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Read other letters about this article
healthyskeptic, some of your points are sound and some are not.
In my view the USA's introspection has nothing to do with being a superpower. It is partly a function of having a large population, and it's partly cultural. To compare to the Middle Kingdom is kinda hilarious, because it in fact makes the opposite point. The Chinese of that time were inward looking, but had no phones, TV, internet, radio or planes. They literally had no way of knowing that they were not the centre of the world. Modern Americans have no such excuses.
Also, you don't need to tell us about the USA. We know about your geography and culture. That's the way cultural imperialism works - the whole world knows everything about you, but you know almost nothing about us. We even know about the dumb things your beauty queens say!
We know that you are isolationist because we are still annoyed that you were late to WW2. We're grateful for your contribution to winning the war in the Pacific, but kind of pissed off that tens of thousands of Aussies were already dead before you worked out there was a war on. Rightly or wrongly, we would never do that to you (witness our troops in Iraq - we're so loyal that we even show up for really stupid wars), although admittedly you will never need our help in the same way.
And you really don't need to tell us that Australians travel internationally more than Americans. Mate, there are undiscoverd Amazonian tribes that travel internationally more that Americans do.
