizations.

Happy Independence Day.

[Taiku]

We are the largest economy in the world, the source of food and aid for much of the world, the source of technology and industrial might for many of the world's economies, one of the largest markets (if not the largest) for most of the goods produced in the world........we have what THEY want, NOT the other way around!!!

I have said for a long time that it is high time Americans stopped worrying about what the rest of the world thinks of US, but instead let the rest of the world worry about what America thinks of THEM!!!!!

[Mogollon]

Since most of the world wants to live here they must think America is pretty good place.

[daybreakcoming]

"The last time everybody said they liked the United States (or said that they said they liked the United States) was just after Sept. 11, when the nation was panicked and traumatized and trying to count its dead. Well, no thanks. This is too high a price to be paid for being popular."

A big piece of truth here we need to face. There are people around the world who actually liked us for a brief moment because we were suffering. It was not compassion.

[Graybeard58]

One of them — no doubt to be found in the presumed “red states” — is to say “who gives a flying flip?” Another is not to surrender to impressionism, and to do some work of one’s own.

I am in the first school of thought.

[HHFi]

Excellent. Speaking as a life-long resident of Texas, the reddest of red states, I don't give a damn how many pompous European leftists and grubby Middle Eastern terrorists "love" us; in fact, I'd be worried if they did. All I care about is that they are scared to death of us. If they think we're a bunch of violent rednecks led by an out-of-control cowboy who'd sooner nuke them than look at them, that can only be a good thing.

[avital2]

couldn't agree more. if people love us, we aren't leading. progress and change upset people, and certainly the world's record on supporting freedom, their own and that of others, is abysmal. ours is without equal. Happy Birthday, America! i'm one proud American gal.

[Loyal Buckeye]

At what point in history, exactly, did the Pew Center decide that it knew how to measure world opinion?

A clue: Maddy Albright.

[Lawgvr1955]

An Amerian's view of America. From P.J.O'Rourke's Holidays In Hell. Seems a good day to repost it...

His response to a typical Euroweenie whining about how Americans don't understand war, that they think war is...

"A John Wayne movie," I said. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie -- with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well you know something, Mr. Limey Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us. WE BE BAD. "We're the baddest-@ssed sons of b!tches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car-wreck and descended from a stock-market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together, and it wouldn't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original giant, economy-sized new and improved butt-kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats Cap d'Antibes. And we've got an American Express credit card limit higher than your p!ss-ant metric numbers go." "You say our country's never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-d!cked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio'. Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, f*ck longer, and buy more things than you know the name of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than King, Queen, and Jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and spit them out before lunch."

Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior European smile. (God, don't these people have dentists?)

[BlessedBeGod]

Well said.

[DTogo]

I already ignore the lousy image half of my countrymen have about America. The rest of the world can sod off!

[Berlin_Freeper]

"I ask because these polls tend to inform Americans that the rest of the world has a decidedly low view of them."


Germany has a high view of America because they copy American culture. It is evident to me that every modernized nation in the world is copying American culture, business, science, etc.

I think it is human nature to pitch-a-b*tch about this or that especially when there is jealousy of America being at the top. When you are an American you need to have a thick skin. I am still working on that. lol!

[MarkL]

Isn't the Pew Center the same organization that convinced congress that the #1 subject on the minds of Americans was campaign finance reform, and then later admitted that they had rigged the polling and the results that saddled us with McCain/Feingold CFR?

Mark

[DrDeb]

. . . another excellent analysis from Hitchens! [FYI: Maddie HALFbright runs the Pew Poll -- 'nuf said!]


If you want to know what a genuine leader thinks about the world and our position in it, watch President Bush deliver an absolutely AWESOME speech to his troops at Fort Bragg (from this morning)!

You will find the video here:
http://www.wral.com/news/9464676/detail.html

[Plymouth Sentinel]

"...One of them — no doubt to be found in the presumed “red states” — is to say “who gives a flying flip?” Another is not to surrender to impressionism, and to do some work of one’s own..."

Oops. These are in effect the same thing, or am I mistaken Hitch?

Still, I'm always glad for the cheerful fellowship of this hyper intellectual Brit who makes his home among us and enjoys and admires and celebrates our great nation, what we love and hold most dear, with such vast enthusiasm.

Frankly, I'd like to do some smoking and drinking and conversing with the man.

[Frank_2001]

Agreed!

[roses of sharon]

Bingo, they only love us when we are dying.

And hate us when we fight back.

Screw the liberals worldwide, and their addiction to victimhood, it is the only time they feel alive.

[Richard Axtell]

" Another is not to surrender to impressionism,..."

I would never "surrender" to impressionism, or post-impressionism, or even cubism or pre-war German expressionism. Give me N.C. Wyeth and Normal Rockwell anyday.

[hsalaw]

Ditto.

[Richard Axtell]

Heheh... Normal Rockwell,... is Norman Rockwell.

[beaversmom]

It's the same with the Jews. When they are being shoved into ovens, there is some sympathy. When they fight back, very few will give them the time of day.

[lilylangtree]

Consider the source of any and all org's conducting polls and what their hidden agenda is. Don't give a rip what the rest of the world says. Their liberal leftist media like the BBC and others want to down American much like our media at home. To h*ll with them.

[GVnana]

A very important poll in Iran (where polling is illegal) found that a huge majority of Iranians considered better relations with America to be the single most urgent priority. One of those who conducted the survey was a former American embassy hostage-taker, who was jailed for publishing his findings.

Thank you Mr. Hitchens for telling the truth.

[phillyfanatic]

Though Hitch doesn't believe in God, Thank God for his wisdom and concrete common sense when it comes to analysing true American concerns and facts.

[aculeus]

BTTT

[Blue State Insurgent]

Here's the poll:

http://www.pressreleases.be/script_UK/newsdetail.asp?nDays=d&ID=27152

[GVnana]

A recent public opinion survey of Iranians, conducted by The Tarrance Group, surprisingly found that a vast majority (74%) of Iranians feel America's presence in the Middle East will increase the probability of democracy in their own country. The survey, which was the first of its kind, found two-thirds of Iranians believe that regime change in Iraq has been a positive for both neighboring countries: with 66% believing that it served Iran's national interests, while 65% believed the Iraqi people will, in the long-run, be better off.

Wow.

[ozzymandus]

I always ignore anti-American polls. As soon as the foriegn countries want something, they'll come begging again.

[Christian4Bush]

bttt

[DakotaRed]

Ignore them today? Hell, I ignore them everyday, LOL.

[radiohead]

Great post. I'm going to send this to some of my Euroweenie friends who need a little smacking around this July 4th.

[Malesherbes]

The Pew Center. Pronounced like it is spelled.

[WOSG]

"Isn't the Pew Center the same organization that convinced congress that the #1 subject on the minds of Americans was campaign finance reform, and then later admitted that they had rigged the polling and the results that saddled us with McCain/Feingold CFR?"

Yes.

Let me guess, their next project is to sign over our rights, sovereignty and first-born to the UN.

[WOSG]

Bitter, envious people (especially the global left) hates America they way most people hate a rich neighbor who goes around being blatantly happier than they are.

Happy Independence Day!

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

Never had a very high opinion of a culture that used their thumb instead of toilet paper.

[5Madman2]

I concur

[Billthedrill]

An old debate, sharpened by the intensity of feeling that results from many European intellectuals' dismay that the world isn't progressing in the direction their Marxian tarot cards predicted during their glory years at university. Had it not been the United States, had it been, say, Brazil who emerged from WWII with a dominant geopolitical and economic position, you may rest assured that the papers in Paris, Berlin, and London would be outraged at Brazilian hegemony and the campuses and coffee-houses pontificating on the imperialists of Brasilia, assuming that the Brazilians hadn't nuked them in exasperation by now.

So some of this is, IMHO, a result of natural envy, some of it resentment against power that is only imagined (it is, after all, the French and not the Americans who are building McDonalds in Paris) and some of it the result of decades of the cleverest and best-funded propaganda on the part of the inveterate enemy of the United States, the Soviet Union.

Persons unwilling to make the intellectual effort often tend to revert to a political shorthand positing that all power is equally oppressive and hence equally evil and that its holders are indistinguishable from one another. It is difficult not to suspect that on the part of ex-colonial Europeans this tendency to view the United States as a hegemon striving for empire is based not only on what they'd do in our place, but what they actually did do. It is not only cynicism that denies that we might have something else in mind, it is also willful ignorance.

In any case I number myself in the "no longer care" portion of the population. You beat a horse with a stick often enough and he loses interest in the carrot.

Happy Independence Day, all! Let freedom ring!

[LibertarianInExile]

"I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than King, Queen, and Jack of all you Europeans."

P.J. kicks ass.

[Lawgvr1955]

Love PJ. My other favorite of his is "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teen age boys".

[Pajamajan]

"I would suggest less masochism, more confidence on the American street"

Excellent.

Who-gives-a-flying-flip-about-polls- BUMP.

[newfarm4000n]

Who cares what the polls say. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Seen many Americans immigrate to Arab countries ???

[Pajamajan]

"Seen many Americans immigrate to Arab countries?"

Nope . I don't see too many Americans immigrating to Cuba either. I can't imagine why. Jimmy Carter loves the place.

Why don't the liberal Americans immigrate there, since they think Bush is Hitler, and America is such a terrible place to live?

[newfarm4000n]

Why don't the liberal Americans immigrate there, since they think Bush is Hitler, and America is such a terrible place to live?

America is so great that they would live hear even if a perceived Hitler was running it !

[Tolik]

Christopher Hitchens:

...we seem almost ready for a poll of Americans on what they think the rest of the world thinks of them in opinion polls, where the “finding” would be that most of those Americans polled think that most other people polled think they stink.

...A country that attempted to be in everybody’s good books would be quite paralyzed. The last time everybody said they liked the United States (or said that they said they liked the United States) was just after Sept. 11, when the nation was panicked and traumatized and trying to count its dead. Well, no thanks. This is too high a price to be paid for being popular.

...Faced with a complete beast like the late Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been trying to kill us for several years, millions of Americans appear to believe that he only appeared in Iraq because in some way we made him upset. Well, even if this was true — which it is not — it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. (What would you say to a policy that made him contented, instead?).

Thus, for a Fourth of July message, I would suggest less masochism, more confidence on the American street, and less nervous reliance on paper majorities discovered by paper organizations.

Happy Independence Day.

Nailed It!
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[Egon]

Here's a poll I want to see: How many Americans actually care what other people think of us?

[jazusamo]

Ping

Hitchens on Polls.

[Just A Nobody]

Thank you so much Jaz! This is the best ping I've had in a long time! I have saved it for future use. ;*)

less nervous reliance on paper majorities discovered by paper organizations.

Priceless!!!

[jazusamo]

I knew you'd appreciate it as soon as Pew Center came up. Hitchens nailed it. :-)

[GOPJ]

But who’s doing the random samples in Somalia and Tajikistan and Ecuador?

Polls are difficult - my guess? Pew's lying. Their poll results outside the US uphold liberal preconceived notions... The chances of that being true - is statistically insignificant...

[Just A Nobody]

Uh oh.....you are getting to know me too well. LOL!