Worldwide

The worldwide ubiquity of the internet has been a wonderful gift to me. I like to meet new people and learn about their lives, and the www has afforded me the chance to form friendships with people all over. I love relating how I heard about the Key Bridge collapse in the middle of the night here in Baltimore from friends in Turkey and India. They had seen the news and wrote to see if we were all right.

But I have to tell you this, the respect for the USA is not near what it used to be. I will let you decide how and why you think this came to be. I have my explanation and you surely have yours. 

No matter how you look at how the world looks at America, you cannot deny this: The Pew Research Center took a survey, and 53% of American adults (admittedly, this leaves a significant portion of the Senate and House of Representatives unrepresented, but...) say the morality and ethics of their fellow citizens is “bad” (somewhat bad or very bad).

In contrast, Pew asked people in two dozen other countries, and most people responding said their fellows are "somewhat good" or "good."

Just over the border in Canada, 92% of the population thinks Canadians are good folks. Just 7% say they live among bad people.

Scott Schieman is a University of Toronto sociologist. He studies the "social psychology" of Americans and Canadians, and it's his stance that there is a negativity here about how we feel about that guy down the street and his family. “Americans tend to think broadly that most other people are worse than they [themselves] are,” he says.  

Maybe that's because we know so much about each other - or think we know. I will never get over the tons of phone calls 911 got in the wake of 9/11 from people calling to report their neighbors for simply "looking foreign," or "coming into their house with grocery bags that might be filled with bomb-making materials."

Things even out, and it's been my observation over the years that most of us have the reputation we earn. Sure, there are mistaken impressions and misapprehensions, but we know each other pretty well, and maybe that's a sign we should begin exhibiting more honorable behavior.

And also, let's start talking about the good things people do, and that will help the way others see us.