BF2S Forums Why mother Europe has forsaken America

Largely hogwash although there are some good points. Taking myself as an example kind of tears apart his idea that there is an innate anti-Americanism in Europeans. When I was a young lad I trotted off to the US for 4 months in between university terms on a J1 visa. I left for the US filled with awe and excitement about visiting the great land of opportunity. For a short while after returning I even thought about going to live there after I finished uni. All that began to change when I started to gain a deeper appreciation for the history of the last century or so, in particular the history of Latin America and the middle east (especially Palestine). It took the US response to 9/11 to demonstrate to the US' fellow westerners i.e., Europeans, that the great white liberator of Europe and defender from the Red Hoarde was not so squeaky clean and principled as it made itself out to be. My views regarding perhaps living in the US also began to change, especially on subsequent visits, when I realised the flaws of a system with a far more limited sense of social justice than we have here in Europe. Having said all that, my feelings about aspects of US history or about current foreign policy do not colour my attitude towards the totality of America and everything it represents. I've holidayed there several times for Christ's sake.

Europeans do show a disdain for certain aspects of American 'culture' but to offer that up as some sort of 'You hate America' slam dunk is ridiculous. Europeans lap up American movies and music with glee, even the shitty hip hop crap. Europeans have an imperious attitude with respect to various aspects of culture and the arts because they believe that their long history is richer and that American culture is a 'fast food' derivative of things we already came up with (rightly or wrongly). They feel anything America creates is borne out of a wish to profit whereas true art does not require monetary reward and is simply a product of an person motivated only be his or her own wish to express themselves.

Any kind of anti-semitism there might be in Europe is, I believe, wholly detached from anything to do with America. If anything the anti-semites probably see America turning a blind eye to Israeli crimes and develop their anti-Americanism from there.

Europe is far from united. That is such a laughable claim. People in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, etc. are fervently fervently pro-US. He speaks of the anti-war movement as if it's organisation crossed borders within Europe - which is bullshit. Citizens in individual member nations did their own thing. A mother of three hacked the nosecone off a US warplane in Shannon airport: I don't think she was acting out of a) jealousy or b) a feeling of fraternity/sorority with her European brethren: SHE JUST THOUGHT THE IRAQ WAR WAS CRIMINAL AND IMPROPER.

Europeans and Americans are fundamentally different people, a symptom of our socialism and your ultra-capitalism. The two systems make for very different types of people and cultures and as such we will always have disagreements. The only nations I can think of that perhaps hanker for the power and influence of old are France and the UK - and they are but TWO of the 25 nation EU.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-12-04 13:15:58)

Ok... the reason Europeans hate the USA is probably because of the way America is portrayed in the media here:
The USA is shown as:
- very proud of itself (which we see as excessive, since we're older )
      therefore, also overconfident, and arrogant, in things such as the Iraq war. In fact, Americans have probably the most arrogant image in Switzerland (even ahead of the Germans...) due to their ignorance of our culture
- absurd (justice system - ie lawsuits and caring for its own people, eating habits - ie McDonalds and all that other fast food I love it secretly, etc)
- disregarding tradition, or ruining them with silly political correctness
- stupid (Bush + ignorance of anything outside of the USA)

There's more, but that's all that came to mind right now. Also, there are things that we believe aren't right, such as the aide to Israel and the invasion of Iraq, and the way Bin Laden was originally trained by the US... And Guantanamo Bay...

-konfusion

edit:
Stuff like this doesn't help...

Last edited by konfusion (2007-12-04 13:48:12)

were not all bad, im drinking guinness and bass right now

Locoloki wrote:

were not all bad, im drinking guinness and bass right now

Get a pint glass and pour in half a stella and smirnoff ice = Turbo Shandy = win

Braddock wrote:

Wow ...that article sent my bullshit meter off the chart.

The whole article is ultimately one person tying together several separate strands to fit his own biased view. Cameronpoe details this in his post above. It's nonsense quite frankly, I grew up thinking the US were the good guys and for many years harboured a desire to one day maybe live there. It was only when I started to take an interest in world politics that I realised America's past was not without controversy and I formed my views accordingly. I don't hate Americans themselves or American culture, on the contrary, I love the independent movie scene and music scene in America, I have friends in America and I've been lucky enough to visit New York, one of the greatest cities on the planet.

The fact of the matter is that ultimately if you carry out questionable actions many people will take exception to these acts; and the US have carried out many questionable acts in it's past, whether it's picking sides in conflicts in Asia, assisting in the making and breaking of regimes in central and south America, invading Iraq on the grounds of weapons of mass destruction or selling weapons to a country that has a questionable humans rights record. If you do these kinds of things a lot of people are bound to get annoyed ...and not just people in Europe.

All true and valid reasons to have reservations about a given country's government. But as has been pointed out in other posts...the US didn't invent those actions/policies. The US learned them from our European friends.

And I'm not saying it makes it right...just pointing out that it's not just the US. Something my European friends seem to conveniently overlook when they go on a rant.

DoctaStrangelove wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

I didn't see the anti-American attitude when I was in Germany.. that was in 94. I didn't even see it when I was in Venezuela.... well, that was in the mid 90's as well.

The outside world liked Clinton twice as much as we did.

I didn't like him

And our PR sucks balls.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Pug wrote:

European anti-Americanism

What about American anti-Europeanism?

Cheese eating surrender monkeys stole my freedom fries.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-12-05 05:22:14)

Pug wrote:

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/thornton112007.html

I’m going to wait a while to chime in.  Please read the article…

Points:

1) America's turmoil-ridden birth when Europe wasn't dealing with the same challenges (thereby ignoring its own birth).  The foundation of stereotyping Americans. Growing prejudices due to climatic advantages in an agrarian economy, aka jealously due to a quick economic rise.  Also, Pre-EU reverse racism due to an American multiracial society.  Agree? Disagree in principle, but I can see how a new resource-rich world which was fought over can be interpreted this way.  I do think contempt exists because the US didn't go through the growing pains Europe did, but I wouldn't say it's a smoking gun.  The reverse racism idea is interesting in the same way.  But remember this discrimination would have be past down generationally from 300 years ago...so if it's here we would be unaware of these ties.

2) “Americanization” in Europe automatically connotes something negative, threatening, and something to be avoided.  Is this bigotry? I agree.  Outside of America, and sometimes in America itself this is a bad term.  What is your first thought when you think of the US beyond politics...things like culture? art? architecture? philathropy?  It's not hard to find...it's on this forum.

3)  Please check out paragraph quote: “...do these attitudes really matter? Does European anti-Americanism affect substantially the policies and behavior of European governments?… In the end, European governments exploit irrational anti-Americanism in order to aggrandize their own global power and influence and thus compensate for their diminished economic, cultural, and political clout.”    Your thoughts? Depends.  I think politics picks its battles, and ultimately there is a positive and negative in every decision.  I do believe that the influence in the second question could lead to pushing the decision stick a little against the US, but not enough.  As far as "exploiting irrational anti-Americanism"...well absolutely not.  Some might do this, but it's really ridiculous for politicians to continue to believe their flock will eat up propaganda to set policy.

4) “The evil twin of anti-Americanism is anti-Semitism, the latter a European phenomenon deeply rooted in Europe’s history and culture.” “The Europeans’ enmity toward Israel cannot be detached from the Europeans’ thousand-year hatred of the Jews and their shorter and much less lethal, but still palpable, antipathy toward America.” Ummm...no.  The article talks about how the US has supported the Hebrews because of immigration...and it was bred into policy.  I think Israel stands on its own actions.

5) The massive 2003 rallies against the United States’ war in Iraq, as much an expression of distaste for America as distaste for war, was interpreted by many as the “birthday of a united Europe”.  Agree? I agree with the less-colorful version, which is it was an opportunity to rally against the war...it's not like Europe was waiting for the US to screw up since WWII to say the obligatory "I told you so".

6)  Given the numerous political uses of European anti-Americanism, it is unlikely to abate anytime soon, despite the occasional election of European leaders friendly to America. Quite simply, anti-Americanism “has helped gain Europeans respect, affection, and — most important — political clout in the rest of the world, especially since Europe is unwilling and unable to finance a military power commensurate with its global ambitions. Let’s not forget too that many Europeans mistakenly believe that they can placate the jihadists by thwarting the policies of the latter’s greatest enemy. As Markovits conludes, “I see few incentives for Europe to divest itself of its current opposition to and antipathy for America and plenty to stay the course.” Pretty powerful accusation. I would say a difference in opinion on the timing...we want it faster and are willing to bear the brunt the responsibility as well as the cost.  As far as earning clout by anti-Americanism as in discrimination...no.  I do believe in the law of opposition moving everything towards an equilibrium.

I just wanted to see what would happen, an interesting discussion...I'll comment on a few of the other comments later...my thoughts are above.  I did think the editorial was interesting because it's the first attempt I've seen to attempt to explain why the US is hated worldwide...and perhaps saying it's human nature and not because we are a bunch of assholes.

I hope you guys read the article (mostly political in nature) because without it there is no context.

Well, someone posted that Europeans only get news of the idiotic and retarded things that Americans do, and not the more praise worthy (but less newsworthy) events, so an uneducated individual will probably have a negative view of America, and I have seen a similar phenomenon In the news regarding European news in America.

However, I also feel that America has some serious social and cultural issues that the Europeans have largely gotten past, and makes us in the States look somewhat old-fashioned (and stupid, in the case of the Religious Right)

Or maybe you're just mad that we exported some of our wiggers, and they proceeded to evolve into chavs...

My only problem towards Europe besides most of it being anti-US is that the Europeans tip like crap and they wear 80's style clothes..