"In America, seduction is dishonest"

President Bush seems to be working that kind of shoot-first, no-nonsense code, but the failure of his policies has made him very unpopular all the same. It seems like the ideal opportunity for the Democrats to step in and regain some ground, but hardly anyone seems to have much faith that they can pull it off. What do you think of their chances?

Here's one issue: Don't tell people, "Drive a smaller car." That goes against American culture. Say, "I'm going to do everything to make us energy independent." Independence is so American. We don't want to be dependent on all these crazy guys in the outside world. We want to be independent. And then we have to do whatever we have to do to become independent. A theme like that is very powerful, and Thomas Friedman wrote several articles about it but nobody is really listening to him.

We need a cultural leader, not just someone who says I can push a button and send atomic bombs to you. Someone who is proud to be an American and can present an image of America to the world. Not to impose our culture to the world, but we want you to understand it and we want to understand yours and respect each other. George W. Bush has not done that.

But doesn't he embody a lot of codes of American culture?

In some ways, yes, he is the cowboy and so on. But my position is that Bush never won an election. I'm not going into the controversy -- it's that the other guys lost. Kerry lost, Bush didn't win. Kerry should have won, that was so clear to me, but he did everything wrong. He didn't represent all the American culture and so we are left with President Bush.

Here's a suggestion: The whole idea of a can-do spirit is part of the American code, but it's more than just a confident attitude. You have to go on and actually get things done.

Exactly. Where are the results? When are the kids coming back home? Maybe you have the wrong plan over there in Iraq.

Of course you say that we don't like to plan, but that attitude seems a lot less bold when the result is failure.

Right, because John Wayne always does kill the bad guy. And then it's over, he won. When did Bush win?

You say the American code for the president is "Moses." What do you mean by that?

He is a leader in the most basic sense. He gets up and tells us he's seen a vision of the promised land and he's going to lead us there. You need a vision that people can identify with. That is very, very strong in most of the world, but in America it's stronger than anywhere else.

What do you think about the rise of Christian fundamentalism?

Religion in America is Disney World. We're not really serious about it the way the Muslims are. We just want some rituals, we have so many different brands of religion. We like the stories about it and talking about what they say and don't say. It's little stories for children. When in Kansas they try to stop the teaching of evolution, it's like at Disney World. If you are in the Mickey Mouse costume, the rule is that you never take off your mask. You're not supposed to show in public that there is a real guy under the mask. That's religion in America; let the people keep their illusions. Don't show the reality.

Now, because we are adolescent, we like to take things to extremes: extreme sports, extreme everything. Moderation is boring -- eating in moderation? No way. So we apply that to religion, too, religious extremism.

Some of the most startling codes you describe have to do with intimate life in America, subjects like love and sex. Once you got people to talk about some of their earliest memories and emotions about romantic love, you discovered that the American code for that was "false expectation." That's sad, but when I think about how people talk about their love lives in America, it's true that disappointment and disillusionment are very common themes.

The expectation in America is an adolescent expectation. There is a Mr. or a Miss Perfect out there somewhere, and I am going to meet this person and everything in my life is going to be changed and be good. We put so much expectation on the other person. There's infatuation when we discover them and think, "This is it!" It's perfect, fantastic. Then after a few months the love hormone leaves the brain and the reality starts showing up. So we say, "OK, I made a mistake, I chose the wrong person. I better find another one."

In other cultures, expectations are very different. For many centuries, love wasn't even part of the picture. Children would be married off by their parents at a very early age and it was families making close relationships with other families. This notion that everything should be coming from this one person is a very American, impossible dream.

I always say if you want to understand a culture, look at what the people do at 5 o'clock. In England, they drink some kind of hot water with an herb in it: tea time. In Spain, they kill a bull. The Americans have the happy hour, they get drunk. The French have cinq a sept, a very special thing, it's sexual. Men and women, who are married but not to each other, after work they go to a hotel and have sex. It's seen as experiencing pleasure with somebody else. For the French, life is about the refinement of pleasure. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but the cultures do provide very different reference systems.

The American disillusionment with love, by the way, explains a little bit why we work so hard.

Because at least you get something out of working hard when maybe you feel like you've gotten nothing but heartache from love?

And because if you are desperately in love with three men and make love 10 times a day -- I'm exaggerating, of course -- you don't have much time to work.

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