Anti-Americanism and Anti-Europeanism

 

In 2004, I reviewed a book called Anti-Americanism, written by the French philosopher and essayist Jean-François Revel. Revel was at the time eighty years old; he was to die two years later. A socialist in his youth, he later became a prominent European proponent of classical liberalism and free market economics. You can read the essay that he later expanded into the book here.

Although I found his book, ultimately, insubstantial, I appreciated his effort to show that the kind of anti-Americanism then fashionable in Europe was irrational and internally incoherent: 

The book’s chief mode of argument is to expose the inherent contradictions in their position: Americans, he notes, are pilloried simultaneously for their puritanism and their materialism, for their isolationism and for their imperialism, for their reluctance to dispense economic aid and for dispensing that very aid—this last generally interpreted as a sinister effort to control the destinies and dignity of the beneficiaries. 

Revel had little trouble convincing me that Europeans who were obsessed with American failings were often hysterical, inconsistent, or ungrateful. But why were these view so commonly found in Europe? Ultimately, I wasn’t persuaded by his explanation:

Revel’s answer: To affirm the anti-American position is to attack liberalism itself; modern anti-Americanism, he holds, is the socially acceptable avatar of illiberal belief systems—Marxist ones, chiefly—discredited by history. Anti-globalists, in his view, are synonymous with the anti-Americans.

Now, remember that I wrote that in 2004, when no one imagined that in 2016, an American president would come to power on an anti-globalist platform. Anti-globalism was at the time the purview of the protesters who rioted, vandalized, and terrorized Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial conference.

l thought Revel spent too much time picking off the low-hanging fruit, intellectually speaking:

… not all anti-globalists are unreconstructed cold warriors, and not all criticism of the modern economic order is crude. If it was Revel’s aim to dismantle their arguments conclusively, he does not succeed. To do so, he would have had to engage with the anti-globalists’ best arguments rather than their worst ones. The most sophisticated critics of the American-led economic order contend, for example, that the advantages of free trade posited by Adam Smith can accrue only in the context of other liberal freedoms, most notably free movement of labor. The decreasing regulation of trade has in the past half-century been accompanied by increasing regulation of migration. In this context, critics charge, the assumption that all nations will by means of the Invisible Hand take their rightful and prosperous place among the community of nations fails to obtain. It is the lack of freedom—the lack of liberalism’s benefits—suffered by those structurally excluded by the GATT and various multilateral agreements on investment to which these critics address themselves, not always absurdly. Anti-globalists charge that these agreements effectively remove power from accountable bodies such as parliaments and repose it in unaccountable corporations, a criticism that is ideologically compatible with classical liberalism. It may not be correct, but it is not anti-liberal.

Still, I thought Revel did two important things. First, he demonstrated with ample evidence that this delusional species of anti-Americanism truly was widespread in Europe:

Note the reception of 9/11: The Big Lie, a book by the French journalist Thierry Meyssan, who argues that no airplane crashed into the Pentagon on September 11. He proposes that the American secret services and its military-industrial complex invented the event to prime their gullible, sheep-like countrymen for a war of imperial conquest against Afghanistan and Iraq. The book was a bestseller in France.

Second, he argued that since this kind of anti-Americanism had no evidentiary basis, it could neither be rebutted nor taken at face value: It had to mean something other than what it purported to mean. But what?

Anti-Americanism, Revel concludes, is a cultist system of faith rather than a set of rational beliefs. It is thus impervious to revision upon confrontation with logic, evidence, gestures of goodwill, public relations campaigns, or attempts on the part of the American secretary of state to be a better, more sensitive listener. The American Left’s contention that it is the current administration’s foreign policy that has made the United States an object of hatred worldwide is delusory. Revel is dismissive of their program to understand the world’s antipathy toward the United States by means of pained introspection and to correct it with improved behavior: Nothing Americans might do, short of disappearing politely en masse, will help.

Fifteen years later, I’m not sure how well his book, or my reaction to it, have held up. He missed a lot and so did I.

One of the things we both missed is that a parallel vein of anti-Europeanism runs through American political and cultural life.

I’ve been thinking of this recently as I’ve read comments about Europe on various social media that might have been written Russian bots programmed to alienate the United States from its Atlantic allies, but were probably written by real Americans who feel about Europe pretty much the way Thierry Meyssan felt about the United States — and with about as much basis in logic.

So when recently I happened upon this paper by the economist Patrick Chamorel about anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism in the United States, I read it with interest. It was published in 2004, shortly after Revel’s book. Chamorel was then at the Hoover Institution:

The paper documents and tries to explain the rise of anti-European and Eurosceptical sentiment in the United States since the end of the Cold War. Contrary to anti-Europeanism, which has always permeated American culture and underpinned American exceptionalism, Euroscepticism is more confined to political and business elites and targets the process, main policies and identity of the European Union. Although usually conservative, Anti-Europeans and Eurosceptics do not necessarily overlap: anti-Europeans are Eurosceptical but the reverse is not necessarily true. However, Anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism have become entrenched beliefs among many conservatives.

Europe’s positive image since WWII and the wide support for European unification among American elites, have been replaced by competing views: for example, neo-conservatives believe Europe to be in economic, demographic and cultural decline that the EU only precipitates. Others see a unifying Europe as a rising power which will become more a rival than an ally for the US. Since the early 1990s and increasingly until the war in Iraq, conservative commentators have attacked the style and content of European foreign policy, especially with regard to the Middle-East, Europe’s weak defence budgets, its lack of resolve against terrorism, its welfare state and highly regulated economy, its left-leaning political culture, its growing anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. The centralizing, elitist and regulatory aspects of the EU have also been denounced to justify Euroscepticism.

It’s only about a dozen pages, so you can read the whole thing quickly, but I’ll just pull out a few passages that struck me. Here, for example, he suggests that some Americans have come to see Europe as a kind of oversized Blue State:

As you keep reading, you may find yourself asking whether the criticisms of Europe that were widely heard in 2004 are still germaine. Was Europe — France in particular — right about Iraq? The current American president certainly thinks so; so obviously, the beliefs for which the French were pilloried in the runup to the Iraq war are now widely accepted among Americans.

The following passage is especially interesting, because it shows exactly the kind of contradiction that Revel pointed out when he wrote about European anti-Americanism:

He expands on this point, but the key, to me, is that the EU is criticized for being too weak and for being a challenge to US power. Like the accusation that the US is both too imperialistic and too isolationist, the claim is so internally inconsistent that we have to assume it’s not an argument but an article of faith. But faith in what?

It’s also interesting to see what American conservatives found objectionable about Europe in 2004 and how different their criticisms were from their criticisms today — even though the underlying sentiment seems unchanged:

I now see some American conservatives criticizing France for not being as eager as they think the French should be to put a Le Pen in power. (France just can’t win with that crowd.)

Then there’s this argument, which is remarkably different in emphasis from criticism nowadays, isn’t it?

Like Revel, Chamorel suggests that these arguments are too contradictory and illogical to be taken at face value.

What, then, really underlies anti-Europeanism? He entertains the following hypotheses:

  1. It’s a backlash against anti-Americanism in Europe.
  2. It’s a response to the end of the Cold War. The United States promoted European integration as a response to the Soviet threat; now that the threat has abated, the EU has come to be viewed as a strategic competitor, rather than an ally.
  3. The United States favors globalization, whereas Europe uses the EU as a shield against globalization.
  4. Americans think of themselves as manly men from Mars and Europeans as sissies from Venus.
  5. There’s no divide between the US and Europe; the divide is an internal one between America’s coastal elites and the culturally conservative “America First” hinterland. (Interesting that he uses the phrase “America First” in 2004.)
  6. It’s a neo-conservative reaction to the strength of the left and far-left in Europe, which have paradoxically become more critical of the United States in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

None of these hypotheses, he acknowledges, quite account for the phenomenon. (And two of them certainly couldn’t account for the phenomenon now: The Russians are back; and Americans themselves have elected a president who promises to unravel the “false song” of globalization.)

What, if anything, strikes you as notable about Revel’s claims or Chamorel’s arguments? How well do you think these essays have held up to the test of time? What do you think really underscores anti-Americanism in Europe or anti-Europeanism in America?

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  1. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: As you keep reading, you may find yourself asking whether the criticisms of Europe that were widely heard in 2004 are still germaine. Was Europe — France in particular — right about Iraq? The current American president certainly thinks so; so obviously, the beliefs for which the French were pilloried in the runup to the Iraq war are now widely accepted among Americans.

    I thought it had been established that the current president is a geopolitical cretin. In the late election that was a wash. His primary opponent was for the war before she was against it, as befitted the sleaziest national politician since Aaron Burr.

    Europe put together a rational and admirable economic union. That unfortunately was the last part of the “European project” that was worthy. You can tell it is so by the fact that it is the only thing that they have that they can threaten Britain with. Nobody in the UK is crying themselves to sleep because now they have the onerous burden of passing their own laws on the curvature of bananas or the efficiency of toasters.

    As far as European anti-Americanism goes — you only get to kick a dog so many times before it stops wagging its tail when it sees you.

    • #1
  2. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Percival (View Comment):
    laws on the curvature of bananas or the efficiency of toasters.

    Now, now. Electric heaters and toasters have always struck me as bearing a fundamental resemblance to government. Generally one tries to minimize the heat production by electrical devices since the heat to some extent stems from inefficiencies in the device’s function as, say, a motor. If one’s goal is heat, however, near perfectly efficient inefficiency is fairly easy to achieve.

    The EU somehow comes to mind.

    • #2
  3. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    What, then, really underlies anti-Europeanism? He entertains the following hypotheses:

    1. It’s a backlash against anti-Americanism in Europe.

    That’s the bedrock on which anti-Europeanism  – casual or intense – rests. Anti-Americanism suggests ingratitude, and they seem to be displacing their shame.

    2. It’s a response to the end of the Cold War. The United States promoted European integration as a response to the Soviet threat; now that the threat has abated, the EU has come to be viewed as a strategic competitor, rather than an ally.

    Not on the radar of the casual Euroskeptic.

    3. The United States favors globalization, whereas Europe uses the EU as a shield against globalization.

    Same.

    4. Americans think of themselves as manly men from Mars and Europeans as sissies from Venus.

    Broadly stated, but probably true. It’s not so much that Europeans have been converted en masse to feminized Venusian pacifism, it’s that their leadership class has decided post-national, transnational, soft-power, multicultural societies are the only viable alternative for civilized societies, and forbade consideration of the alternatives. They live in a nice future defined by Davos lectures and Brussels dictums. The rest of the world is still red in tooth and claw.

    5. There’s no divide between the US and Europe; the divide is an internal one between America’s coastal elites and the culturally conservative “America First” hinterland. (Interesting that he uses the phrase “America First” in 2004.)

    Perhaps both groups in the divided America misapprehend Europe – to the Coastal Elites it’s a theme park of architecture and museums where the accumulated cultural advantages of tribal social cohesion are seen as proof that Socialism is a superior economic system. For the people in the “Hinterland” – that is, the vast terra incognito of the steppes beyond the Hudson – perhaps casual, rote, sneering anti-Americanism seems like a given, and no one thinks about it much, and if they do, they’re, like, whatever. (see “Ingratitude,” op cit)

     

    6. It’s a neo-conservative reaction to the strength of the left and far-left in Europe, which have paradoxically become more critical of the United States in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    The Far-Left in Europe hated America because we opposed the Soviet Union, which – for all its oddball,  lovable quirks – was still the torch that would guide humanity into the future. Atheistic, egalitarian – what’s not to love? I’m not sure your average cafe Marxist hates America more now than they did in the 80s.

    As for the French vindication about opposing American action in Iraq, I have this itchy feeling it had less to do with principles than the influence of TotalFinaElf’s interests and French military exports to Saddam. I know that sounds like crazy flouride-in-the-water talk, but a rational observer would admit it could have played a part.

    I remember talking to a friend in England about the Kettle Crisis, which probably tipped the vote for Brexit. The newspapers said that EU regs would ban sales of tea kettles, hair driers, and other sundry appliances that used too much power. Global Warming, don’t you know. Why can’t they bloody well leave my kettle be, my friend said. We didn’t sign up for this to wait ten minutes for a [redacted] cuppa.

    It’s like someone in Quebec telling me I can’t drive over 55. Excuse me? No. Much of American skepticism about Europe has nothing to do with our love of their countries or cultures; it’s the intrusion of the post-national bureaucratic state on the capillary level that makes us wonder what sort of people would hand over national identity for the sake of an expedited border-crossing experience.

    PS Revel may have been a bit diminished at the end, but he was remarkable in his prime.

    • #3
  4. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    The rest of the world is still red in tooth and claw.

    Europe is importing the rest of the world wholesale even though Western Europe generally takes pride in being broad minded in Robert Frost’s sense.

    Also, the dictum attributed to Patton, among others, may need modification in our day of mass abortion and hormonal birth control. It’s looking more like “a people that can’t be bothered to have children won’t fight.”

    • #4
  5. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    There is an enormous amount of unflattering imagery about the United States promulgated by our own mass media. We are major exporters of media.

    NCIS is the most popular show in the United States. It had 16.61 million American viewers as of May 2016. But that’s small potatoes compared to its foreign viewership:

    The show garnered 55 million viewers across the globe in 2014, according to the network, and is licensed in over 200 markets worldwide and in over 60 languages — from Arabic to Vietnamese.

    It was created by Donald P. Bellisario, who also created Magnum, PI, and tightly woven into both shows is Bellisario’s attitude of love for individual military members and hatred of the U.S. government. It’s a very sixties Vietnam War era attitude. I was, and still am, a fan of Magnum, PI, and I enjoy NCIS. NCIS jumped off of The West Wing, which also colors the show quite a bit in terms of its left-leaning attitudes.

    What bothers me about this is that we are, because we are so good at producing mass media, actually turning the world against us in a strange way. What makes for riveting stories in our movies and television and streaming programs–there’s gotta be a bad guy–is the worst possible PR a nation could ever have.

    [continued in comment 6]

     

     

     

    • #5
  6. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    [continued from comment 5]

    Add to that the fact that we also export news. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post are read all over the world. And they make money on negative news. And then there’s our wonderfully attractive websites.

    We publish better news than anyone else in the world. Sigh. We support the news media generously, and we have the best writers and graphics.

    What the world learns about us comes from our own media, and I wouldn’t like us either.

    I don’t see any way to fix this since I love to live in this free-speech country. I just have to have faith that this will work out somehow.

    • #6
  7. Aloha Johnny Member
    Aloha Johnny
    @AlohaJohnny

    I lived in Europe from 85 to 88 have numerous European friends here in the US.   My experience supports the idea that their anti-American sentiments, were typically not based on events or reason, but emotion or fashion.   I was surprised how little Europeans knew about America (despite seemingly wasting a lot of time and emotion thinking and ranting about the place).

    Part of the anti-American sentiment comes from feeling inadequate in several ways:  militarily (we carry the big stick), financially (we dominate growth) and culturally (music, movies, tv, etc. ).    Also, part of the emotion comes from the fact that we just don’t care that much or know that much about Europe.   Our ignorance, however, to a certain extent, is rational.

    For example, if you are Italy, you know a lot about France, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, Tunisia, Greece and the United States.   If you are Korea, you know a lot about China, North Korea, Japan, Russia, Taiwan and the United States.   Does an Italian know much about Korea?  In my experience no.   In a way, it is like the accounting department being offended when the CEO calls the Assistant Dept. Supervisor “Robert” instead of his preferred “Bob.”  And the accounting staff then complains amongst themselves how they know the CEO’s full name, what car he drives and that his wife just came back from a two-week vacation looking much younger.   Meanwhile, they have no idea what goes on with the folks in shipping.   Seems kinda like that.

    While I love Europe and my European, friends I do have some anti-European sentiments.  These stem from my annoyance with the lack of substance in most of their complaints about America.   And the perception that many european opponents of the US base their attacks on reflexive opposition.   I agree with James, while the French may have been correct on the Iraq war,  I am not sure if it was principled in this case.   I also philosophically think that the EU went too far and would be more useful as a super trade pact.

    • #7
  8. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.:…anti-Europeanism runs through American political and cultural life.

    c. 2013 % of Americans favorable to European or Western-type countries or allies…

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/161159/americans-least-favorable-toward-iran.aspx

    Canada 91%, United Kingdom 88%, Germany 85%, France 73%, Israel 66%, Russia 44% — pre-Crimea invasion

    Most recent poll, February 2017:

    Canada 92%, United Kingdom 91%, France 83%, Germany 82%, Israel 71%, Russia 28%

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/1624/perceptions-foreign-countries.aspx

    There isn’t any real anti-Europeanism in the United States.  Most Americans barely think about other countries unless they have to…

    It looks like 3% of Americans might have a less favorable view of Germany due to their immigration mess, but 3% is probably margin of error stuff.  That’s no big deal.

    It looks like 10% of Americans might have gotten over disappointment with France during the Iraq War, just a guess, but that trend is going up instead of down.  France only had a 34% favorable rating in 2003.

    Last year, France’s favorable rating was apparently at an all-time high of 87%!  (“This year’s reading comes three months after terrorists associated with the Islamic State group conducted a series of deadly attacks in and around Paris, killing 130.”)

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/189602/france-favorable-rating-zooms-new-high.aspx?g_source=position5&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles

    Europe also seems to be the place more likely to fear outsiders.

    • #8
  9. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    I think this might be how many or most Americans view Europe…

    • #9
  10. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Gaijin – there’s a difference between views of a country’s people and views of its government.

    It is laziness, at best, to write and opine about a country without bothering to differentiate.

    It’s perfectly possible to like Americans but also believe (for example)  that America’s foreign policy is evil and prosecuted only because its government lies to the people about the world.  Or vice versa.

     

    • #10
  11. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Gaijin – there’s a difference between views of a country’s people and views of its government.

    It is laziness, at best, to write and opine about a country without bothering to differentiate.

    It’s perfectly possible to like Americans but also believe (for example) that America’s foreign policy is evil and prosecuted only because its government lies to the people about the world. Or vice versa.

    I don’t think most Americans usually pay that much attention to foreign countries unless they have family or close friends there.  Mexico and Canada might be an exception if you live close to those borders.

    • #11
  12. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    MarciN (View Comment):

    “We publish better news than anyone else in the world.”

    Really?

    I think Mark Steyn has argued that the United States has the worst news media of any English-language country including Pakistan.

    Here’s one of his quotes:

    “…almost any other English-speaking country, from Australia to Pakistan, has a livelier press than the US big-city monodailies.” — Mark Steyn, February 2, 2012

    http://rightwingnews.com/interviews/the-mark-steyn-interview-2/

    Additional Steyn…

    “By the standards of the Muslim world, Pakistan has a free-ish and very lively press. The problem is that some 80 percent of its people wish to live under the most extreme form of Sharia, and many of its youth are exported around the world in advance of that aim. The man convicted of Pearl’s murder was Omar Sheikh, a British subject, a London School of Economics student, and, like many jihadists from Osama to the Pantybomber, a monument to the peculiar burdens of a non-deprived childhood in the Muslim world…”

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2424

    • #12
  13. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Gaijin – there’s a difference between views of a country’s people and views of its government.

    It is laziness, at best, to write and opine about a country without bothering to differentiate.

    It’s perfectly possible to like Americans but also believe (for example) that America’s foreign policy is evil and prosecuted only because its government lies to the people about the world. Or vice versa.

    I don’t think most Americans usually pay that much attention to foreign countries unless they have family or close friends there. Mexico and Canada might be an exception if you live close to those borders.

    Sorry if I was unclear. ‘View’ is ambiguous.  I meant that how people from other countries perceive Americans and the US Government.

    How Americans perceive these countries – or don’t perceive them – is a separate and imho only tangentially related issue.

    Re: Steyn – half correct about the press, really not right about Pakistan and sharia.  Imho.

    • #13
  14. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Zafar (View Comment): Re: Steyn – half correct about the press, really not right about Pakistan and sharia. Imho.

    According to this poll, no country supports sharia law more than Pakistan.

    http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

    • #14
  15. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    What, then, really underlies anti-Europeanism? He entertains the following hypotheses:

    1. It’s a backlash against anti-Americanism in Europe.

    That’s the bedrock on which anti-Europeanism – casual or intense – rests. Anti-Americanism suggests ingratitude, and they seem to be displacing their shame.

    2. It’s a response to the end of the Cold War. The United States promoted European integration as a response to the Soviet threat; now that the threat has abated, the EU has come to be viewed as a strategic competitor, rather than an ally.

    Not on the radar of the casual Euroskeptic.

    3. The United States favors globalization, whereas Europe uses the EU as a shield against globalization.

    Same.

    4. Americans think of themselves as manly men from Mars and Europeans as sissies from Venus.

    Broadly stated, but probably true. It’s not so much that Europeans have been converted en masse to feminized Venusian pacifism, it’s that their leadership class has decided post-national, transnational, soft-power, multicultural societies are the only viable alternative for civilized societies, and forbade consideration of the alternatives. They live in a nice future defined by Davos lectures and Brussels dictums. The rest of the world is still red in tooth and claw.

    5. There’s no divide between the US and Europe; the divide is an internal one between America’s coastal elites and the culturally conservative “America First” hinterland. (Interesting that he uses the phrase “America First” in 2004.)

    Perhaps both groups in the divided America misapprehend Europe – to the Coastal Elites it’s a theme park of architecture and museums where the accumulated cultural advantages of tribal social cohesion are seen as proof that Socialism is a superior economic system. For the people in the “Hinterland” – that is, the vast terra incognito of the steppes beyond the Hudson – perhaps casual, rote, sneering anti-Americanism seems like a given, and no one thinks about it much, and if they do, they’re, like, whatever. (see “Ingratitude,” op cit)

    6. It’s a neo-conservative reaction to the strength of the left and far-left in Europe, which have paradoxically become more critical of the United States in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    The Far-Left in Europe hated America because we opposed the Soviet Union, which – for all its oddball, lovable quirks – was still the torch that would guide humanity into the future. Atheistic, egalitarian – what’s not to love? I’m not sure your average cafe Marxist hates America more now than they did in the 80s.

    As for the French vindication about opposing American action in Iraq, I have this itchy feeling it had less to do with principles than the influence of TotalFinaElf’s interests and French military exports to Saddam. I know that sounds like crazy flouride-in-the-water talk, but a rational observer would admit it could have played a part.

    I remember talking to a friend in England about the Kettle Crisis, which probably tipped the vote for Brexit. The newspapers said that EU regs would ban sales of tea kettles, hair driers, and other sundry appliances that used too much power. Global Warming, don’t you know. Why can’t they bloody well leave my kettle be, my friend said. We didn’t sign up for this to wait ten minutes for a [redacted] cuppa.

    It’s like someone in Quebec telling me I can’t drive over 55. Excuse me? No. Much of American skepticism about Europe has nothing to do with our love of their countries or cultures; it’s the intrusion of the post-national bureaucratic state on the capillary level that makes us wonder what sort of people would hand over national identity for the sake of an expedited border-crossing experience.

    PS Revel may have been a bit diminished at the end, but he was remarkable in his prime.

    Thank you @jameslileks for reading my mind and writing down what I was thinking. Do you do parties or other engagements?

    Seriously, I have spent my life seeing Europe lecture me for being an American. I watched West German students protest American arms on their land, when it was our troops who kept the USSR out. America, twice road to the rescue to save Europe, and the attitude was instant dismissal of us.

    I get that being the #1 guy means everyone hates you. It gets old to hear that over an over from the very nations who you spent blood and treasure to save and rebuild. A true Imperial power would have stayed and rebuilt vassals.

    • #15
  16. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    I think this might be how many or most Americans view Europe…

    My guess would be most Europeans cannot pick out our states, either. So what?

    • #16
  17. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    While reality is infinitely more complex than we might enumerate, and people’s view are generally inchoate, I think the points are fairly good but I don’t think conservatives are anti Europe so much as anti centralization and anti administrative state.  The latter is analogous to the Anti Washington feeling.   As to the underlying anti liberal views, I hear the same in Latin America as here.  To the new passive left of flabby nihilism,  neo marxism, and ideology by osmosis, liberalism means corporate domination, the cure for which is that a governing elite must run the economy to reduce the abuses and imperfections of run away capitalism and corporate domination.    This progressive vision has moved left globally, in part because our own left has moved left and their views donate global media feeds, hollywood and academia which has a strong global reach.  The collapse of the Soviet Union removed an embarrassment to the far left and left our right without a motivating vision other than free markets which doesn’t rock anyone else’s boat.  Why do conservatives, libertarians and classical liberals oppose the elite run centralization?   They believe in freedom and decentralization and the rule of law.  The elite do what governing elites do,  expand their power, their perch and their rents and people who believe in markets, trade, and minimal centralization, oppose them because they see them as the reason economies stagnate, elite get more powerful and upward mobility and adjustment become sluggish.  They’re right.

    • #17
  18. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    I think this might be how many or most Americans view Europe…

    My guess would be most Europeans cannot pick out our states, either. So what?

    And they might do better than some Americans…

    • #18
  19. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    I think this might be how many or most Americans view Europe…

    My guess would be most Europeans cannot pick out our states, either. So what?

    And they might do better than some Americans…

    So what? I mean seriously, since I have maps, I have the internet, do I need to know for sure which state is which in flipping New England?

    • #19
  20. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment): Re: Steyn – half correct about the press, really not right about Pakistan and sharia. Imho.

    According to this poll, no country supports sharia law more than Pakistan.

    So why do Pakistani women have vastly more personal freedom than Saudi women? (Or even Iranian women? And Afghan women? Not to speak of Somali women?)

    So why do the major parties which are elected when Pakistan has elections never just straight up implement sharia?

    There is more to it that ‘do you think sharia is awesome?’

     

    • #20
  21. KC Mulville Inactive
    KC Mulville
    @KCMulville

    I’d say that this is a normal (and unsurprising) by-product of competition. We live in a competitive world, not a warring one (as Europe was, historically). The current model relies on competition instead of war. That mentality may preserve millions of lives, but let’s not kid each other … we still retain plenty of competitive motivation. Changing your political world mentality doesn’t change human nature. Competitors throw elbows now and then, but that’s better than throwing missiles. No matter how much we grumble and complain about other teams, we’re all in the same league, and we know to keep it on a less-threatening level.

    I’m not worried about a little complaining. It’s part of the gamesmanship, I suppose.

     

    • #21
  22. Ekosj Member
    Ekosj
    @Ekosj

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):
    There isn’t any real anti-Europeanism in the United States. Most Americans barely think about other countries unless they have to…

    This is spot-on!

    • #22
  23. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    So what? I mean seriously, since I have maps, I have the internet, do I need to know for sure which state is which in flipping New England?

    The more geographic places I know, the more hooks I have to which to attach other information.  Same for dates of historic events, and persons.

    One of the great things about the internet age is when I meet someone from another country, whether in Europe, Africa, India, or whatever, I can pull out Google Maps on my phone to find out where it is that he or she lives, went to school, got a new job, etc. It works as a conversation starter even if it’s just a lunchtime acquaintance.  I try to remember as much stuff like that as I can. I wish I could do better at it.

    • #23
  24. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Percival (View Comment):
    as befitted the sleaziest national politician since Aaron Burr.

    I won’t have you slighting Aaron Burr this way!

    • #24
  25. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    The problems between the US and Europe is the same as the problems between Hank Reardon and his Family.

    • #25
  26. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Zafar (View Comment):

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment): Re: Steyn – half correct about the press, really not right about Pakistan and sharia. Imho.

    According to this poll, no country supports sharia law more than Pakistan.

    So why do Pakistani women have vastly more personal freedom than Saudi women? (Or even Iranian women? And Afghan women? Not to speak of Somali women?)

    So why do the major parties which are elected when Pakistan has elections never just straight up implement sharia?

    There is more to it that ‘do you think sharia is awesome?’

    I just try to look at the data.

    The data shows that according to a recent poll, no country (out of 23 countries surveyed)  supports sharia law more than Pakistan.

    • #26
  27. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):
    Mexico and Canada might be an exception if you live close to those borders.

    I live a 3 miles from Canada, and I still don’t pay them much mind.

    • #27
  28. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    I think this might be how many or most Americans view Europe…

    My guess would be most Europeans cannot pick out our states, either. So what?

    And they might do better than some Americans…

    So what? I mean seriously, since I have maps, I have the internet, do I need to know for sure which state is which in flipping New England?

    I was having a discussion with a woman from one of the IDK countries, about the IDK countries.  She was, if I remember right, from Slovakia (as opposed to The Czech Republic).  She was mad that people said she was from Czechoslovakia.  “Why don’t Americans know the difference?  Geography isn’t that hard!” I asked her, “Do you know where Kansas is?”  She got a little sheepish…

    • #28
  29. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    The Anti-Americanism I recall in the 1980s (and before) was the same for Europeans and the American left.

    First, it was colored by the Cold War.  Overt anti-Communism was without requisite nuance and antithetical to the enlightened “a pox on both your houses” illusion of transcendence.  Europe was nuanced.  America was not. Europeans had a vision of transcending their national identities into a new kind of state. Americans seemed to revel in their national identity.  It wasn’t that the left sided with Communism so much as the fact that the perception of conflict constantly imposed duties of loyalty that were threats to more satisfying visions of self.

    Second, it was class-based. Americans reveled in the common man, the myth of the pioneer and the cowboy, the blue collar guy, the housewife, the military man, popular music and entertainments and openly distrusted intellectuals and any pretense that might attach to the egghead lifestyle style whereas the Anti-American sought to escape the entanglements of tradition, religion, history and country into a more enlightened political mode, free of the sheer tackiness of Ralph and Alice Kramden.

    The underlying issues today are similar except that the Cold War is over and the anti-American elites largely now run both the US and Europe. Trump and Brexit are popular revolts which reopened divisions that the triumph of the (anti-American) managerial class had  successfully suppressed.

    • #29
  30. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):

    “We publish better news than anyone else in the world.”

    Really?

    I think Mark Steyn has argued that the United States has the worst news media of any English-language country including Pakistan.

    But it’s very well produced and, frankly, it’s cheap and available. If you have to fill a news bulletin with some foreign news, there will be lots of attractive pictures of a tornado in Texas that kills 3, but few of a cyclone in Sri Lanka that kills 300. So Texas makes the bulletin.

    • #30
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