Ah, yes, Europe, the failed nation-state.
Thanks - a very interesting article. Just as interesting, though, is that fact that it ran in a Pakistani newspaper and not a European one.
Actually, this is a summary of how relatively sympathetic, liberal viewers see Europe. The opinions of conservatives would probably be a good deal more brutal.
Europe is decadent, narcissistic, nihilistic, and given over to a suicidal death wish. Europeans are aborting themselves out of existence. Unless things change, which is unlikely, there will be no Europe in 50 years.
The key European flaw in my view is arrogance. Even though America is the real superpower, there is an arrogance about the European governing elite (not its peoples and cultures). Europe does indeed represent an apex of civilization, but one that bad leadership (EU-centric sclerotic statists) and poor ideas (socialism) is frittering away. Europe is too arrogant to notice nor correct its key faults.
This was the same error btw of the once great Chinese civilization. In the Ming dynasty, they were so arrogant they decided no other civilization could teach them anything, so they hibernated for 600 years, then woke up to find British guns on the Yalu could beat them to a pulp. Europe wont have so long to see their own fall from grace and power.
Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
Europe: An amusement park for rich Americans.
Go soon, before the Louvre is shelled by the reigning Mullahs.
And the dominant attitude in FR is gratitude to our ancestors who had the good sense to leave Europe for America. Thank God we're in America. Danken Sie Gott, daß wir in Amerika sind...
We should have never involved ourselves in WWI and WWII.
We have mistakenly prolonged the existence of a culture that simply does not deserve to exist.
I've been to a few European websites and I'd have to say that 90% of the folks on these websites hate the United States. In fact, on one particular Bulgarian website, I had one fella wish rape and death upon me....and in the next breath, demand that the United States step in and help the five Bulgarian medics who are on death row in Libya.
Of course I was kicked off of this website when I told that Bulgarian idiot what he could do with his threat!
I get the sense that many Europeans have adjusted to the new realities in a way that was not widely apparent in the United States until recently. Iraq was a very rude shock in this regard, and it is reverberating through the American consciousness in a rather magnified form. When the looming monster - and it really was - of the Soviet Union faded, Europe was left with a world in which only America stood in the way of a return to the good old pre-WWI days of the Great Powers, wherein the futures of entire continents were settled in a London or Paris or Brussels drawing-room over port. The preference within current European intellectual fashion for international negotiation at the UN and within NGOs is, in my opinion, nothing more than an updated version of this nostalgic past, one which is regarded in the United States as purely illusory and self-indulgent. Were the United States to vanish overnight the world would not return to the Habsburgs, the Romanoffs, and the Hohenzollerns, and all the wishful thinking in French academe won't make it so.
Americans, for their part, are less aware than they should be of the caustic effects of a half-century of Soviet propaganda on the collective consciousness of Europe. The generation that is now attempting to lead, both there and here, is one that cut its political teeth on the polarities of the Vietnam era, and if both sides of that struggle are reliving their youths within the current U.S. election cycle, it is much more one-sided in Europe, where the antiwar point of view never really had serious opposition and now is represented by a nearly monolithic print and broadcast journalism. That is one reason why Clinton and Kerry are in such better repute there than Reagan and Bush. But the monolithic nature comes at a cost - were the United States to succeed in Iraq it would not only never be communicated in Europe, it would be actively denied by a generation whose entire political worldview may not allow such a thing to be.
I don't see a cure soon. If there is one it may be that we will have to wait for my terribly polarized generation to fade into senescence, a prospect of some years yet, and for a new one unfettered by the political enthusiasms and illusions of the late Cold War to take the reins.
Good article!
Thank you for posting it.
I think it is a more accurate and just generalization on Europe than any I've seen by Euros in reverse.
We should never forget that - at their very best - the left looks to Western Europe as the model for what they want for us here (at their worse it more like Cuba,or Nicaragua under the Sandinistas). With the creeping tide of
anti-religious sentiments breaking out in France, Germany, and Euro(ized) Canada over charges that the Bible is a source of "Hate Speech" and the Cross, and Star of David threaten social harmony when worn by students, there is much to fear from this "fatal attraction" of the Dems for Europe.
Be Well!
Dim1
I have a few European friends, and and as individuals my friends are really nice people. In general though, I've pondered what Americans, specifically American conservatives, admire about Europeans.
Not much, of substance anyway. There is good beer there, and terrific cheese, great bread, and of course lovely wine....the alps are gorgeous. All in all a lovely climate. Some great castles there--Germany builds great cars, and the French and Italians have lots of cutting edge style.
However of continental Europeans themselves, since WWI and II, I really can't say there's anything particular in character to admire. I do admire generally (though not as much as earlier) the work ethic of the Germans...but really, honestly, other than that, I can't say what, in terms of inner points of character to admire about Europeans.
I'm not sure the Euros know the fact that we as Americans by and large, other than consumables and cars, simply respect and admire them very little.
I predict that we will be back 'over there' within the next 25 years.
BUMP
For what its worth, I think that most Europeans are far warier of conflict because they know far more about it than Americans. This doesn't mean they don't have a massive problem waiting in regards to falling birthrates and massive birthrates among Muslim immigrants, but it doesn explain their unwillingness to become involved in war unless utterly neccessary.
Europe is ripe for another continental war.
Uh, hello?
Europe isn't even on America's radar screen. Europe can drop dead. Or not. Nobody cares.
Umm... no. Considering its history and culture, Europe should definitely NOT accept many--if any--immigrants, and I suspect that its low fertility rates are driven even lower by fears that one's children will grow up as dhimmis.