Technology, eh?

Our impromptu debate on outsourcing technology and the impact on national security got me thinking about cultural diplomacy. I had never heard the term until we read a statement from the Obama campaign in my Arts, Cities & Economic Development class. The statement (from January, 2008) asserts that Obama will...

Promote Cultural Diplomacy: American artists, performers and thinkers representing our values and ideals can inspire people both at home and all over the world. Through efforts like that of the United States Information Agency, America's cultural leaders were deployed around the world during the Cold War as artistic ambassadors and helped win the war of ideas by demonstrating to the world the promise of America. Artists can be utilized again to help us win the war of ideas against Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, our resources for cultural diplomacy are at their lowest level in a decade. Barack Obama will work to reverse this trend and improve and expand public-private partnerships to expand cultural and arts exchanges throughout the world.

While growing up, I was fortunate enough to travel to Europe several times with my family, study in Vienna for a semester, and then live in Vienna for four years after undergrad. It was fascinating to see what Europeans knew about America. Of course no one knew where Iowa was -- they only knew New York and California. (I would describe my home as "near Chicago" or just "in the middle.") I had someone ask me if everyone in the States owned a gun. Someone else asked me if I got mugged all the time. Most of what they knew about the US came from movies, most of them violent action flicks.

That has certainly changed today, and the internet and advancing technology have helped, but I think that technology has an even larger role to play now with cultural diplomacy and, for lack of a better way to put it, getting people to know us and like us again. If we can share the good things about our culture -- including art, music and great films (hopefully some of which don't imply that everyone is shooting everyone else) -- and not just Rambo and Britney Spears (yes, technically she sings "music," but you know what I mean!) then I think that will make things easier for the politicians as well.