Sunday, May 11, 2003

National poets and national brands Today in the NY Times, David Brooks opened his column with the quip: "Some countries have national poets, like Pushkin or Goethe, but we have national brands." By the time one finishes the column, one learns that Brooks was signalling something like this: Russians have Pushkin--and pogroms and Stalin and the Soviet Union. Germans have Goethe--and the Holocaust, Hitler, and the Third Reich. The US of A has national brands--and NONE of the major tyrannies or murderers of the 20th century. The US of A has national brands--and the longest-running constitutional democracy in the world. To me it seems fortunate that the unrivaled superpower of the early part of the 21st century is the one that has national brands. 9:59:54 AM    comment []