Jensen’s article…wow. It’s a great summary of everything we have explored all semester long and at the same time introduced many new concepts to consider as well. The general consensus in class on Monday seemed to be that it was too much of a critique and that the guy was a complete anti-American. To my surprise, I actually didn’t feel that way after reading through his work. Granted, there were a few things that I thought made it difficult to ingest but aside from that I thought that Jensen presented a down-to-earth argument that was extremely thought provoking due to his many relatable points. I don’t necessarily agree with many of them but if I were, say, a really stingy college professor grading huge final papers (no connection being made here), I would undoubtedly give him an A. In summary, he criticized the framework of being American and broke that down into three areas of our patriotism that we all seem to blindly follow: The notion that we are the “best” country ever, the social meaning of “supporting our troops” and the belief that “freedom” is the best thing ever, regardless of its real world implications and the expenses incurred to support it. He uses many comparisons to break down each aspect here and I thought they were very easy to, at least, relate to. He definitely seems like that guy who grew up in school and had no friends because he was that kid in class who reminded the teacher when the homework was due. One thing I can complain about is that most of his arguments were based on the fact that he truly understands human nature and speaks on behalf of humanity to relate to some of his points, especially in the first two sections. Along with that and more specifically, the only other thing I found disturbing was how he assumed that most of us would not encourage a ten-year-old thinking he is the “greatest” and that, automatically, most great leaders are modest about their greatness. Michael Jordan won’t tell you there is a better basketball player than him. Genghis Kahn won’t tell you he is inferior in any way. Alexander the “Great”…well you get the point. Plus I’m pretty sure any parent would absolutely encourage their kid if he displayed signs of confidence early on. Hell, in this day and age they’d try to convince Bill Cosby to re-air Kids Say The Darndest Things just so their little honey boo boo could be a 30-minute star. That’s beside the point though. Regardless, he makes valid points. While his work maintains a negative and overly critical undertone, he still makes a good argument by sticking to his claim that “the facts do matter… and the ‘greatest nation on earth’ mantra tends to lead us to get the facts wrong”. As he mentions too, he does not seek to belittle anything, anyone or any organization. He doesn’t use legitimate evidence to “prove” that America sucks, merely because he isn’t trying to do that in the first place. He really is just providing food for thought and I think that is very overlooked by most of his critics. Also, his analysis of what support really means when contrasted with the support from a friendship was a great eye-opener. He may be a dick in many aspects, un-American and maybe even a hater in all other areas of life but he still makes a good argument, sticks true to his beliefs and does not judge others for theirs either.