Why do Americans call their leadership “The Administration?” or better yet “the current Administration”?
I am not a foolish ignorant with respect to what I am about to say. I know each language, corroborated with its cultural particularities has its own… how should I put this… linguistic means of deflecting responsibility, but America is better than the rest of the world in pretty much anything (this is not sarcastic. Well, maybe it is a little. But this is not to say the
In terms of deflecting responsibility, for some reason, Americans feel there is little connection between themselves and their government. Perhaps this is just an appearance spurred by my daily interactions, especially when it comes to dissent from the government’s position. In other words, when they don’t like what “the country” does, but they wish to talk (not to say bitch, because often time they are talking constructive criticism) about it, it is not uncommon that the US citizens redirect the responsibility for the “wrong” not on the country, not on the people in the country, nor on the 50-something percent that elected the people running the country, but on a very narrow group of people that are in charge, the administration.
The average (educated) American has a very low sense of partaking to the Administration’s decisions and policy, as I have noticed. The American democracy is interesting like this: people feel represented. Well… kinda’… they are represented once every 2 years, and a little more than that once every 4 years, when the elections come. Everyone performs the sacred civic duty but then, for some reason that I cannot explain, nor understand there is a separation occurring between the electorate and their representatives.
After the elections (especially if they voted against the winners) people feel they have no responsibility for whatever the country is doing. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to see scholars, public figures, or regular people take the stance of “this administration is doing all the wrong things” (with an implied “haha! I told you so! They are not representing
Is it the passivity of the people? Is it because the
Who knows?
No comments:
Post a Comment