Foreign Policy writer responds to everybody hating Duke

We get it. Everybody hates Duke basketball.

A couple weeks ago, USA Today had a slideshow with a list of the most hatable college basketball players, and go figure it included: Steve Wojciechowski, J.J. Redick and Christian Laettner.

This week, Grantland has a bracket going for the most hatable college basketball player ever. There are four regions: players from the 80s, 90s, 00s... and Duke players.

In the regional finals, second-seed Redick is against top-seeded Laettner in the Duke quadrant that also included Wojo, Greg Paulus, Shane Battier, Danny Ferry, Austin Rivers and Bobby Hurley.

In a piece today for Foreign Policy titled "America's March Madness Problem" writer Marc Lynch—a Duke grad—breaks down the hate.

Here's a snippet:

Why all the hate? Sure, objectively, Duke appears to represent the best of college sports: graduating most of its players, while running a system built around individual freedom and creativity on offense anchored by hard-nosed, relentless teamwork on defense. But in popular mythology, Duke has become an avatar of an overly white, overrated, and overly praised team with an air of entitled superiority.

This national consensus is fascinating, in that it seems utterly blind to what the rest of the planet knows deeply and profoundly: In world politics, we're Duke. Americans like to think they are Butler, the scrappy unheralded Midwestern underdogs one shot away from a miracle. But let's be real. The United States is a global superpower, since 1990 the unipolar hegemon atop the global order. In the Middle East it is the imperial hub, a status quo power with deep security and military alliances with almost every regime and global sanctions against the few remaining "rogues." When the world looks at the United States, it doesn't see Butler. It sees Duke.

Despite their country's overwhelming global dominance, Americans have struggled to comprehend the depth and resilience of hostile attitudes and negative perceptions. In a 2008 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Americans rated restoring their country's global standing above any other national priority -- including combating terrorism and protecting jobs. The whole tenor of the "why do they hate us" punditry meme suggests just how much this global distaste upsets Americans. But if Americans want to understand the resilience of anti-Americanism, they could do worse than to examine their feelings about Duke.

Conventional explanations of anti-Dukism mirror those of anti-Americanism. Some see it as a natural outgrowth of dominance, attracting the incomprehension and resentment of the less fortunate. Everyone hates Mr. Big.