Episode 9 - The Ugly American, Cultural Sensitivity, and Dag Hammarskjöld: Lessons from the 1950s

In this episode of Decoding the Unicorn: The Podcast, I'll dive into the classic novel The Ugly American and its portrayal of American "diplomacy" abroad during the Cold War. The book may have been published in 1958, but its message about cultural insensitivity and the failure to understand local customs still resonates today.

I’ll also explore how this contrasts sharply with Dag Hammarskjöld’s approach to diplomacy during the same era. While others bulldozed their way through international relations, Dag exemplified cultural sensitivity, respect, and curiosity—traits that helped him connect with leaders around the world.

Join me as we unpack the Ugly American stereotype, what Dag can teach us about quiet strength and diplomacy, and how cultural sensitivity remains a crucial skill in our interconnected world.

Links: 

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/14539216

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American

#DagHammarskjöld #CulturalSensitivity #TheUglyAmerican #DiplomacyMatters #LeadershipLessons #DecodingTheUnicorn #QuietStrength #GlobalAwareness #HistoricalInsights

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos! 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Cultural sensitivity, The Ugly American, Eugene Burdick, William Lederer, Cold War, American diplomats, Soviet diplomats, local customs, language barriers, Homer Atkins, Dag Hammarskjöld, servant leadership, international relations, diplomatic efforts, cultural awareness.

Welcome to the Decoding the Unicorn Podcast. Here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to talk about the novel The Ugly American and cultural sensitivity. Nowadays, when we think about the phrase The Ugly American, we tend to imagine someone who's belligerent, obnoxious, pushy and more than a little bit gauche when they visit a foreign country. But that's not originally what the phrase meant. I want to dive into that, how Dag practiced cultural sensitivity years before we really knew the phrase as such, and why it's still important today. Stay tuned.

Just a brief interruption to your regularly scheduled programming to ask if you've purchased your copy of Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld. It's perfect for anyone interested in history, the Cold War or intriguing biographies. You can find it on Amazon today. Now on with the show!

The novel The Ugly American was published in 1958 and it was written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. It centers on a fictional Southeast Asian nation called sarkan. It's based a little bit on Laos and a little bit on Vietnam, but by using a fictional nation, it gives the authors a lot more leeway to say what they want to say and to make the points that are important to them. Then Senator John F Kennedy read this book and was so impressed by it that he bought copies for all of his colleagues in the US Senate and encouraged them to read the book. Probably most of them didn't, given the political climate at the time, but it's definitely a book worth reading. I published a podcast episode about it last year. I'll drop a link to it in the write up for this podcast episode if you want to check it out. And I released it over on my nighttime broadcast the conservacy theories, because I read the book last year, and I just thought, Whoa. This is incredible. The main crux of it is the cold war is going on, and the authors make the argument that the Soviets are really winning the diplomatic cold war over America because of the way that American diplomats and ambassadors behave when they go overseas. So let's compare and contrast. The Soviets are learning culture, local customs, local religious observations and becoming fluent in whatever the local language is. They eat the cuisine. They mingle with other people. Then you have the Americans that sort of form an enclave wherever they are. They like to eat hamburgers and hot dogs. They only want to speak English if they have to associate with the native population. They always need a translator or an interpreter. They only shop at the commissary. They don't want local cuisine. They don't want to observe local religious customs, or at least be aware that other people have other religious traditions. Everything is very Uncle Sam Americana, we're here and we're superior. And the authors make the point, well, it's not a wonder that America is falling behind diplomatically, because if that's the kind of attitude that's being taken, people don't respond well to that. And that was one of the things that verdict and letterer wanted to lampoon in this novel, and they're better able to do it by putting fictional characters into this fictional nation of Sarkhan. But it definitely drives the point home. I want to read a little bit if you go to the Wikipedia page for the ugly American under plot summary, I want to read this great quote because it sums up the book in so many ways. In one vignette, a Burmese journalist says, for some reason, the American people I meet in my country are not the same ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land, they isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious. When we think of the ugly American in modernity. That's very often what we think of somebody that goes to a foreign country. They only want to eat American fast food and hamburgers. They don't want to learn any of the language, not even hello, goodbye, please and thank you. But they just have this idea that everybody else needs to speak English to me and I need to be able to find familiar, highly Ultra processed American foods. But originally, that is not what the ugly American phrase refer to, what Burdick and letterer do with that phrase. The ugly. American they're actually referring to the title character in the book, this man named Homer Atkins, who is an engineer of some kind. I'm trying to remember if he was a mechanical engineer, but he was an engineer by trade, and he thinks of his hands as being ugly because they have calluses and scrapes and cuts and grease stains on them from hard work. So he kind of looks at his hands as like well, I know that they might not be the nicest and the prettiest, but they've served me well. And Homer and his wife really integrate into the culture, and they look for solutions to problems that they're asked to find solutions for they don't come in to play the role of savior or the role of hero. It's like, well, what can we do? What do you want us to do? How can we be of help? And one of the points that Homer makes in the book is that the Americans tend to come in with loud, grandiose ideas, let's station military tanks here. Let's build tremendous infrastructure, kind of like in modern times, it would be like, Let's build a freeway in a casino. And the people around are like, Wait a minute. What you have individuals living in abject poverty, and you want to build a freeway and a casino? How's that helpful to anyone? So Homer and his wife are really the antithesis of that, and they they come up with simple solutions that are easy to implement. So instead of trying to go for these grandiose projects that don't really help anybody, that look flashy but they're not helpful, that's not what Homer and his wife are doing. And by taking these baby steps, they actually wind up with a factory that the indigenous people of Sara can want to work at. And it elevates their status a bit, not in terms of status, but in terms of, like, quality of life. They have more money. They have more breathing room financially. And it's like, okay, this as opposed to coming in and building casinos and shopping malls and freeways, there has to be some kind of usable infrastructure. And there's also a lot, at least in in terms of nuance in that book about cultural sensitivity. I know I probably saw like a broken record here, but it's true, Dag was practicing that concept long before the term cultural sensitivity became part of our modern parlance. And I want to take a minute here to read a passage from decoding the unicorn. Now this comes right after dag has met with Premier in line there were 11 American POWs that were being held in China. Back then it was called Red China, being held in China. And the American government wanted dag to see if he could get those airmen released. There was this tradition, if you will, if nobody else could go into a situation without making it worse. Or the powers that be were concerned about how they would look politically, what might happen to their presidential chances, or whatever. It really boiled down to let dag handle it. Give it to DAG. Make dag do it. He'll take care of this. Give it to DAG. And that's kind of what happened with the fate of these airmen. So dag goes to China and negotiates with Enlai, and he's not pushy, he's not aggressive. He goes there and they have real conversations, and DAG is very careful not to be pushy, shovy, aggressive. He doesn't go over there and say, if you don't do this, we're going to drop an atomic bomb on you. If you don't do this, you'll never have a seat at the UN if you don't do this, the Americans will come after you. It's not going over to threaten and bully and intimidate. The press was not particularly happy about that, because when dag comes home initially, and he's empty handed and in lie doesn't say I have released these airmen immediately, I feel threatened by Dag hammersholed, and I'm going to just let them go, because I'm scared of nuclear war when that doesn't happen, the press really gives dag Quite a shellacking. Now, the story has a happy ending, because later that same year, as a birthday gift to dag in lie actually does release those 11 Airmen, but because it didn't happen immediately when dag went there, the press is not particularly impressed by DAGs conduct. I want amidst that backdrop, I want to read a passage from decoding the unicorn under the tab decoding dag use cultural sensitivity by nature. Dag was polite and empathetic, two traits often lacking in today's political landscape. It's important to take a moment to consider what dag did not do in China. So. Puff his chest out and pronounce that all hell from the West would rain down if the airmen were not immediately released, go into meetings with in lie unprepared, eat hamburgers or chicken nuggets rather than local, authentic cuisine. Blab to the newspaper reporters about everything that went on behind closed doors, or, perhaps even worse, instruct the media that he was strong arming Enlai, rush the meetings along like a spoiled, impatient child, brag about how powerful the United Nations and the United States were, which would essentially be a passive aggressive threat, shout at Enlai that China would never be a member nation at the UN if he didn't grovel for it, understanding one's audience and using cultural sensitivity are important in international business. Clinical Psychologist Julia baumack observes respect, empathy and understanding for people from different cultures, religions and ethnic groups are essential to building trust, effective communication and strong relationships in the workplace and in the broader social context. Several years later, in 1958 authors, Eugene Burdick and William Lederer published The Ugly American which satirized and upbraided the behavior of American diplomats during the Cold War. The perception among developing nations was that the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War in terms of its diplomatic efforts, because its ambassadors actually put in effort, effort to speak the local language fluently, to know the culture and customs, to spend time with the indigenous peoples, to eat the local food, to understand the local religions, etc. American ambassadors, on the other hand, were notorious for hanging out with other expats, exclusively eating burgers and drinking beer and only communicating in English the titular character, the Ugly American, was a man who helped the people around him by living with them and providing aid in a way that they wanted and welcomed. In his travels, Dag was careful to adjust his behavior accordingly, and he truly enjoyed immersing himself in the art, culture, religious traditions, language and foods of other nations. He did not relegate himself to hoity toity, high brow activities, as he would also visit impoverished areas during their talks in Lai respected how much dag already understood about Chinese customs, culture and heritage. End quote, We could definitely use more of that in today's political landscape. I feel like cultural sensitivity can be a bit like the term servant leadership. I actually just published a blog post about that very topic just this morning. Servant Leadership gets bandied about. It doesn't even really have a meaning anymore. Some people have taken servant leadership to an extreme, in my opinion, to where it means groveling for a client, being in sales and thinking it means, Oh, please, Mr. Prospect, please give me your business. Please talk on the phone to me. Please don't hang up. And it's like, well, that's just begging, that's just groveling, that's looking desperate and turning your prospects off. That's not really servant leadership. Servant leadership is more so saying, as dag did, what can I do to help? What can I do to make your life better? And that's something in the project that I'm working on right now, simply DAG. That's something that I'm really trying to highlight even more, was dag commitment to other people and to that sense of I'm here to be of service to you. I'm leading this organization, but I don't look at myself as being I'm at the top of the hierarchy. I'm at the top of the pyramid. I'm snotty and snobby and you are all beneath me. He's not like Loki in The Avengers. Neil, you are all beneath me. No, No, quite the opposite. What can I do to be of service? What can I do to help you? How do you like to be managed? What kind of leader are you looking for? And then having the coffee fletches, where people could come in, speak their mind, say what needed to be said, without any fear of reprisal. I just think that's such an amazing thing, especially when we consider the DAG was doing this in the 1950s before Burdick and letterer ever sat down and wrote their book. Dag was practicing cultural sensitivity in real time in the early and mid 1950s it's just astonishing. But in the same way that servant leadership has come to be a hollow term, it's almost like, well, what does that even mean anymore? It's been bandied about since the 1970s it's been used and abused by certain people who most definitely have not been servant leaders. What does it even mean? I think the same thing is becoming true with cultural sensitivity. Does it mean groveling? No, it's not about supremacy culture. It's not about saying that anybody is superior and somebody else is inferior, either on a broad cultural level or just on an individual. Level. It's about saying, I want to listen to understand. I want to be aware that not everybody speaks English, not everybody believes the same way that I do, not everybody eats the same food. Some of the things that Americans look at and say, That's delicious, I can't wait to have that somebody else might look at and be like, that looks like, crud. I'm not interested in that. It's just having that sense of awareness, understanding that the world is a different place, depending on the lens that you're looking through. People have different experiences. Some are more privileged than others. Some have grown up in a way that makes it difficult for them to have that understanding, to come down off their supposed pedestal and realize that other people have other values and other experiences. And some people have been so propagandized by this idea of the West is the best. Nobody else is allowed to have an opinion, nobody else is allowed to have a seat at the table. That's something else that I found in doing the research for simply DAG, is that, you know, you would find these ambassadors and diplomats and politicians that absolutely had that mentality, like we shouldn't even let anybody, let's say wet east of Western Europe? Anyone? Maybe east of, let's say Germany shouldn't even have a seat at the table, because the West is really the center of all culture. And dag was sort of like, yeah, no, that's not the way the world works, and that's not the way the UN is going to work. And in reading some of the things connected to South African apartheid, it has just been horrifying, like absorbing this information from politicians of that time who defended apartheid. This is good. This is what we should be doing. And it's like, how, how, how did somebody's mind go there? How, how did that work for them? I just It's astonishing to me. So I think that cultural sensitivity should not become this hollow buzzword. Like, oh yes, our workplace is committed to belonging. We want everybody to have a place here. We want everybody to feel psychologically safe. We want to be culturally sensitivity, culturally sensitive as we work across boundaries and borders and time zones. But then, in reality, they don't. They talk a good game during the interview process, but when it's time to actually apply the buzzwords that they've bandied about, it's nowhere to be found, if that could be practicing those things all the way back in the 1950s before they became part of modern parlance, there's absolutely no excuse for those of us in modern times to not be more aware we're more connected than we ever have been and we have a broader and faster awareness of the world around us. So again, I say we just have no excuse to not be aware that other people live in other ways. And it's not always about the Western world, it just isn't. I highly, highly recommend the book The Ugly American. If you can find a copy on Amazon or at your local library, please check it out. It is absolutely positively worth your time. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoy today's episode, if something resonated for you, please be sure to like, share and subscribe. If you're listening via audio, make sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a five star review, I'll see you next time.

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