Openness and staying power
Interested in why the United States of America has been so successful a nation? The Olympics provide a clear answer for those who care to ponder the surnames of the members of the US team. It is not just who led them out in Beijing as from the run-up to the games pointed out, there are well over 20 team members who have been welcomed from abroad.
They come for a variety of reasons but the welcome they get is what interests me. It's the welcome of a flexible dynamic society that has no time for peevish nationalism, but has a warm inclusive welcome for those who have something to offer - in sport, historically of course in commerce as well and in academic life and every other area of human endeavour.
This is why America can afford to view the Chinese triumph at these Olympics (and it is certainly seen here as a triumph so far) with some degree of relaxation: it is the triumph of organisation and determination and vision and all sorts of other hugely important qualities in a nation aiming to better itself - and to better the world - but it lacks that magical openness that America has. Economically - culturally - the US will be challenged by China in the years ahead but in the marathon of human progress the US has the real stamina, the staying power, and that power comes from its attitude to the talents of the rest of the world: not bring it on, but bring them in.
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