Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Anti-Americanism
CaliforniaRepublic.org ^ | 2/16/04 | Bruce S. Thornton

Posted on 02/17/2004 7:44:08 AM PST by ParsifalCA

Review: Anti-Americanism by Jean-François Revel translated by Diarmid Cammell (Encounter Books, 2003)

We moderns fancy ourselves cool rationalists, whose beliefs are more securely founded than the ignorant superstitions of our forebears. Widespread literacy and schooling, access to abundant free information, and a scientific sensibility have combined to create a people whose beliefs are based on reason rather than the irrational passions and delusions of the past.

This self-flattering prejudice, of course, is peculiarly modern and not even half true. For the fact is, many of us are just as driven by gratifying myths, pleasing prejudices, and unexamined received wisdom as were our ancestors. The difference is we don't want to admit it.

This delusion is particularly prevalent among those on the left, for they claim to be the party of reason and empiricism, whereas conservatives supposedly remain in thrall to Christian superstition and neurotic tradition. Yet one of the bloodiest irrational ideologies of the century originated on the left, and many delusions spawned by communism have survived its historical discrediting and continue its malign influence.

One of the most persistent and dangerous is anti-Americanism, an irrational prejudice based not on empirical fact but rather on various psychological, ideological, and sociological dysfunctions. Since 9/11, we have learned that such prejudices can have destructive effects, and so it is useful and timely to have an analysis of this phenomenon from Jean-François Revel, a true rationalist in the classic French tradition.

Revel became prominent in 1970 with his first book, Without Marx or Jesus, which became an international bestseller and drew down upon him the wrath of the fossilized leftists whose cherished dogmas Revel demolished. One of Revel's points in that early book was that the picture of America promulgated in Europe was a self-serving distortion of reality. Thus the most dynamic, truly revolutionary liberal society in history was being willfully misunderstood by those unable to cast off their worn-out ideological categories, who were therefore missing the significance of what was happening in America. Who were you going to believe, Revel challenged them, Marx and Mao or your own eyes?

At one level, Revel's new book is a continuation of that earlier theme, "the intrinsically contradictory character of passionate anti-Americanism," since the "syndrome" hasn't really changed that much, revealing as it does a "deeply rooted habit of mind."

The irrational nature of this "habit" explains the numerous logical contradictions Revel documents. America is simultaneously a mass of rootless, isolated individuals locked in Darwinian struggle, and bovine conformists unable to think for themselves. Or there's the simultaneous criticism of the U.S. for its isolationism, "a powerful country failing in its duties and, with monstrous egocentricity, looking only to its own national interests," and for its "arrogant assumption that it could meddle everywhere and be the 'policeman of the world.'"

As Revel notes, this "habit of mind" has been reinforced, especially in France, by a severe wound to national pride inflicted by the awareness that France is no longer a great power, and that the cultural, economic, and military leader of the world is now a nation of cast-off mongrels whose raucous egalitarianism is a reproach to the sort of elitism that dominates European societies.

Finally, one cannot underestimate the continuing influence of a left still besotted by dreams of the socialist utopia: "The principal function of anti-Americanism has always been, and still is, to discredit liberalism by discrediting its supreme incarnation." Free-market capitalism and liberal democracy, not the communist utopia, have been the driving force of modern history, and those who hate both, whether of the left or the right, must perforce hate the United States. And this hatred has nothing to do with America's behavior and everything to do with mythic longings and irrational resentments.

Revel's book methodically works through the various contradictions, inconsistencies, false knowledge, distortions of fact, "hatreds and fallacies," and sheer ignorance that drive anti-Americanism. His discussion of the European reaction to Bush's decision to pull out of the deeply flawed Kyoto Protocol--an occasion for much weeping and wailing on the part of Americans too quick to swallow European grubby self-interest as lofty disinterested principle--is particularly instructive.

Revel reminds us that in 1997 the Senate unanimously rejected Kyoto, and renewed U.S. support resulted only from Clinton's last minute executive order, a "political hot potato" left for the new president. Given the heavy economic costs the U.S. would have had to pay to meet the Kyoto reductions--costs some of the planet's worst polluters would avoid--Bush pulled out. Europeans were delighted, since their own worsening pollution was ignored even as they castigated the United States. As Revel put it, "The agenda is less about ridding the world of pollution than excommunicating the United States."

European economic and political self-interest, however, isn't the only agenda, though criticizing a greedy U.S. deflects scrutiny from the reluctance of so-called "greens" in Europe to demand cuts in highway speed limits and energy requirements in dwellings -- measures would cost them at the polls. Revel points out that much of what passes for environmentalism is in the service of leftist ideology: this agenda "is to set up the United States, which is to say capitalism, as the supreme culprit, indeed the sole culprit, behind worldwide pollution." For these ideologues--who never criticized the horrific pollution of the communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe-- the environment is important only "as an issue to attack liberal societies."

Revel's chapter on the antiglobalism movement is equally insightful. That left-over communists provide much of the dynamic of these protests is evident in the news footage, where one sees numerous red flags, pictures of Che Guevara, and hammer-and-sickles next to Greenpeace's banners: "The youthful antiglobalists are actually superannuated ideologues, revenants from a past of ruin and bloodshed." Despite benefiting from the leisure, surplus income, and freedom to travel that allows them to congregate for their protests, they want to destroy the free markets and liberal societies that make it all possible. Once more, since the U.S. is the premier success story of economic and political liberalism, it comes in for the most vicious attacks. As Revel points out, no one protested when globalization meant subordinating the world and its economies to Marxism: "Globalization is perfectly all right, provided that it's the planned and statist kind."

Worse, the charge that globalization is creating misery in the Third World is patently false: "What the antiliberals refuse to accept is that, on the one hand, the so-called less-advanced peoples are on the whole advancing, and on the other, those who are faltering owe their misfortunes to internal political scourges and not to the world market economy."

The fact is that, in the Third World, average incomes, population, and life expectancies have increased, due in some measure to globalization. Those who are truly concerned about the welfare of the Third World should be demanding more globalization, not less, for the facts on the ground show that economic and political freedom improves people's lives, while statist economies buttressed by autocracies create misery. Just compare South Korea to North Korea, or consider most of Africa, where leftover socialist economic policies and various autocratic thugs continue to cripple the continent's development.

Revel's discussion of the European response to 9/11 is equally illuminating. The thesis that terrorism is a response to poverty and American colonialist or imperialist sins is quickly dispatched for the canard it is. America's actions in the Middle East have been much less damaging than those of Britain, France, or Russia, all of whom conquered Muslim countries and in some cases occupied them for decades. At the same time, Americans intervened in Somalia, Bosnia, Kuwait, and Kosovo in order to free Muslims.

Equally untrue is the myth of a "moderate and tolerant Islam" short-circuited by America's greed for oil and sinister support for Israel. This delusion is contradicted by numerous verses in the Koran, and certainly is not believed by the millions of Muslims worldwide who danced in the streets on 9/11. As for those presumed millions of "moderate" Muslims, where are their voices? As an example of their typical silence, Revel notes that after terrorist bombings in Paris, not a single demonstration of "moderate" Muslims occurred, in contrast to Spain, where a hundred thousand marched in protest of Basque terrorism. As Revel concludes, "Muslim 'tolerance' is a one-way street: they demand it for themselves but rarely extend it to others."

Revel's book relentlessly chronicles the hypocrisy and falsity of much so-called "sophisticated" European opinion about the United States. The caricature of America as a money-grubbing, racist, crime-ridden jungle is quickly addressed with a few facts. While crime in the States was receding in the eighties and nineties, in France it doubled over the same period. Yet despite the success of novel American approaches to reducing crime such as the Broken Windows policy, and despite an admission that leniency towards anti-social behavior only increased crime, the French minister of justice announced, "The government has no desire to copy the American model": "So one sees how anti-Americanism serves as an excuse for government incompetence, ideological backwardness and criminal disorder. We choose well in rejecting the American model, even if our choice leads to shipwreck."

So too with the problem of integrating immigrants into the dominant society. European caricatures of a racist United States balkanized into enclaves of ethnic particularity serve to mask the reality of an increasing, badly educated immigrant population catered to by a growing multicultural industry, with the result that "the French-style policy of favoritism towards a minority has been stretched so far that the authorities find it almost normal that there are several million people living in France who don't consider themselves subject to the laws of the land."

On every issue, Revel's facts and clear thinking dispel the neurotic delusions of anti-Americanism. Globalization does not enforce cultural conformity; rather it fosters a riotous cultural diversity. The French don't flock to Hollywood films because of some nefarious plot on the part of American studios. They go because they like the movies. One by one the received wisdom of anti-Americanism, too frequently aped by self-loathing Americans who tolerate any absurdity as long as it's European, fall by the wayside.

Ultimately, the evidence shows the truth of Revel's insight that anti-Americanism--"selectivity with respect to evidence and indictments replete with contradiction"-- is a tissue of worn-out clichés and stereotypes used by European political and cultural elites to mask their own failures and incompetence, and to indulge their long romance with socialist sirens.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: 911; antiamericansim; bush; france; terror; unitednations
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-43 next last

1 posted on 02/17/2004 7:44:11 AM PST by ParsifalCA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: ParsifalCA


"I am deeply saddened by breaking news abuse."
2 posted on 02/17/2004 7:46:06 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (You...You sit down! You've had your say and now I'll have mine!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMan55

::sniff:: So am I!

3 posted on 02/17/2004 7:48:13 AM PST by Constitution Day (Bughters didnurce!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Constitution Day
LOL!
4 posted on 02/17/2004 7:48:31 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (You...You sit down! You've had your say and now I'll have mine!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Constitution Day


"I'm so sad I think I'll have a drink."
5 posted on 02/17/2004 7:49:29 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (You...You sit down! You've had your say and now I'll have mine!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMan55


"We're gonna spam Breaking News, then we're going to regular news, then we'll spam Vanity, then politics, then miscellaneous, japan, editorial, Yeaaaaaaaaahhhh!"
6 posted on 02/17/2004 7:54:30 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (You...You sit down! You've had your say and now I'll have mine!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMan55

Can we discuss this over lunch?

7 posted on 02/17/2004 8:11:05 AM PST by Huck (OK. I'm over it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Huck
LOL!
8 posted on 02/17/2004 8:25:03 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (You...You sit down! You've had your say and now I'll have mine!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Huck


"Perhaps over an intern?"
9 posted on 02/17/2004 8:26:27 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (You...You sit down! You've had your say and now I'll have mine!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: ParsifalCA
Wow, he hit most of his points out of the park. I particularly enjoyed use of the term, "liberal," in its classic sense, in describing the United States.
10 posted on 02/17/2004 8:26:31 AM PST by luvbach1 (In the know on the border)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Huck
>Can we discuss this over lunch?< Again...that first one didn't do the trick. This guy must have his own zip code.

LMAO
11 posted on 02/17/2004 8:27:49 AM PST by highnoon (Revenge is a dish best served cold.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: luvbach1
Great piece - and that's just a review of the book!

Perhaps Revel can write a book specifically for/about the sickly, mentally challenged *Americans* who hate their own home?
12 posted on 02/17/2004 9:07:55 AM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common Sense is an Uncommon Virtue)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: ParsifalCA
I think everyone on this board needs to do a little reading and stop swallowing the media's propaganda hook, line and sinker. For starts I suggest Chomsky's "Hegemony and Survival". It might be a little above those reading Ann Coulter, but hey no one said getting an education is easy. Anyways, I hope everyone on this forum enjoys living the "American Dream" on the backs of the millions we have killed, tortured and repressed south of the new Mason-Dixon, the Rio Grande. You've been duped, this country was sold way before you were born to corporate interests. In the name of the almighty dollar we have become the greatest terrorist threat the world has ever known. We have a grand tradition of supporting the most sketchy dictators under the banner of democracy. Saddam is a case in point... we put him in power, gave him his weapons, and looked the other way while he gassed the Kurds. Why? Because he provided a stable platform for corporate penetration into Iraq. Go on Google and search for the picture of Donald Rumsfield and Saddam together if you don't believe me. The same phenomenon can be found throughout most of the third world. Look at Latin America... Columbia, Argentina, Peru, Nicaragua... millions dead under our supervision and that of our puppet governments (sometimes former Nazis). And about globalization, its only good for the elite, both in the first-world and the third-world. Workers might or might not earn more, but after the IMF makes their country privatize they have so much to pay for also. I won't even go into the working conditions in these countries and their "Free-Trade Zones". Free trade is a hoax, it's something we expect other countries to honor while we subsidize our farmers to the point that no one abroad can compete with their prices. The consequence? Local farmers are thrown off their land and only if they are lucky (men are rarely hired) can they be a wage slave for the multinationals. In a few years once their hands are worn out sewing garments or lungs destroyed from toxic fumes a replacement is easily found in the long line of the unemployed. And they can't even think about organizing. Cuba was the lone country that managed to stand up to this economic bullying and is much better off for it (compared to the other countries in Latin America). Life expectancies there are similar to those in the States due to their excellent social health care system, despite not having essential medicines due to a criminal US embargo against the country. Elsewhere, the infant mortality rate is through the roof and kids are dying at the hands of corporate death squads. This is what the U.S. supports in the name of stability and democracy. Every president since Roosevelt has been a war criminal, some more blatantly than others. This includes the Democrats. The name and game of American imperialist politics is to centralize wealth at the cost of those not amongst the ranks of the anointed. So stop screwing around, vote Green in the hope that they will have some plan for coping with the problem of "peak oil" and its ugly aftermath. It is the only moral choice, voting for the rest is a vote against our Republican form of government untainted by corporate interests and is thus inherently anti-American. The times they are a changing... open your eyes and you will see that everything is not as it seems. Peace.
13 posted on 02/17/2004 9:08:22 AM PST by InBushITrust
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the OlLine Rebel
Yes, Revel's review was near-perfect English. Wasn't it a translation? If so, translator deserves much credit. Too lazy to go back.
14 posted on 02/17/2004 9:11:33 AM PST by luvbach1 (In the know on the border)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: ParsifalCA
"one of the bloodiest irrational ideologies of the century originated on the left"

Don't forget that the French Revolution, that beacon of hope, that bastion of democracy, that triumph of the intelligentsia, the victory of the People, resulted in the death of FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE who opposed the Revolution... "You'll think like us and join us, or you will LOSE YOUR HEAD!"

Liberals. Hmph.
15 posted on 02/17/2004 9:12:41 AM PST by jcb8199
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: InBushITrust
Wow. You should start a thread with that post. That way you can be zotted in style.
16 posted on 02/17/2004 9:16:51 AM PST by spodefly (February is Tagline History Month!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: jcb8199
The way-overrated French Rev was both just another disjointed rabel-rousing in history, and an early attempt at socialism. Its "lovers" can call it what they want, but it was NOT a democratic/republican revolution; that was proven instantaneously not to mention by decades of fallout. A skunk by any other name is still a skunk - that much-revered point in history stinks.
17 posted on 02/17/2004 9:17:46 AM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common Sense is an Uncommon Virtue)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: InBushITrust; dighton; jriemer; Constitution Day
Pennies on a deam man's eyes.
18 posted on 02/17/2004 9:19:16 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim (Just once I'd like to get by on my looks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: InBushITrust
Yeah, so let's get rid of America, or become completely isolationist, and see how well the world does without us.

Think about it. No military overseas, no imports/exports, not job importation/exportation, no NAFTA, no WTO, no UN, no NATO--we should just completely withdraw...



...and then welcome Armageddon.
19 posted on 02/17/2004 9:19:25 AM PST by jcb8199
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: InBushITrust
I hate to sound so nasty but....

you're a damned fool. See the tagline. I guess you're another of the millions who can't see the forest for the trees. And I'm not sure you see the trees, either.
20 posted on 02/17/2004 9:20:29 AM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common Sense is an Uncommon Virtue)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-43 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson