Is America Superman or Batman?

A friend of mine recently said to me, "Superman is how America sees itself, and Batman is how the world see us." You know what my reaction to that is? I’m OK with that. (Firstly, I’m a huge Batman freak, but I digress). On some level, I don’t honestly care what the rest of the world views us as. That being said, I’ve often found myself going back and forth on that particular position though. So the question still remains should we care what the "world" thinks? I have sort of a "Maslowian" stance on that, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Some people argue that America is essentially a "brand" and that as our brand perception becomes more favorable, we will invariably gain support and reduce the number of our enemies worldwide. Those same people often point to the 1950’s as the golden era of American foreign relations and the time in which we had the most friends and the fewest enemies. This is usually attributed to the Marshall Plan and the time, energy, effort, and money that we poured into Europe and the the Pacific Rim at the time. The problem with this argument is that it fails to take into account the timing of the Marshall Plan and its place is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For those of you unfamiliar, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological theory that human beings have five stages of "needs" that are universally sought in a very specific order and that one level cannot be pursued effectively until the level below it has been fulfilled. They are, in order:

1. Physiological
2. Safety
3. Love/Belonging
4. Esteem
5. Self-Actualization

I don’t think that the needs of nations are much different than this, and consequently, I believe that those who would worry endlessly about how the "world" views us are trying to put Love/Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization in front of our collective Physiological and Safety needs. They fail to recognize that we undertook the Marshall Plan only after we had secured our safety through strength and many actions which are still looked "unfavorably" upon by the "world". If we can’t protect ourselves or provide for our food and energy needs, at the end of the day what the world "thinks" of us will be in the past tense, and that is a future I hope no one wants.