A Fetid Fervor of Freedom!

Obscene Desserts links us to a recent video of Americans on a right-wing television station blathering on about Amsterdam, and a Dutch response to their calumnies:

I've always wondered why American conservatives feel the need to slag Europe. At first glance, it wouldn't seem a promising target: as politicians on both sides of the Atlantic remind us, America and Europe share "fundamental" values: democracy, free markets, similar cultural and religious traditions, etc. I can see why American conservatives would criticize European welfare states, or defend the superiority of the American approach to certain aspects of government regulation. But often, the critique morphs into a sort of frenzied scorn driven by unhinged exaggeration (see above).

I have two theories about this. First, right-wing Americans (truth be told, many other kinds as well) feel no compunction about opining on subjects they know absolutely nothing about. I remember turning on radio talk shows during a visit to Texas in early 2004, and hearing and endless succession of dentists, forklift operators, candle store owners, and accountants describing complex transactions by which Saddam Hussein shipped all of his weapons of mass destruction across the border to Syria. Or Iran (!). Or wherever. And then, they'd confidently predict the course of the remainder of the occupation -- "See, they're all gonna wanna get rich from all that oil, right? So they got every reason to compromise and stuff, even though they got different religions and all." Hundreds more recent examples can be found here. All the while, you're thinking: are these people joking? Who is going to take them seriously? The answers are (1) no; and (2) the other 10 million listeners to the radio show.

So that's factor number one: nobody cares whether these hacks are describing Amsterdam fairly, because neither they nor their audience knows enough to make that judgment. The station doesn't care; it will broadcast whatever gets ratings, and nothing does that like hypercharged moralizing.

Now to theory two. Conservatives slag Europe, I'm convinced, because they know that European policies -- clearly and straightforwardly explained -- might prove highly tempting to Americans. They haven't forgotten the end of World War II, when Britons threw out Churchill the war hero, voted in Labour, and erected a welfare state. One reason for that was the millions of British servicemen who had just returned from the Continent, where they'd been able to see functioning welfare states in person, and wondered why such things didn't exist on the island. U.S. politicians have already enacted many isolated bits of welfare state, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and unemployment insurance. Without exception, these programs prove highly popular once installed, even if they don't work perfectly. This recent New York Times article give a revealing first-person perspective of an American slowly coming to realize the benefits of a European-style welfare state:

[Y]ou don’t have to be a Fox News commentator [!] to sneer at what, in the midst of a global financial crisis, seems like Socialism Gone Wild. And stating it as I’ve done above — we’ll consume half your salary and every once in a while toss you a few euros in return — it seems like a pretty raw deal.

But there’s more to it. First, as in the United States, income tax in the Netherlands is a bendy concept: with a good accountant, you can rack up deductions and exploit loopholes. And while the top income-tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, the numbers are a bit misleading. “People coming from the U.S. to the Netherlands focus on that difference, and on that 52 percent,” said Constanze Woelfle, an American accountant based in the Netherlands whose clients are mostly American expats. “But consider that the Dutch rate includes social security, which in the U.S. is an additional 6.2 percent. Then in the U.S. you have state and local taxes, and much higher real estate taxes. If you were to add all those up, you would get close to the 52 percent.”

But to ponder relative tax rates is only to trace the surface of a deeper story. In fact, as my time abroad has coincided with the crumpling of basic elements of the American economic and social systems, and as politicians, commentators and ordinary Americans have cast about for remedies or potential new models, I have found myself not only giving the Dutch system a personal test drive but also wondering whether some form of it could be adopted by my country.

Especially in times of economic crisis, Americans could be quite open to programs that shift the risk of financial or medical catastrophe onto broader shoulders than theirs. Americans also increasingly find U.S. drug laws (especially those against marijuana) absurd and the 'war on drugs' unwinnable and not worth fighting. There are even indications of a vestigial debate about whether America's prohibition on prostitution is the best approach.

The only way to hold up the rear-guard against such wet thinking, American conservatives apparently have decided, is to paint Europe, the near and tempting example, in the blackest terms possible. Thus the hysterical finger-pointing, and ludicrously counter-factual claims.

P.S. The cultural trivia contest? Identify the source of the title of this post.

Comments

[johannes]

> where they'd been able to see functioning
> welfare states in person, and wondered why
> such things didn't exist on the island

"Functioning welfare states" in the apocalyptic continental Europe of 1944/45, where starving people were haunting ruins :-0 ?!

Brits might indeed have had experiences with Socialism between 1939 and 1945, but it was their own grim but efficient sort of wartime socialism at home - or, when they were serving in the Pacific theatre, the welfare states of Australia and New Zealand.

This said, (some) Americans like to slag Europe, especially France (but it's usually a good-humored form of slagging, serious issues, like Rwanda or other postcolonial atrocities in Africa are usually carefully avoided), and perhaps an even greater percentage of Europeans likes to slag the US. I guess you just need an "other" to construct your identity, in the cold war years Stalinism served that purpose, but it does no longer exist, and so other Western nations have to fulfill this role. Remember Bavarian Ministerpräsident (roughly governor) Stoiber's famous lapse of the tongue when he calle Bush "the American President Breshnev"?

[Marian Wirth]

Let's not leave Amsterdam dissing to Bill O'Reilly and others of that ilk: Police in Amsterdam - Harry Enfield and Chums - BBC comedy

[Don]

Close, but not quite on, Norbert. Rather I would say that France and the US see something universal in the ways they define their national identities.

Many would describe that conciousness as a mass delusion, of course. I hear such arguments wearyingly often. But both Frenchmen and Americans conciee of their nations as historically important in a way most other nationalities do not. The Chinese and the Russians possibly also in certain respects. Perhaps the Germans and the Japanese did at one time. But the paperhanger finihed that for Germany, and the overwhelming defeat in WWII did it to Japan.

[Norbert]

In short, America and France are both exceptional in their grandeur.

[Don S]

"Yet, as Thomas Moore said, who can help loving the land that has taught us six hundred and eighty-five ways to dress an egg?"

Indeed. Although the France I love most is the one with 240 varieties of cheese. But then I'm a cheesehead... ;)

I've been reflecting this week on the concept of nationhood and how it differs between Europe and the US, coming to an interesting conclusion. I think nationhood in the US is primarily a national idea as opposed to a cultural or racial thing. The US defines itself in terms of being the 'melting pot' with an equally mixed heritage, whereas most European countries define themselves in terms of a single heritage or group of related heritages (aka German, Polish, Italian, or subgroups). Others being in a sense auslanders.

The singular exception is France, which defines itself in terms more similar to the US than any other European country. 'Rights of Man', "Libertie, Fraternitie, Egalitie". Translated into English it has the sound of an American slogan. I also recall DeGaulle's phrase "A certain Idea of France".

Being French is a cultural concept. One does nto need to look a certain way to be French. One must share a certain culture, certain values, but details such as skin hue, kind of hair, and national background are less important than anywhere else in Europe.

In that sense the French and the Americans are brothers underneath the skin. Bickering brothers, but brothers.

[Norbert]

And de Gaulle said: "Comment gouverner un pays qui possède plus de 400 sortes de fromage!"

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Don, now I finally understand why the French line their roads with trees.

Yet, as Thomas Moore said, who can help loving the land that has taught us six hundred and eighty-five ways to dress an egg?

[Don]

2label the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"--who deserve what Andrew's dishing out here, and more."

What is wrong with eating cheese? I hail from a locale noted for cold weather, beer, Bratwurst, and cheese.

As for the 'surrender monkey' bit? Well I enjoy a good ethnic slur myself. I prefer the one asking why the French plant all those trees on eitherr side of the road? So Germans can march in the shade, c'est obvious!

But that aside, anyone who believes that the Frogs are 'surrender monkeys' ought to required to write a paper on La Bataille de Verdun.

Cowardice? Non. Suicidal fervor, oui.

[Ralph Noble]

True, Don, some Europeans never tire of criticizing or caricaturing or otherwise dissing Americans, and Andrew's question might also be applied to them: why do they?

But I'll add that there are Americans--the sort who, for example, label the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"--who deserve what Andrew's dishing out here, and more.

May some of these puzzling, painful images in the transatlantic hall of mirrors ultimately be, at least partly, reflections of ourselves?

[Don S]

@Alexandra,

Fair enough, It was Norbert & (perhaps) only implied by Andrew. But Andrew tends to focus on American 'wingnuts' bashing on about Europe, which many know next to nothing about. Admittedly true in many cases, although there are American 'wingnuts' who actually do know a fair bit about Europe. Such as my humble self. ;)

Another phenomena Andrew doesn't address are European er.... (dare I use the word wingnut?) who bash on about the US based upon little or no discernable knowledge not obtainable from the rather slanted view of European 'journalists' who parachute into parts of the US with the theme of their story already written. This is particularly true of European stories about 'Red' America.

Others - seem to be discovering that the US isn't really that different after all. See the following link for a discussion about some op-eds recently published in Speigel:

http://www.atlantic-community.org/index/articles/view/Is_America_More_European_Than_Europe%3F

It's a short series written by an American blue-stater (a history prof at UCLA) who points out that the US tends to fall in the middle of the European spectrum in terms of social provision, and that the US does in fact have a welfare state worthy of the name, contrary to wide perceptions in Europe and even parts of the US....

[Alexandra]

@Don
I had the same thoughts. Probably I'm not very German, but I have also no problem opining about subjects I don't know very much about :p

But to be fair, your quote doesn't originate from Andrew's post, but from Norbert's comment.

[Don]

"Germans, on the other hand, full of self-doubt and imposed egalitarianism, rather keep their mouths shut than say something incorrect."

To be honest, I haven't noticed this supposed quality of modest reticense too much, Andrew. While not making the claim that we yanks are modest ourselves, I'd have to say said modesty is also lacking in most of Europe. With the possible exception of the Nordic countries.....

[Jeffrey]

Andrew,

And the German public's unquestioning deference to authorities and specialists allowed for the murder of several million Jewish people and a war in which around twenty million Soviet citizens died, along with -- oh -- millions of Europeans and a few hundred thousand Americans.

Just a thought.

Hey, it's best to just listen and follow orders from anyone who has gone through the Gymnasium-Uni track and shut the frick up, right?

Sehr Deutsch.

*

[Anonymous]

I have to give a point to Marek here, Andrew, sorry. I don't think those British servicemen saw many functioning societies at all, let alone functioning welfare states.

Your rant is on target, though.

[Andrew]

True, few European states were functioning at all immediately after World War II. But the historical background was that Britain differed from many continental European states in its general outlook concerning state provisioning
(i.e., there was less of it in Britain). The experience of getting to know societies in which people generally expected the state to guarantee the basic necessities of life was what mattered. Of course, that's only one cause among many for this complex historical shift in British attitudes, but I never claimed otherwise in the post.

Tony Judt: "Just as World War One had precipitated legislation and social provisions in its wake...so the Second World War transformed both the role of the modern state and the expectations placed upon it. The change was most marked in Britain, where Maynard Keynes correctly anticipated a post-war 'craving for social and personal security." Postwar, p. 73.

[M. Möhling]

> One reason for that was the millions of British servicemen
> who had just returned from the Continent, where they'd been
> able to see functioning welfare states in person, and wondered
> why such things didn't exist on the island

Speaking of "ludicrously counter-factual claims:" "functioning welfare states" in post war Europe??! Which of our volksgemeinschaften would that have been? Sweden, perhaps? Not many Brits over there, then, and not much of a welfare state in Sweden in the forties. The only functioning welfare Brits could have mustered would have been their US comrades' PX service.

[Norbert]

"First, right-wing Americans (truth be told, many other kinds as well) feel no compunction about opining on subjects they know absolutely nothing about."

Maybe that's what makes these Americans so likeable and http://www.berufebilder.de/about/texte/warum-schwaetzer-im-job-die-besseren-karten-haben?" rel="nofollow">successful? Germans, on the other hand, full of self-doubt and imposed egalitarianism, rather keep their mouths shut than say something incorrect.