Conversation

Even at the height of the Cold War I don’t think “become like the Soviet Union” was ever either a popular or elite aspiration anywhere in the world 🤔 “Become like America” was usually the popular aspiration to the extent elites let American culture be visible, uncensored
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America might be the first and last popular aspirational civilizational condition in history. Elites have occasionally wanted to be French, Persian, Danish, or Singaporean, but masses generally didn’t have enough contact with other cultures to aspire to be like them until TV
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Replying to
I’d add that ppl so far who’ve like Singapore usually want to enjoy its perks but not necessarily *become Singaporean*, the concept of which is still kind of incomplete. They usually point at GDP, cleanliness, etc but can’t say much about culture beyond airspace consoomerism
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