Culture and Soft Power

Wandering through the hulk of the Clueless:

And oddly enough, that's why our stuff does so well elsewhere in the world.

There is no deliberate attempt to deliver that message. It's not part of any Machievellian plot by America to rule the world. Instead, it's implicit in the fact that we Americans, almost all of whom did come from the lower classes, who are living in a nation where the power of the elite was broken and who now rule ourselves, have become the most successful nation in history. And we're producing what we ourselves want to buy, with our peasant sensibility, instead of trying to pretentiously live up to someone else's idea of what we should buy. We glory in our vulgarity; we're not ashamed of it at all. And deep down we don't think anyone else should be, either.

Don't recall the twisted path I took to get to this essay, but it's worth a re-read. Gave me hope for the future, it did.