That contrast caused a huge stir in Washington but nothing changed. Americans (forgive my generalization) still prefer dropping bombs to building schools. Hammer, rather than quill.
That contrast caused a huge stir in Washington but nothing changed. Americans (forgive my generalization) still prefer dropping bombs to building schools. Hammer, rather than quill.
The US is the only country who requires every single Foreign service officer to learn the local language before being stationed in a country.
The Foreign Service Language institute is the most prestigious language school in the world.
US foreign policy has plenty of problems, but leaning the local culture and language is not one of them.
The Foreign Service and our embassies and consulates are on of the shinning successes of US foreign policy (among many failures).
Each posting has a number of language designated positions, which range from 90% of the total positions in Columbia to 8% in a Iceland (where English is almost universally spoken).
In this example at least 90% of the officers in Columbia are required to speak Spanish (and it's likely that most of the other 10% do as well). If there aren't enough people proficient in a language they will train more at the FSI. In most countries language designated positions are the majority.
So yes it's not strictly required to speak Spanish to be posted in Columbia, but you're only going to be able to get one of the 10% of non language designated positions which aren't likely to be positions that we would think of as diplomatic work.
Additionally when you join the Foreign Service you have 5 years to become proficient in a Foreign Language before you get forced out, and during that time you can only serve in the limited non language designated positions.
Edit: not a defense of US foreign policy, which has been abysmal. Just pointing out that the track record is abysmal across the board.
"cult" is indeed a substring of "culture", but the etymology is likely the other way around. both come from the latin verb "colo", which concretely means something like "till" or "care for" (in the sense of agriculture). it's used more abstractly to mean "worship", but this likely comes from the idea of caring for / tending to an actual effigy or temple of a deity.
I don't disagree with the core point. the rosy image of the USSR respecting local culture does not exactly mesh with my understanding of the history either (though this could be my own ignorance). as an ex-classics major, I simply can't resist the opportunity to engage in some etymological pedantry :)