A Month Old

If hindsight is 20/20, then the view of the US from Scotland, while not perfect, does provide a new vantage point to see America. With that newness has come revelation. I am only a month old in this grey land but my study abroad semester has provided me with a unique way of critiquing America: a Scottish one. I am neither Scottish nor do I pretend to be, but living here has concentrated my thinking and turned typical gripes somehow salient; there is another non-American way of doing things. Compared to America, Scottish life is based on a patently different set of values; national policy and personal choice largely these values. This rainy country of five million upholds healthcare as a right, minimum wage provides enough for the poor to live, higher education is affordable, and violent crime is rare. Yes, partisan debates rage in Parliament, rugby die-hards pummel one another at the pub, many dentists have begun to privatize, and there are flaws in the system, but basic services persist. Scots assume that humans have inalienable rights; a familiar word in America but one that looks very different here.
In 1998-1999, one third of Scotland’s entire national budget, £5 billion, was dedicated to healthcare. In the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every day on military defense. At first, comparing the world’s fumbling superpower with a small country that is still part of a kingdom seems totally absurd yet it is not the numbers themselves that are telling but the thoughts they represent. Fiscal policy is indicative of what is important to a country’s citizens. In the U.S., when issues become priorities the money is made available. To cite the obvious examples, after hurricane Katrina, September 11, or the invasion of Iraq, money was allocated according to national opinion and political directives. How money is spent reflects the priorities of a nation.
The United States national budget balloons annually into the trillions while Scotland’s pales in comparison. America does have a very different role in the world and it is undoubtedly a more expensive one. Yet, the implications of national spending stand. In the U.S. the privatized healthcare system leaves the poor, elderly, and unemployed to fend for themselves. There is Medicare and Medicaid but because of inhumane levels of federal funding, massive demand, and a cracking system, millions of Americans go without proper healthcare each year. Why such programs are poorly funded remains highly contentious and like the comparison of the budgets, an oversimplified analysis is not the point. Budgetary policy in America and the endless attempts at explaining a fractured system do not entertain the Scots. From across the pond, there is no acceptable explanation as to why anyone would go without healthcare because it is seen as a right. From here, healthcare in America appears to be a privilege. Dr. Huw Davies’, professor of health care policy and management at the University of St. Andrews, simple answer to a simple question is telling. When asked if all Americans are entitled to healthcare he simply answered “No.”
Davies’ answer to a follow up question is equally telling. When asked what a nationalized healthcare system says about a society Davies shed his concision but retained his prescience answering: “That health care is a right, and that collective provision, risk-sharing, and contributions based on ability to pay or similar is a practical and fair mechanism; not always - but largely better than any alternative if equity/access are important values.” As a well-informed academic and consultant at the policy setting level Davies answer serves as a litmus test for much of the country. His curt response to the first question and well informed answer to the second is largely indicative of the way most Scots think. Here, even the poor, are provided healthcare. Cutting the fat, his answer probes at one of the main differences that has pervaded my observations so far: the domestic priorities of America are different than in Scotland. Worst of all, from the view point of the Scots, healthcare ought not to be political issue or ideological battlepoint. Their lives bear this out and their observations continually reaffirm their understanding of the U.S. as an upper-class-preferential society.
After all, it is the citizens themselves who fund all of the nationalized systems. The people elect the politicians who allocate the funds and national decisions do mirror public sentiment. Consistent with that national sentiment is the lack of bickering over taxes that, when compared to America is unfathomably high. Each time you make a purchase in Scotland, you are charged 17 percent sales tax. In New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world, tax is 8.25 percent. Across Scotland each month, if you are a full time resident, you pay estate tax for the collection of your trash. If you own a car you pay road tax. We pay taxes in America but there is a consistent tension nationwide about whether or not they are too high. Nationally they choose to focus more on education than military spending and as individuals they don’t gripe about the high percentage of taxes that are removed each month. Here, citizens believe in the public systems.
The United States is a massive country with the world’s largest consumer economy plagued by an ever-growing partisan political split. Scotland is a small country known for whisky, bag pipes and a Mel Gibson movie. Ceaseless fog has not left me foolishly comparing apples and oranges. Yet a change of viewpoint can make even the most complex issues simple. People deserve healthcare. In Scotland, that belief is upheld as a right and is indicative of a deep-seeded cultural belief that regardless of class, race, or religion, all people are entitled to certain things and the state will provide them free of charge for all. In America we don’t put our money where our mouth is.

February 12, 2006

If nothing else, Sunday nights are great for procrastination.

After a long uneventful weekend of reading, basketball, and alcohol, my thoughts on the people of St. Andrews are looking up. I got a job at a hip coffee shop, have begun to meet students whom I find intriguing, and continue to be blown away by the beauty of this place.

So, like everyone else in this small town of 16,000 I am a confused citizen contributing to an identity crisis: a storied town coping with the realities of modernization. In a town of cobbled streets and medieval churches that radiates history and tradition only one force seems to loom larger. Those forces, the internet, immigration, diversity, and revisionist histories greatly challenge the town and the university it houses, probing at the fundamental tenets that have stood forthright for centuries. Can this town and university withstand cultural change and honor the blue-blood legacy of its past?

And the answer is, like everything, of course it will survive. The better question then becomes, how will it survive? It is this question that is asked daily by many members of the town and while few seem to have concrete answers, the response does reflect the importance of the question.

From an institutional standpoint, the University has confronted the issue head on. IN the past two years, they have funded and began degrees in sustainable development and film studies. This year’s university address will be centered, like it has been for hundreds of years, around one word. This year’s word is sustainability. In addition, there is an entire blueprint put together by the school about how it can be more efficient, greener, and more sustainable. Certainly this new agenda is a response to a trend within the world that increasingly demands large establishments from multi-nationals to universities to publicly acknowledge some sort of environmental reprehensibility.

And yet, while the speech will address a very contemporary issue, where it is given and how are equally telling indicating that there is a conflict. Each year the rector general, a title aging back to the formation of the university, wears a storied robe, assembles in a vaulted chapel to address other academics wearing equally symbolic clothing. It is this clothing that symbolizes the tradition that is the thread of the university – setting it apart as Scotland’s oldest university. Likewise, the departments that garner the most international praise, medieval history, divinity, and English, are not cutting edge.

Thus it appears that the university’s struggle to remain sincere to its valued history and address modern issues is very much a problem. For both the town and the university this issue will continue; figuring out a healthy program going forward will be the challenge of the 21 century. Perhaps someday they will look back and praise an their changing outlook today as part of their impressive past.

February 8, 2006

A week old in St. Andrews, it is funny to me how the scenery has changed and yet many things have not. Stuffy old women remain overstuffed. Snobby British prep stars persist in their obnoxious condescension. Blue collar grit remains readily apparent on the sleeves, brows, and boots of the groundskeepers, repairmen, and construction workers. And thus, my conclusions after a week: St. Andrews is an enrapturing seaside daydream, built around castles and gothic buildings meant to attract visitors because of its mysticism and like many things there is a gap between the ideas behind the founding and the execution. While this is not a poor attempt at personification for the saintly churches, it is to say that the physical beauty of the town, the history that looms large around each corner is undeniably charming, but many of the people are not. Sadly, this is where I am.

My thoughts in coming here were to meet people with thick Rs in their accents and a distinct outlook on life: a Scottish outlook. But, despite being in Scotland, I have met few Scots. St. Andrews is overrun by obnoxious Americans like myself, public school (which in the UK actually means private) Lacoste flaunting trust fund babies, other overly-privileged internationals and some Scots. Worst of all, it seems that there are labels, similar to the AT&T commercials, about who is getting reception from which country and while one would like to think that there is a difference amongst the spoiled of different countries, I have found there to be very little. Rich women from Spain are equally ‘entitled’ as are the women from Rockland or Rome. The accents differ, the styles differ too, much less than the accents, but the baselines remain.

And so, literature flexes its muscles, charming me into other worlds. I am escaping my social discontents in the pages of the great writers and the rooms of the gothic architects. Launched back centuries, I find solace in the vocabulary, precision, imagination, and wit of the world’s best writers, trying to rip them off, improved my vocabulary and fall unrelentingly in love with the idea of falling in love. Right now, I am enthralled with the passions, scents, and convolutions of early 20th century upper-class life. Marquez has flown me from the gloomy skies to a place of unrequited love and pungent almonds. Awesome indeed.

And yet, this is not entirely true. Of course, it is a judgmental, hyper-critical and unfair of me to arrive and these lofty conclusions after just 7 days. There is much to explore and I need not settle. I need to persist in my pursuit of the native Scot, unique outlooks on life, and grounded UK-ers who do not dawn horses on their breast. Pub life is cool and it awaits me in an awesome way that I have yet to taste. Someone out there is cooking a great time and I can’t settle.

So that’s where I am; needing to meet people because most of the people I have met are unexciting and revolting.

Like the skies, my time here will become sunny enough; there are just some clouds to break through.