The Unloved American

The New Yorker ^ | March 3, 2003 | SIMON SCHAMA

[Grit]

THE UNLOVED AMERICAN

by SIMON SCHAMA
Two centuries of alienating Europe.
Issue of 2003-03-10
Posted 2003-03-03

On the Fourth of July in 1889, Rudyard Kipling found himself near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone with a party of tourists from New England.

He winced as a "clergyman rose up and told them they were the greatest, freest, sublimest, most chivalrous, and richest people on the face of the earth, and they all said Amen."

Kipling--who had travelled from India to California, and then across the North American continent--was bewildered by the patriotic hyperbole that seemed to come so naturally to the citizens of the United States...

[Grit]

I was unaware that even someone like Schama had been infected with this degree of chic, intellectual America bashing.

He is walking the fine line between America bashing and gleefully reporting the America bashing by others. Similar to the way many lefty reporters let their personal agenda slip when asking questions like this:
"Mr. President, many people say that you are a Nazi-baby-kiling-big-oil-shill bent on the murder of Iraqi children. Don't you think that Iraq deserves more time to continue to disarm?"

Personally, I had never heard of Schama before. So I had no ideas of his politics, just thought it a good read.

[CyberCowboy777]

Check this out

http://www.teesdale.com/global/global.html

[CyberCowboy777]

In England, slavery was formally abolished in 1772. Slave
_trade_ was abolished throughout the Empire in 1807, holding slaves
in the colonies later in the 19th century (Caribbean 1834, India
1861). Thus, until 1772 trading and holding slaves was legal both
in England and her colonies.

[Shermy]

The title is:

Two centuries of alienating Europe.

Loaded, to say the least. Places "America" as the actor-subject, even transgressor, and plays "Europe" as neutral or victim. Yet Schama's tale is mostly Europeans coming to America and seeing Americans act like themselves. The sentiment reads as a mix of resentment and disgust.

[dasboot]

There's a common theme running in all the citations: the conditions found in specific parts of America didn't meet the genteel requirements of these traveling diarists. What snobbery!

America was--and is--the regional reflection of the free inhabitants: some people freely choose to live, and find comfort, in squalor..or chrome skyscrapers...or farms...or sanitized cul-de-sacs. The lack of homogeneity--to anyone's perticular standards--is the natural and preferrable result of freedom.

I've read some of the works the author cites, and they are hardly as negative in the main as she asserts. There are some parts of this society in which I find little of redeeming value; other parts to which I aspire. I take freedom, warts and all. I can freely choose my existence: I can wolf my corned beef among the unwashed, or extend my pinky with the wealthy. This is inclusiveness, diversity.

My immigrant fathers and mothers were variously political refugees, slaves, paupers, farmers.....I'm grateful they chose this offensive "sewer" in which to live.

"Sour Eurograpes." Achieve us, y' girlie whimps.

[jpl]

The "sophisticated" folks in Europe (and their American ideological soul mates) can recite all our historical blemishes and hypocricies and quote all of the "ugly Americans" they want to as far as I'm concerned. It's all just a fancy way of covering up the bottom line. They viewed the colonial Americans as being backwards, uneducated, simple rustics well before we even gained our independence. It's completely incomprehensible to them that such a bunch of low-life unworthies became #1, and it galls them to this day.

[xJones]

I kind of lost interest when I read to the paragraph about,

The conduct of Americans at dinner said it all. They wolfed down their food, cramming corn bread into their sloppy maws during meals that were devoured in silence, punctuated only by slurps, grunts, scraping knives, and hacking coughs.

Granted, that does sound like a like of my family dinners, but we don't think anymore of that than a sheikh slopping a lamb's eyeball with his hand, or a Frenchman munching on his snail.

[CasearianDaoist]

Well...yes. Do you consider the British Raj in India to be slavery? Was the use of prison laborers in Austrailia slavery? How about the use of the Irish? If so then you might have to revise your dates.
Those critics of America that constantly brandish about southern slavery often are quoite selective in how they wish to describe slavery as a concept. You know what Hitler said: "Russia is our Africa and the Russian is our Negro." Euro sniping about slavery is at best hipocracy.

[MattAMiller]

I don't read it that way at all. It was a fairly objective account of the history of America bashing. I didn't get the impression that Schama was endorsing it. Indeed in a couple of places he attributes it to European insecurities.

[reformedliberal]

Besides being uncomfortable with our pride and love for this nation, they have a terrible time w/certitude. They prefer hand-wringing and lack of resolve. Then there is this thing called faith. That one gives them heartburn every time.

I love America. I love cowboys and I love Dubya! The EUrinals call us lots of names and shouldn't be too upset when we call them *old*, *surrender monkeys* or *sour krauts*. The thing is, we love being called cowboys!!! We are proud to go it alone!!! No one tells us what to do. And it ain't braggin' if it's true: we're the strongest, richest, happiest, most powerful nation on this Earth. Must drive 'em nutz!

[baseballmom]

Exactly. It wasn't the "upper crust" of Europe that settled this country. It was the under-class that settled this country. Those hoping to reap the rewards of their hard work. Something next to impossible in "old Europe". Sniff.

And guess what? NOW I learned where the word "trollop" comes from. LOL Thanks Frances.

[fr_freak]

This is an interesting read on the history of anti-American sentiment, but you'll notice that the author never says a thing to suggest that the purveyors of the sentiment may have gotten it wrong. In fact, his conclusion, which incorporates all the typical European (and American lefty) attitudes regarding the impending war with Iraq (the US can't go it alone, the US needs Europe, etc.) suggests that he believes that all of the European anti-American observations were correct, that the US is a rough country of raw meat-eating unsophisticates who can't be trusted to lead world affairs.

I've had personal experience with this kind of attitude from Europeans. I remember one discussion I had with an Englishman who questioned my expressions of patriotism in the same way that Kipling was described to have done. This guy couldn't believe that I would make statements like "the USA is the greatest nation on Earth". He claimed that Europeans, through centuries of experience, had become far too wise and sophisticated to make such claims about their countries. One incredible example he gave me was that France is world-reknown for their cheese, but the French don't go around claiming to be the greatest nation on Earth (although I would argue tht point). Cheese, for God's sake. My response to him was that Europeans generally refrain from running around claiming their country is greatest not because of a greater sophistication and worldliness, but because every single one of them knows that it's not true. The USA dwarfs every one of them in every way that matters, and that's what bugs them the most. They WISH they could brag about their country, but the reality of US supremacy would make them appear ridiculous.

The European brand of nationalism has usually been a mindless one, borne from emotion and upbringing than real thought. But what these guys don't understand is that my patriotism is derived from my whole-hearted belief that the USA embodies the best of human principles, both in the construction of government outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (however improperly interpreted and ignored they may be in recent years) and in American culture, which, until recently, was extremely moral. And those principles have so far saved us from a full slide into the Leftist brand of tyranny that now seems to own most of western Europe and Canada.

And please excuse my long-windedness.

[uncbob]

I had no idea the stereotype of the "ugly-american" had such a history.

The UGLY American is probably the biggest misused cliche in American history

The UGLY AMERICAN was one of about five short stories taking place in SE ASIA
The Book and movie ( tough the movie was based on one of the other stories)took its name from the one short story entitled THE UGLY AMERICAN

Ironically the main character in the story was a GOOD GUY beloved by the natives because of the help and aid he gave them

He was a large florid freckled faced IRISH AMERICAN who naturally stood out amongst the smaller darker native asians

Because of his physical appearance he was AFFECTIONATELY referred to as THE UGLY AMERICAN by the natives

Think I am kidding
I am sure the book is still available . Get it and read it

BTW the Movie with Marlon Brando was based on one of the other short stories in the book but they used the name of the book for the movie even though it was NOT the story the name UGLY AMERICAN was based on

In addition all the short stories featured Americans as THE GOOD GUYS

[Oztrich Boy]

And guess what? NOW I learned where the word "trollop" comes from. LOL Thanks Frances.

Actually you haven't. The word Trollop dates from 1615.

I realize you may have been joking, but it's it's unlikely that Mrs Trollope would have been discomforted by your pointing out the coincidence. A woman who was amused when she was able to shock and embrass a male American university student merely by *mentioning the title* of Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock was propably fairly comfortable with her family nmae (Unlike the American Louisa May Allcox )

While it may be a blow to Americans' vision of themselves as a strong virile nation, it wasn't Americans' common vulgarity and lack of refinement that amused 19th Centuary European vistors, but America's prissy prudery.

It is one of the great miscarriages of reputation that the name of a passionate Hanoverian Queen should be now be a byword of a moral prudery that had its most extrerme expression in America, began there before Victoria was born, and lingered there long after she was dead.

[cyborg]

I have to correct you. The British ended slavery before the US starting in the early 1800s. Slavery ended in my mother's country sometime around 1830s. Also, the British prepared the country for freeing their slaves by educating most of the slaves and making sure that the nation could make it economically without slavery.

[nicollo]

America was--and is--the regional reflection of the free inhabitants: some people freely choose to live, and find comfort, in squalor..or chrome skyscrapers...or farms...or sanitized cul-de-sacs. The lack of homogeneity--to anyone's perticular standards--is the natural and preferrable result of freedom.

Very good. What the world cannot understand is that President Bush is not a lone cowboy. He is the chief representative of a nation of lone cowboys. The war on Iraq is a deep expression of the will of the American people. Don't expect the world to appreciate or understand this. It don't matter. America is not a collective voice; it is a channel of collected voices.

As Alexis de Tocqueville noted in 1835, to defeat a democracy it must be done in a single, preemptive strike. They failed to knock us out in round one. We win.