Proposal For a U.S. Cultural Strategy

                                                                                               Sarko/Bruni in Brazil

Unfortunately, the United States has suffered from very adverse publicity in recent years. I am not here to beat a dead horse about the perversely destructive nature of the last administration’s moribund social and political culture that erupted in one last murderous frenzy, like the final scene in an “Alien” movie. I only want to point out what every businessman knows: adverse publicity can kill a commercial enterprise.

Our commercial rivals have been quick to capitalize on our missteps. Notably, the French, whom we instinctively recognize as being the greatest threat to us in terms of commercial dominance. A medium-size power of only sixty million persons, the French, endowed with a heritage of centralized planning dating back to Louis XIV and updated by Charles de Gaulle, have been astute in mobilizing their country’s resources by consolidating their agricultural, industrial and economic sectors and applying a coordinated strategic mobilization with the goal of asserting French authority in the scientific and commercial realms.

The election of Nicholas Sarkozy to the French presidency last year immeasurably enhanced their commercial prospects. Even though his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal was indisputably charming and qualified, she could never have brought to the Elysée Palace the qualities of focus and dynamism that Sarkozy has brought to bear in promoting French interests.

Sarkozy, with all his female troubles dating from his frenetic attempts to retain his wife, Cécilia, whom he chased to New York and retrieved from her lover like a comic cuckold out of a Molière stage comedy, to the palace intrigues stemming from a rivalry between glamorous female cabinet ministers, reminiscent of the ancien regime, to his choice of pop singer, fashion model and notoriously active groupie Carla Bruni as first lady of France, resembles nothing so much as the frenetic motor-mouth Energizer Bunny of the Duracell commercials.

The first year of Sarkozy’s presidency has to this point been immeasurably successful. He flew to Libya and succeeded in liberating some doctors and nurses who were under sentence of death ostensibly for infecting a children’s hospital word with AIDS, and while he was there took the time to seal a nuclear power program worth billions of euros; negotiated an end to the war in Georgia; triumphantly succeeded in his role, to the unanimous praise of all the member nations, in his role in the rotating presidency of the European Union, notably over Irish objections to the establishment of an EU constitution; and is currently on a state visit to Brazil, where his first official act was to sign a commercial contract to sell that country a military program of 4 submarines and 50 transport helicopters worth six billion euros, with a memorandum of understanding to sell them a nuclear submarine and a squadron of Dassault fighter jets, all to be constructed in Brazil under a transfer of technology agreement.

An essential component of this trade strategy has been the official French strategy, first conceived by De Gaulle’s minister of culture, Andre Malraux, to use France’s cultural patrimony as a way to pave the way for the country’s commercial interests. The government has been astute in using fashion, art, cinema, music, sport and literature to create a welcoming environment for its manufacturing, agricultural and commercial interests in a way that no other nation has been able to succeed.

The current Brazil contract has been negotiated in a context of several years’ cultural exchanges culminating in the present Year of France in Brazil, which includes, notably, a festival of French opera in the historic Manaus opera house in that Amazon city.

Surprisingly, or even shockingly, Sarkozy’s choice of a consort, in Carla Bruni, has been a pivotal component in enhancing his country’s glamorous image. Not that his choice of her has been met by universal acclaim. As one French blogger wrote, “Does the president have the right to marry a woman whose butt has been seen by the whole world, and whom everybody knows the name of everybody who has had it?” This guy had a good point, but her universal exposure notwithstanding, Carla Bruni is a popular and celebrated first lady, dominating the social pages the way her husband has totally monopolized the headlines.

In addition to her innumerable photo coverage and interviews, Bruni, an accomplished composer and singer, has released a number one CD of original songs. This week on the Internet there is a video of her playing and singing a duet with French rock icon Johnny Hallyday. She is the focal point of Sarkozy’s state visit to Brazil, where she is scheduled to celebrate New Year’s in the country’s night clubs and meet with her biological father, who is a resident of that country. The entanglements of Carla Bruni’s personal affairs, her various parents and foster parents and various children and their various fathers, have the French public mesmerized in a way that makes “Desperate Housewives” pale by comparison.

So why did the United States, with all our superb submarine and helicopter technology, not get a piece of this Brazil action? As I first pointed out, the U.S. is a victim of monstrous public relations engendered by a clique that assumed power in what amounts to a coup d’état and then proceeded to practically destroy us internally and externally. Fortunately, we now have a chance to recover, but from a promotional point of view we need some innovative thinking to regain market share.

Nicholas Sarkozy may or may not be brilliant, but he has seized the opportunity to profit from our mistakes, and Carla Bruni is one of his tools. The incoming U.S. administration may lack the élan of the French presidency, and cultural factors ensure that there will never be an American equivalent of Bruni in the White House (boy, is that an understatement!), but Barack Obama, who resembles 99% of the emerging world in complexion, could be a potent form of public relations. If he puts on a sombrero, Mexican public opinion of us will change overnight, and so on down the line.

But one guy, even if he is the president, cannot alter our present crashing trajectory. That is going to require a concerted strategy of promoting American cultural assets in tandem with our commercial expertise to recover our position of dominance. The first thing is to respect our own culture as something other than a by-product of marketing and present it as an organic entity in its own right, giving it the respect that we ourselves have long denied it. We then need to consecrate the resources to impose our own culture on other countries (when I say impose, I mean it in the French sense of the word, where it gains authority on the basis of merit). Then our cultural and marketing arms have to work together to present a coherent program to the rest of the world.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the current total breakdown of our system presents a window of opportunity to innovate, depending upon the quality of the talent we are able to bring to bear on the situation. In my mind it would require not just a redressment of manufacturing and mobilization of cultural resources, but an administrative coordination in the seat of government involving not only the Departments of State and Commerce (a particularly knotty problem, considering that the incoming Secretaries of State and Commerce are not likely to want to get along due to past political considerations), but also the establishment of a new cabinet post, the Department of Culture, to coordinate and maximize the impact of our cultural resources. The French have done a maximal job with their Ministry of Culture, and now we have, with the so-called free market guys out of the way, an opportunity to emulate their success.

When I say culture, that includes not just Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, but sport, like the NBA, NASCAR, jazz, ballet etc. All forms of American expression. As the French have proven, taking culture and commerce to their ultimate expression represents at the ultimate point a convergence to the vanishing point.

Throw out the previous scorn for central planning. Coordination of resources has been a successful technique in times of war and national emergency, and the current breakdown represents as much of a crisis as any time in history.

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Posted on 12/25/2008 ( Permanent Link )
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