From Seattle to Jerusalem, I’ve pissed in hundreds of urinals. One has time to think in those sixty to six hundred-second leaks: aim, pressure, splash radius, urinal cake odor. If us men are lucky, we get to power-melt leftover ice from the hotel bar.Sometimes these recepticals of our fluid waste are simple troughs of cheap metal. Other times stately affairs of crafted porcelain accomodate our urine streams.
On top of most urinals, though, is a clue to American foreign policy.
The ubiquitous toilet in the USA is called the “American Standard”, right guys? But when I travel, while the font stays the same, the name changes to “Ideal Standard”.
It might be presumptious to comment on American Exceptionalism in the loo, but the urinal company’s simple marketing decision to translate “American” to “Ideal” tells us a lot about what consumers worldwide need to read to trust in a product – no matter how foul. In Greece or Egypt, it’s an ideal piss pot. In America, even if its made in China, it’s up to American standards.
“I think if there was a Palestinian Standard toilet even the Palestinians would laugh,” my friend Mathilda said.
Except for regional or cultural specialities like French wine, Japanese sake, Scottish scotch or Mexican mescal, nowhere else identifies so readily their nationality with inherent greatness. That’s because as Americans we believe we are fundamentally different. We are a historical singularity – we in fact ended history itself with our secular democratic capitalist system. Our beacon on the hill lit a fire we think unique. We see our spark in every political struggle – from the Orange to the Jasmine revolutions.
Perhaps a piece of this narrative is true. But the arrogance inherent in this exceptionalism has kept us stupid: we don’t need to know Arabic to invade Iraq, we don’t study the roots of terrorism, and we don’t have to follow international law. Afghanistan ruined the British and Soviet empires – but ours will prevail. Our system is so perfect it will one day, with or without our direct interaction, engulf the world. Did it not contain communism?
National pride is not neccessarily a bad thing, but when it keeps one from ground work, sweat equity, proper planning, respecting others, and inner development, then we’ve got a serious problem of hubris. That is why Obama’s latest address to the Arab world fell so flat within it – his paternal response to the popular struggles from Tunis to Daraa made clear the American government’s belief in it’s supremacy. The tumult of the Arab Spring is the region finally getting the American Revolution.
We hurt ourselves the most, and risk losing everything we’ve got, if we never accept others. Equality is the bedrock of our promise.
Next time you take a wee, boys, ask yourself: is American ideal?
