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Hating America
by Bruce Bawer, Hudson Review.Long multiple-book-review piece by an American expat living in Norway. Go read it all; Iâm excerpting just a bit here to get your enthusiasm worked up to a frenzy. Hat tip: Brothers Judd. I moved from the U.S. to Europe in 1998, and Iâve been drawing comparisons ever since. . . . I was tempted at one point to write a book lamenting Americansâ anti-intellectualismâtheir indifference to foreign languages, ignorance of history, indifference to academic achievement, susceptibility to vulgar religion and trash TV, and so forth. On point after point, I would argue, Europe had us beat. Yet as my weeks in the Old World stretched into months and then years, my perceptions shifted. Yes, many Europeans were book loversâbut which countryâs literature most engaged them? Many of them revered educationâbut to which countryâs universities did they most wish to send their children? (Answer: the same country that performs the majority of the worldâs scientific research and wins most of the Nobel Prizes.) Yes, American television was responsible for drivel like The Ricki Lake Showâbut Europeans, I learned, watched this stuff just as eagerly as Americans did (only to turn around, of course, and mock it as a reflection of American boorishness). No, Europeans werenât Bible-thumpersâbut the Continentâs ever-growing Muslim population, I had come to realize, represented even more of a threat to pluralist democracy than fundamentalist Christians did in the U.S. (Given that the "threat" posed to pluralist democracy by "fundamentalist Christians" is essentially zero, thatâs not exactly hard . . . okay, Iâll shut up now.) And yes, more Europeans were multilingualâbut then, if each of the fifty states had its own language, Americans would be multilingual, too. Iâd marveled at Norwegiansâ newspaper consumption; but what did they actually read in those newspapers? That this was, in fact, a crucial question was brought home to me when a travel piece I wrote for the New York Times about a weekend in rural Telemark received front-page coverage in Aftenposten, Norwayâs newspaper of record. Not that my articleâs contents were remotely newsworthy; its sole news value lay in the fact that Norway had been mentioned in the New York Times. "Look, Olaf, we are famous!" "Ach, Svend, that is nothing. Now Wall Street Journal âmiddle column,â that would be impressive." It was astonishing. And even more astonishing was what happened next: the owner of the farm hotel at which Iâd stayed, irked that Iâd made a point of his want of hospitality, got his revenge by telling reporters that Iâd demanded McDonaldâs hamburgers for dinner instead of that most Norwegian of delicacies, reindeer steak. Though this was a transparent fabrication (his establishment was located atop a remote mountain, far from the nearest golden arches), the press lapped it up. . . . For me, this startling episode raised a few questions. Why had the Norwegian press given such prominent attention in the first place to a mere travel article? Why had it then been so eager to repeat a cartoonish lie? Were these actions reflective of a society more serious, more thoughtful, than the one Iâd left? Or did they reveal a culture, or at least a media class, that was so awed by America as to be flattered by even its slightest attentions but that was also reflexively, irrationally belligerent toward it? This experience was only part of a larger process of edification. Living in Europe, I gradually came to appreciate American virtues Iâd always taken for granted, or even disdainedâamong them a lack of self-seriousness, a grasp of irony and self-deprecating humor, a friendly informality with strangers, an unashamed curiosity, an openness to new experience, an innate optimism, a willingness to think for oneself and speak oneâs mind and question the accepted way of doing things. (One reason why Europeans view Americans as ignorant is that when we donât know something, weâre more likely to admit it freely and ask questions.) While Americans, I saw, cherished liberty, Europeans tended to take it for granted or dismiss it as a naive or cynical, and somehow vaguely embarrassing, American fiction. I found myself toting up words that begin with i: individuality, imagination, initiative, inventiveness, independence of mind. Americans, it seemed to me, were more likely to think for themselves and trust their own judgments, and less easily cowed by authorities or bossed around by âexpertsâ; they believed in their own ability to make things better. No wonder so many smart, ambitious young Europeans look for inspiration to the United States, which has a dynamism their own countries lack, and which communicates the idea that life can be an adventure and that thereâs important, exciting work to be done. Reagan-style âmorning in Americaâ clichés may make some of us wince, (just as clichéd carping about "Reagan-style âmorning in Americaâ clichés" makes the rest of us wince) but they reflect something genuine and valuable in the American air. Europeans may or may not have more of a âsense of historyâ than Americans do (in fact, in a recent study comparing studentsâ historical knowledge, the results were pretty much a draw), but America has something else that mattersâa belief in the future. Over time, then, these things came into focus for me. Then came September 11. Briefly, Western European hostility toward the U.S. yielded to sincere, if shallow, solidarity ("We are all Americans"). But the enmity soon re-established itself (a fact confirmed for me daily on the websites of the many Western European newspapers I had begun reading online). With the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it intensified. Yet the endlessly reiterated claim that George W. Bush "squandered" Western Europeâs post-9/11 sympathy is nonsense. The sympathy was a blip; the anti-Americanism is chronic. . . . He goes on to review anti-American writings from both sides of the pond, as well as a few counter-examples (such as Jean-François Revel), and to spend a fair bit of time discussing the historical animosity of Euro-elites to the very idea of America. Iâve got my quibbles with a sentence or two, but overall it is an excellent article. I am especially curious to hear reactions from our European contingent (JFM, TGA, Aris, and all). The comment box is all yours, gentlemen! Posted by: Mike 2004-06-29 |
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