Hating America (Long Read-but worthwhile)

The Hudson Review ^ | SPRING 2004 | Bruce Bawer

[ijcr]

A great analysis of European attitude.

[brothers4thID]

You weren't kidding when you said it was long.
Bump for later

[jla]

^

[TheSpottedOwl]

Long, but well worth reading.

[murdoog]

You weren't kidding when you said it was long.

No he wasn't. If you copy and paste it into Word, it's 24 pages long.

[dirtboy]

mark for later

[HolgerDansk]

What a great article. Spot on from my recent experience in Finland.

[Joe_October]

...America, in short, is a mess—a cultural wasteland, an economic nightmare, a political abomination, an international misfit, outlaw, parasite, and pariah....

Funny thing is we are still the best country in the history of the world and second isn't even close.

[bad company]

Great read. printed it for sharing.

[gr8eman]

Painfully long, but entirely on the mark. I live in Europe and I look at the world as enjoying the good things and rejecting the bad things wherever you are. That said...the Western Europeans, while being nationalistic...are froot loops in general and will lap up anything and everything the gubmint tells them, hence Schnickelgruber!

[Gefreiter]

Yeah, this is great stuff. Good find.

[KC_Conspirator]

If America is so bad, why are we still number one at almost everything? Why are people in the millions trying to emigrate, both legally and illegallly, to the USA every year?

[baseballmom]

Yes, very long, but very worthwhile read. Thanks for posting.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I saw a cartoon once spoofing anti-Semitism. A waiter in a restaurant is complaining about a large table of Jews. He tells a fellow-waiter, "Look at those damned Jews ... cheap bastards ... I bet they don't leave me a dime."

The Jews pay their bill and leave, and the waiter finds a huge tip. "Won't leave a dime, eh?" laughs his cohort. "Well, what did you expect?" the waiter snarls, "They've got all the money in the world!"

Americans have a lot to learn from Jews. Everybody hates us, and everybody wants us dead. And there is nothing we can do, for good or bad, that will change those facts.

[locochupacabra]

I love the left...

They'll indict Americans as being "ignorant" (Michael Moore anyone?) while praising the intellectual prowess of the Europeans. My experience, however, is that the left's assertions of American ignorance is nothing more than projection:

"Europeans speak so many languages, and Americans barely speak one!"
Well, I for one speak two other languages fluently, and am currently working on my third. I also can manage to speak about 100 or so words in about three more languages; Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. Of course, I can only speak from my own experience, but EVERY time a lefty comes at me with this tired line, I ask, "Oh! Well, I speak German and Latin (yeah, I know... it's dead.. but fun) fluently! What do you speak?" and am met with blank stares "ummm... oh, uh... I used to take Spanish in high school... but I forgot everything..."

Case against liberal public education?

"Europeans are much more in tune with current events!"
As demonstrated by this website alone, I read several dozen newspapers daily, listen to news on the radio, as well as watch it on a couple TV stations. On top of that, I read academic journals in my particular field that would make most people's heads spin, and read about one non-fiction title a month. When I pose to my lib friends (a number which is rapidly diminishing), "Where do you get your news?," I generally hear, "uhh... well I listen to NPR... and Comedy Central's 'Daily Show'..."

I love that statement.... so, here for your amusement, is my father's (who turned me on to FR) news experiment...

Listen in the morning to your local AM Talk Radio news. Listen for a couple of hours or so if you can manage. Then, in the afternoon, listen to NPR and compare.

...my liberal friends NEVER take me up on that challenge.

"Europeans are so multicultural! I mean, a day trip in any direction is another culture."
Spoken like truly UNTRAVELLED people. If you think there's one overriding American culture, you watch too much TV. While there are certain traits and characteristics that bind us together, people are not the same whereever you go (despite the claims made by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney). If you want to experience culture shock, just travel to another state. Libs seem to think that Georgia is the same as Massachusetts, or California is the same as Alaska. Even within a state there are diverse cultures. I just moved to Illinois, and am amazed at the ubiquitous Amish culture here. I've never seen so many buggies in my life.

I suppose I could go on, but why bother, we all know that lefties are ignorant, hypocritical, know-nothings, who know that they're better than everyone else.

[Steve_Seattle]

An excellent post, albeit long. Despite all of the analysis, the one thing that stands out is the restaurant owner's lie about the author demanding a McDonald's cheeseburger. When dealing with the European left, we've reached a point where truth literally no longer matters, where illusion, lying, and willful misinformation are standard operating procedure. I don't want to sound paranoid, but there is an almost demonic quality to this, an intensity and all-pervasiveness to it, which makes me wonder if we're dealing with - how did St. Paul put it? - wickedness in high places, the rulers of this world . . .

[mrsmel]

Great great article.

[Physicist]

Excellent read. I've bookmarked it for a re-read, and will purchase Kagan's book at my earliest opportunity.

Revel is a longtime favorite of mine; that this perspicacious author speaks so well of him is telling.

[cwb]

Yep...I loved this summary of the Euroweenie attitude:

And why have these Machiavellians become idealists? Because they no longer have power —and, being powerless, they resent U.S. power, even when it's used not to conquer but to help.

Which brings us to the thesis of this compact, meticulously argued work: that the "paradise" of peace and prosperity Europe now enjoys is made possible, quite simply, by American power. Provided with "security from outside," Europe requires no power of its own; yet protected "under the umbrella of American power," it's able to delude itself that power is "no longer important" and "that American military power, and the 'strategic culture' that has created and sustained it, is outmoded and dangerous."

European leaders, says Kagan, see themselves as inhabiting a post-historical world in which war has been rendered obsolete by the triumph of international "moral consciousness"; yet most of them do not see or do not wish to see the great paradox: that their passage into post-history has depended on the United States not making the same passage.

Because Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its own paradise and keep it from being overrun, spiritually and well as physically, by a world that has yet to accept the rule of "moral consciousness," it has become dependent on America's willingness to use its military might to deter or defeat those around the world who still believe in power politics.

In short, though the U.S. makes Europe's "paradise" possible, "it cannot enter the paradise itself. It mans the walls but cannot walk through the gate . . . stuck in history, [it is] left to deal with the Saddams and the ayatollahs, the Kim Jong Ils and the Jiang Zemins, leaving most of the benefits to others."

And when it does address those threats, furthermore, it feels Europe's wrath, for "America's power and its willingness to exercise that power—unilaterally if necessary—constitute a threat to Europe's new sense of mission." If Europe's intellectual and political elite was briefly pro-America after 9/11, it was because America was suddenly a victim, and European intellectuals are accustomed to sympathizing reflexively with victims (or, more specifically, with perceived or self-proclaimed victims, such as Arafat). That support began to wane the moment it became clear that Americans had no intention of being victims.

[Red Boots]

Dear Great-Grandpa;
Thanks for leaving Norway, and coming to America, way back in 1880. It must have been hard, starting over from scratch on the homestead in Minnesota, but I really, really appreciate it. !!!