An excellently insightful piece on Europe's elitist attitude toward America.
By Bruce Bawer The Hudson Review | November 19, 2004
Read the entire piece, well worth it.I moved from the U.S. to Europe in 1998, and Ive been drawing comparisons ever since. Living in turn in the Netherlands, where kids come out of high school able to speak four languages, where gay marriage is a non-issue, and where book-buying levels are the worlds highest, and in Norway, where a staggering percentage of people read three newspapers a day and where respect for learning is reflected even in Oslo place names (Professor Aschehoug Square; Professor Birkeland Road), I was tempted at one point to write a book lamenting Americans anti-intellectualismtheir 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 loversbut which countrys literature most engaged them? Many of them revered educationbut to which countrys universities did they most wish to send their children? (Answer: the same country that performs the majority of the worlds scientific research and wins most of the Nobel Prizes.) Yes, American television was responsible for drivel like The Ricki Lake Showbut 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 werent Bible-thumpersbut the Continents 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. And yes, more Europeans were multilingualbut then, if each of the fifty states had its own language, Americans would be multilingual, too. Id marveled at Norwegians 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, Norways newspaper of record. Not that my articles contents were remotely newsworthy; its sole news value lay in the fact that Norway had been mentioned in the New York Times. It was astonishing. And even more astonishing was what happened next: the owner of the farm hotel at which Id stayed, irked that Id made a point of his want of hospitality, got his revenge by telling reporters that Id demanded McDonalds 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. The story received prominent coverage all over Norway and dragged on for days. My inhospitable host became a folk hero; my irksome weekend trip was transformed into a morality play about the threat posed by vulgar, fast-food-eating American urbanites to cherished native folk traditions. I was flabbergasted. But my erstwhile host obviously wasnt: he knew his country; he knew its media; and hed known, accordingly, that all he needed to do to spin events to his advantage was to breathe that talismanic word, McDonalds.
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 Id 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 Id always taken for granted, or even disdainedamong 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 ones mind and question the accepted way of doing things. (One reason why Euro- peans view Americans as ignorant is that when we dont know something, were 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 naïve 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 experts; 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 theres important, exciting work to be done. Reagan-style morning in America clichés may make some of us wince, but they reflect something genuine and valuable in the American air. Europeans may or may not have more of a sense of history than Americans do (in fact, in a recent study comparing students historical knowledge, the results were pretty much a draw), but America has something else that mattersa belief in the future.
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