Lifestyle and Leisure
Presenting America
Justin Webb, the BBC’s former North American editor and author of Have a Nice Day – A journey through Obama’s America, speaks out on aspects of American life, politics, geography and culture.
Before moving there
I always rather enjoyed going on holidays to New York but I'd never really thought what America represented other than big cars, big hair and big waistlines. When you live there for some time, though, you realise that all that is more or less irrelevant.
There is something extraordinary about the inner life of the place and of ordinary Americans that you don't really undestand when you go on holiday; certainly people going to live there have a wonderful treat in store - its easier as a place to live, more engaging. It's a wonderful, joyful place - much more than the UK.
Bad press
I think there is a kind of lazy assumption that America is like Britain, only slightly bigger. And when it turns out not to be we get annoyed with [Americans]. I think if you take America to be a truly foreign country – which it is, and hugely different culturally – and respect its right to be different and enjoy looking at the differences (and don't get so upset about them), then I think you can really enjoy America and Americans.
When you go to India it's very different and they do all sorts of things that we think are rather wonderful and other things that we probably wouldn't do here – but it's an interesting, different and vibrant place. And I think we should treat the United States in the same way we treat other interesting countries around the world; there's lots of things they do we wouldn't necessarily do ourselves but we're interested in why they do it that way. The most obvious example is gun ownership.
Guns
We tend to think of Americans as being crazed in this sense, and there is huge gun ownership (in some states everyone's got a gun – Montana or South Carolina), but it's part of their history and heritage. It's interesting that they are that way and the gun has a place in American society.
Most of suburban America is more peaceful than suburban Britain, in spite of the guns, or maybe because of them?
Burglaries when someone is in the home – the most dangerous kind of burglary, where people get hurt – is pretty uncommon, because you might get shot. Up until two days ago I could shoot someone who came into my house, and now I can't. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know – genuinely I don't have a view on it, but I think it's interesting and I'm probably more in danger here than I was there. But on the other hand more people are shot by mistake in America, and you can't gloss over the downside.
There are places that are ghettoised in America, and there are huge areas of inner cities that you just wouldn't go. However living in north-west Washington DC where we lived we could not have felt safer; we never locked up and kept things out on the porch – there was no crime at all.
There are advantages in both directions, and obviously not great if you live in American inner cities, but it's also rather wonderful if you can live an ordinary law-abiding life without having to worry about having your stuff knicked.
Americans
There is no 'typical' American, the country is so big and there is such diversity. The big thing I suppose we don't grasp fully about the typical American is that they are young. one of the biggest differences between America and Europe is that America is a very youthful place. Demographically they don't have this terrible ageing problem that we have – they are young and full of potential.
Land of opportunity
They have had a problem in recent times with social mobility. There's no doubt at all that the American dream is only partly born out in the fact. If you look at Sonia Sotamayore???, the new Supreme Court Justice, she has an amazing story – she started in a tenement in New York – so it's still possible, but its not possible for large numbers of people. America only really works when it is possible, so you have to address that and there's a real job to be done there.
I think its fair to say that American social mobility has been disipated in recent years and that's one of the things that Obama has got to repair.
A lot of it is to do with the cost of going to college – Harvard and Princeton have a lot of money, but they also charge a lot of money and its very difficult for people to get to them – it's a problem for America. The short answer is that it is still amazingly full of opportunity but perhaps a little less so than the dream suggests.
George W Bush and Barack Obama
Both of them have enormous charisma and charm – Bush certainly does. I saw a lot of Bush, both one-to-one and in small political meetings and I watched his re-election bid in 2004 and he was a very able politician and they didn't really give him credit for that at the time. When you meet them individually Bush is full of bonhomie and back-slapping and all the rest of it, whereas Obama is very austere, but still very charming in a different sort of way and much more direct.
History will judge, it's difficult to tell [who is the more able]. Obama's academic background is clearly more impressive than Bush's, but Richard Nixon was probably America's cleverest president of recent years – so being clever isn't necessarily all you want in a president, it doesn't necessarily work out well if they're terribly bright.
Next few years
I think a lot of it will depend on the healthcare proposals that are being thrashed out over the course of this summer and autumn. If he's successful in reorganising American healthcare it'll be a very big deal, but if he's not then he's lost a really important part of his domestic policy. It's too early to say [early August] if it's got a good chance of being successful.
[Obama] is in trouble in America, not desperate trouble but it's by no means plain sailing for him. People are worried about what's going to happen to their taxes and where all the money is going to come from [to fund reform of the healthcare system].
Changing attitudes towards America
I think to the outside world that side of things has already happened. It's been an enormous boost around the world having him there and that's not going to disipate quickly, because he does have this extraordinary ability to connect with people.
I think he's probably going to be one of these presidents who is way more popular abroad than he is at home – the opposite of Bush really, who was relatively popular at home, at least until the end. I think for Obama it could go the other way, which of course electorally is not such a good thing.
Best bits
Broadly speaking, the open-mindedness and open-heartedness that we don't tend to have in Europe. There's a willingness to be open to ideas and people – that's what I'd say is there most basic acheivement. I'd also say the Americans have a great talent for making things easy, convenient and pleasant. Partly that's due to the service industry, which is so much better.
Other side of the coin
I think superstition is a real problem in America, and a lack of real basic education in some parts of the US holds people back. The obvious example is Darwinism and the large swathes of America where it's quite difficult to teach children the truth about how the world was formed – it's such a basic thing, so how are you going to move on from there.
Essentially though its a Kansas problem, and Kansas isn't the future of America – it's certainly wrong to see all Americans as being part of that, but it is a problem and it does get in the way of talent.
Weather
What well miss more than anything about America is the wonderful extremes of weather; fantastic storms, heat, cold and all the rest of it. I'm looking out of the window in Bath and there's grey skies and there was tepid sunshine this morning – and that's kind of life here. We got spectacular, stunning incredibly hot summers [in Washington DC] and you get very very cold winters which I liked. It's the exciting interesting extremes that they have in all corners of America that we just don't get.
Favourite places
I enormously liked Miami – it's a very exciting place and quite underated. It's hedonistic in a way that the rest of America isn't. If people are going to Florida I recommend spending at least a night there as it's a fascinating place.
Northern ??? California is just beautiful, and we recently has a family holiday in Lake Tahoe. I like anywhere where there is space really, Montana and all those places where the children can just run and you're just not constricted, where you can go for miles and miles without seeing another human being. I love that side of America.
We also liked Kiawah in South Carolina which is a gorgeously unspoilt, huge beach with tropical vegetation – it's possible to go places like this in America and truly get away from it all.
Advice
I'd say approach America as a foreign country, don't go and expect it to be like Britain. Approach it as a genuinely culturally different place and you can't really go wrong.
Also respect the weather and the physical environment – it's dangerous in some respects, in ways that Britain isn't. However it's also wonderful to be able to go camping in a place where there are bears and mountain lions, as I was last week – you can't do that in the UK. Make use of the parts of America that are different and read my book before going.
Interview by Matt French
Read Justin Webb's blog
Justin's book Have a Nice Day can be purchased from Amazon
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