re: Are Americans historically less able to empathize with other cultures in

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I agree with you. Perhaps empathize was the wrong word and I should have said understand other cultures. It seems that our politicians frequently say "we at bringing freedom" to the countries we go to war with. Do we not understand that many of those countries dot want freedom?

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A couple of things:

I'm sure there is a class of Americans who don't grasp it. They don't appreciate the gulf of cultural differences between us and whoever it is we're dealing with. I think there is a subset of the political class who plays on that, when in fact they're probably smart enough to know better. I honestly can't tell if McCain is a true American imperialist or if he just takes those positions to maintain some semblance of relevance.

But, there is some truth to the idea that the oppressed can't make free will choices about adoption of our values. I think this is overblown and used as an excuse to ignore reality, but it is at least partially true. Not all Afghanis will appreciate our culture if exposed to the better aspects of it, for example. But do I think there are plenty of them who are slaves to a culture being driven by history or others, and therefore don't have much of a choice in the matter? Sure, to some extent.