Sound Familiar? Over Two Centuries Old, and Still Running Strong

…scholarship shows that anti-Americanism is nothing new. It's older than the United States

Kathy Krajco writes, quoting James W. Ceaser (danke zu Atlantic Review via Medienkritik).

Most experts agree that it was more rampant in the 1930's than it is today! Hardly a word of the European line on America has changed in over 200 years.

…What if tens of millions of Americans emigrated to Canada, Australia or Europe? That would embarrass America, wouldn't it? It would sting American pride. We'd think, "Humph, Europe ain't such a great place." Then we'd start finding fault with its political system, culture, actions. In other words, this mass exodus would damage America's image, and we'd set about damage control like a narcissist does for the sake of his image — by editing the image that puts ours to shame, to portray it as flawed and therefore no better than ours.

…Now let's put ourselves in Europeans' shoes. How do you think they're going to react? Are they going to acknowledge this brilliance that puts their own stupid and immoral feudal system to shame? I don't think so.

That's when Europeans started doctoring the image of "the American" to make a work of art of it. Over 200 years ago. That's when Europe found that "the Americans" are "stupid and degenerate."

That's what we get for making them look stupid and degenerate by having the gall to NOT be equally as stupid and degenerate. In other words, they just pulled an image-switch with us, to feel better about themselves. That's what every pathological narcissist does.

…Centuries ago, like neo-Nazis, Europeans tried to camouflage the malice in their myth about us as "science" with ridiculous lies, speculation, and illogic to prove their delusions of superiority. They claimed that people who came here declined both physically and mentally, so America would never be able to produce a decent culture or political system. Sound familiar? Their "scientific" explanation? It was "something in the air" here. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton waxes sarcastic about this, saying, "Men admired as profound philosophers gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America -- that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere."

This forbidden fruit was so juicy, and Europeans therefore so eager to swallow it, that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson labored long and hard to disprove it so that Europeans would invest in America. One of these clowns was French "scientist" Georges-Louis Buffon (almost a fitting name). Five-feet tall himself, this buffoon saw his own stunted growth in America, a country he'd never been to, claiming that in America the growth of people and animals is stunted, and the birds don't sing. Infuriated by his willful ignorance and projection, Thomas Jefferson, brought him a seven-foot-tall moose carcass. Like every anti-American since, Buffon just revised his theory to claim that the people and animals in America are therefore either midgets or monstrosities.

…America was based on flawed premises, Maistre wrote. "All that is new in [its] constitution, all that results from common deliberation is the most fragile thing in the world: one could not bring together more symptoms of weakness and decay."

And so, Europe was predicting America's fall already two hundred years ago. As always when their predictions of America's imminent demise fail to come true, they just revised them as necessary, again and again and again. Now, when America didn't collapse, but survived as prospered, according to Ceaser, Europeans changed their tune "to charge that America's survival was at the cost of everything deep or profound. Nothing constructed on the thin soil of Enlightenment principles could sustain a genuine culture." Sound familiar?

…As is so often the case with European anti-Americanism, they condemned us for something in one breath that they denied the existence of in the next.

After I read the comments section, I decided to add the following:

Regarding the sentence, "Just for the record, hundreds of thousands of human beings were enslaved and (mis)treated for more than a century as mere objects - a fact that was reflected in the Constitution at the time by counting them as 2/5 citizens."

Why does this fit into anti-American pattern, TransatlanTicker?

Simply because you know about it, TransatlanTicker.

You know about it, as do millions of Germans and people throughout the world — foremost among them Americans themselves.

By contrast, how many people know (much) about — let alone get upset about — the thousands upon thousands of people that were enslaved in Cuba, Brazil, and the rest of South America?

How many people know (much) about — let alone get upset about — the European involvement in the slave trade to the Americas (which started because of the Europeans, naturally)?

How many people know (much) about — let alone get upset about — the Arab involvement in the African slave trade and — last but not least — the African involvement in the slave trade (after all, slaves sold to the Arabs and to the whites started out as prisoners taken in inter-tribal warfare)?

TransatlanTicker, you end your post with the following question: "why not be a bit more modest in your claims? I am sure many Germans who are not in their heart anti-Americans would appreciate that."

TransatlanTicker, the very fact that you assume that the (bulk of) Germans already are knowlegeable whereas the (bulk of) Americans are not is indicative of anti-Americanism, as is your suggestion that most Germans are naturally open-minded, modest, and reasonable.

How many people — and first and foremost Germans — who know about the treatment of blacks (and Indians) in the United States know anything about Germany's presence in Namibia? And about how the Kaiser's army under General Lothar van Trotha (a name much less known than that of General Custer) killed tens of thousands of Herero natives (a tribal name much less known than that of the Sioux or the Comanches) — men, women, and children.

Anti-Americanism, my dear TransatlanTicker, is nothing more than double standards.

After an Italian joined the fray, I decided to add the following:

Four comments:

First of all, I should like to apologize to the Italian commentator. I am sorry for all the suffering that Europe has undergone at the hands of… Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Levi's, Hollywood, Bill Gates, and a rodent named Mickey… No, truly, my heart bleeds for you… (Thank God that, say, Poland didn't have to suffer the same horrors — ever wonder, by the way, why Warsaw is siding with Bush and not with the Western Europeans on the Iraq issue?)

Second, il Italiano refers to weapons and to "America's wars"; a basic tenet of anti-Americanism is to suggest that Uncle Sam's actions are gratuitious and occurred in lands where basically eveything was fine and all the people, as one, were enjoying a blessed and uneventful life — there was peace! — and there was not really anything to provoke the Yanks "dropping bombs" out of the blue… We can surmise that in the Iraqi crisis our Italian probably supports the peace camp. As it happens, people who are directly concerned by America's interventions (i.e., the locals) are often far less likely to view said interventions in an unfavorable light. Au contraire. (I remember both an MSM newspaper and an MSM news report asking young Iranians for their views on Bush's attacks on, respectively, Afghanistan and Iraq; the response was not what they had expected (and desired), it was more like, "the Afghans/Iraqis are lucky; if only the U.S. Army would intervene here too"…

In that respect, and third, I notice the Italian is doing the usual European trick (although I certainly don't think that ought to be held against him; that is out of habit and indoctrination): ignoring the individual in favor of referring to nations and peoples as abstract entities — abstract entities that share the same motives, opinions, desires, and fears. This is an exercise where you can prove basically what you want (i.e., any self-serving "opinion" you want)…

Finally, Europeans make a big hallyballoo of "God bless America". As Kathy said elsewhere, Americans do not go around burning people's flags and chanting "death to Iran/Iraq/Vietnam/Japan/etc"… I myself wrote some thoughts on American patriotism a year and a half ago…