We do love a good story

Americans, and I include myself here, have a habit of walking into a city that has historically been through a lot (like Dresden), and treating the residents like they'd treat someone with a disability: "You are so brave! Look at how you're taking care of yourself after everything you've been through! Gosh, you are so amazing! What an inspiration you are to the rest of us!" (All said with a quiver in the voice and a tear in the eye for added sincerity.)

Here's the amazing thing about humans. When placed in a difficult situation, they adapt to survive. In most cases they don't think about how difficult it is or how brave they're being. The motivation is survival, not being an inspiration. And when we praise someone for surviving, it's like praising a puppy for peeing on the newspaper in its pen when there's nowhere else for it to go.

A couple of weeks ago a middle-aged American man got up in church and proceeded to ramble for a very long time about how brave and wonderful the people of Dresden are for surviving not only the bombings in World War II, but communism. The general gist seemed to be this: "You have had so many difficulties and struggles, and the fact that you can stand up and walk around, and, for crying out loud, operate this little congregation all by yourselves is just the most amazing thing."

After discussing this painful event with some of the Germans who were there, I have learned that they get this kind of thing regularly from Americans, and it baffles them. For one thing, most of them weren't alive to witness the bombings, so how does that make them brave? And as for communism, sure there were some crappy aspects, but for the most part it was fine. People went to work and paid the bills and had families and very ordinary lives. How does that make us brave? they say.

I guess we Yanks are just suckers for a redemption story.




JEM