When Trump started his war to build greater Israel last February, many online commenters noticed that Khomeini and Iran’s senior leadership was and is remarkably educated. Iran’s scholarly leadership contrasts sharply with the US administration, which is mostly oligarchs chosen for their family and business connections to Trump. Iran’s general population is similarly well educated, punching well above their weight in STEM fields and boasting one of the highest literacy rates and average IQ scores in the world (Incidentally, all of the USA’s adversaries have higher IQ scores than Americans).
Such a high education level is a great strength but can be a weakness that creates a thinking trap, which Iran isn’t the first country to fall into.
In 1944, the famous Russian writer Boris Laskin visited a female aviation regiment as part of his project about women on the frontlines. Before the trip he decided to grow out his mustache so whoever saw him in the plane would immediately know he was a man. When he arrived at the regiment headquarters, the chief of staff asked him, “Do you want to be like Hemingway?” and all the girls laughed. Laskin apparently did not find this joke funny, or perhaps understood the absurdity of his apprehensions, and shaved off his mustache the next morning. Such anecdotes are common in Soviet memoirs and I was quite shocked, as this is not at all the perception of Soviet people that Americans are taught.
My first big embarrassment in Russia was finding out that Russians read more classic Russian literature than Americans. My second big embarrassment was finding out that Russians read more classic American literature than Americans.
While it is flattering that so many people find American culture, actual culture, not suburbs and two-car garages, noteworthy enough to include in their higher education systems to the point that most of the university-educated in the Soviet Union, Russia and probably Iran has read or is at least familiar with classical American authors. Unfortunately, I can see why such knowledge might actually do more harm than good in diplomacy with the US. A Russian or an Iranian does not have more insight about the US from reading these old books, but he might believe that he does. Reading Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and Jack London teaches absolutely nothing about modern American culture, and offers no insight about the minds of American leaders. It’s literally like reading Virgil before meeting Erdogan. Just because the Roman Empire and Turkey existed on the same territory does not mean they are related, nor does it mean that studying the former will offer insights about the latter.
This might sound counterintuitive because many other cultures do reflect their classic authors. You can read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol and Kuprin and understand what makes the wheels spin in Russians’ brains. But there is no equivalent connection between today’s Americans, let alone American leaders, and great authors of the past. If you want to understand American culture in the context of diplomacy, you are literally better off watching James Bond movies. I would go so far as to say that a James Bond movie marathon should be mandatory for all world diplomats, as there is no better description of how Americans think. In fact, the lessons of Bond tales could be surprising to someone who has read classic American novels. The “rugged individual,” which is perhaps the archetype that American culture is most famous for has no place in the James Bond universe, and he certainly is not one himself. Bond was a blank slate turned into a spying and killing machine by the regime.
The America of today is not best defined The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The Call of the Wild, but by James Bond smashing Saint Petersburg with a tank. The America of those books is dead, replaced by a nationless hyper-capitalist machine that has long lost the ability to build anything. It is only capable of destroying what someone else built. When interacting with American negotiators, it is crucial to understand that you are not meeting Huckleberry Finn or Atticus Finch, you’re meeting James Bond.
Ian Kummer
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This is brilliant and your best post yet. However, there is a minor flaw in that James Bond was a British character, working for the British government, and created by a British author and the movies were produced by a British company. Some of the movies are quite nuanced. I suggest that diplomats instead watch the four MCU Captain America movies, even the fourth that doesn’t have Captain America in it, which I haven’t seen yet myself.
The Coen brothers movies, particularly Burn After Reading, would also be instructional for contemporary diplomats.