May 31, 2002

There's not all that much

There's not all that much to Humanities professor Paul Gottfried's much-blogged Spectator article on American anti-European sentiment. Loads of rhetoric, snide asides, very little substance, no discernable argument-- in other words, extremely difficult to comment on. (Though I daresay the choir to which he is preaching enjoyed every word.) His conclusion (that American Euro-bashing arises solely from the intemperate ranting of slightly unhinged neo-cons and the gullible public who hang on their every word) is manifestly false: irritation and lack of patience with Europe on the "American street" is far more widespread than that, even among those who have never heard of the Weekly Standard (which is to say, practically everybody.)

It's true that Euro-bashing, particularly in the blogosphere, tends to go over the top. Often, it is silly an unreasonable. But by blaming it all on Krauthammer, Kristol, Victor Davis Hansen et al., Gottfried neglects to consider in any serious way the question of why the hostility has arisen. The most frivolous reason (and hence, in some ways, the most important) is simply that Euro-bashing is easy and fun. It has a long tradition in this country, and an even longer one in Britain. That's not Bill Kristol's fault. As long as the French the European community keep setting up the jokes, someone is going to keep making them. That's not fair, but that's life. We'll call them cheese-eating surrender monkeys; they'll call us cowboys. We'll take rhetorical pot shots at their hypocrisies, as they do the same at ours. We'll take out Saddam and they'll publicly decry our "simplisme," while secretly breathing a collective sigh of relief that someone has taken care of the problem and shouldered the blame. So it goes.

But, good, clean, time-honored fun aside, it's fair to say that some of the criticism "sticks" in part because it has a degree of validity. There is anti-Semitism in France. Are you persuaded otherwise just because the French President decrees that it is not so? Or are you, like Gottfried, persuaded otherwise simply because some of those who have noted the fact may have ulterior ideological motives? It's possible to over-state it, but the EU does have its anti-democratic aspects, in spirit and in praxis. Indeed, most of the Euro-bashing (even that of the neocons) focuses on the ruling Euro-elites, rather than on the ordinary people whose will they routinely discount and attempt to circumvent. Tom Burroughes of LibSam has a good take on it:

why [has] this hostility has arisen? It is not because Americans are jealous of Europe, why should they be? It is not fear of us...that'd be the day! It is a lack of patience with the sneering, dishonest rubbish coming out of the lips of the likes of Chris Patten and the rest. From what I read, I get the impression that all but the most bigoted paleo-conservative commentators appreciate that most European folk like and are sympathetic to the U.S., want it to beat terror, and will help in that cause.

God save the Queen, and God Bless America.


Quite right.

Posted by Dr. Frank at May 31, 2002 12:52 PM | TrackBack