Supermodels
On Saturday conversation with T, as it usually does, meandered into cultural differences. T is Swiss, raised in Canada and engaged a very special girl from Hong Kong. We were talking about the American way and I brought up this idea that not only is American culture real, but the American imagination is filled with supermodels; people who live in our minds as the ideal after which we model ourselves. The first person of this kind to come to my mind was Abraham Lincoln, who most people - the Atlantic Monthly most recently - consider the greatest president. He's a man of humble beginnings, an autodidact who was self made, and one who allowed action and character to supercede speech and eloquence, although most people find an eloquence in that (think Gettysburg).
I asked T who lived in the Swiss mind the way Lincoln lived in ours. No one really jumped to the forefront so I asked about Canada, and then followed with China. The result was not clear. There seem to be folk heroes here and there but none really dominating the social consiousness.
It makes me think that a part of American-ness is that ideal of having an ideal, a supermodel be it Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Ben Franklin. Or, a degenerate of popular culture -
That's kind of interesting.
11:31:22 PM 
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