The knee-jerk dismissal (by some) of Putin's remarks is so drearily typical of the 'Ugly American' [View all]

[markpkessinger]

Putin is certainly not the most savory character, and no doubt criticism coming from someone like him can be hard to take. But I have yet to see anybody refute the substance of what he wrote in his Op-Ed.

But isn't this so typical of America (and Americans)? We convince ourselves that we inhabit some lofty moral plane where America is, always and everywhere, the 'good guy' and anybody who opposes us (or points out our rather glaring hypocrisies) is, always and everywhere, the very incarnation of evil (or the 'bad guy'). (And before anybody jumps down my throat about that remark, I am NOT defending Putin and his misdeeds). So along comes a critic like Putin -- a very complicated fellow, to be sure -- with some criticism that we, as a nation, probably really need to hear. But rather than grapple with such truth as might be contained in his words, we get on our moral high horse and point instead to his moral failings, and then feel justified in dismissing out of hand anything he might have to say (even if much of it happens to be true), all the while remaining willfully obtuse about, blissfully blind to, our own myriad failings and hypocrisies as a nation. (But of course, if we actually allowed that his remarks may have some shred of validity, it would undermine our Manichean view of the world in which the U.S. is always the side of goodness and light and puppies and kittens.)

We seem to adopt this defensive moral posture to a significantly greater extent that the citizens of most other countries. Hey, wait a minute . . . maybe I believe in 'American exceptionalism' after all: since Americans certainly do seem to be exceptionally self-righteous!