We're Number One?
Andrew Sullivan highlights a new survey that purports to show that global approval of the US has skyrocketed since the election of Barack Obama.
Can we take this report as definitive proof of how silly such surveys are? For any item about which people really care - their brand of toothpaste for example - opinion is legendarily difficult to move. If global approval of the United States can be swung so dramatically by an election return, does that not suggest (even assuming that the survey is valid) that global approval of the United States is a very shallow and fleeting attitude? That the movement in such attitudes is more like the swinging of the dials in a focus group than like a true change of mind? Anything that swings one way very fast can swing another way very fast - and that tells us that when we chase such fluctuating moods, we are chasing nebulous nothings.