Is anti-Americanism over in Europe? The short answer is…
…no.
But it may have peaked and even be on the decline—for the moment.
This Newsweek article on the subject reads as though it were written by a committee—and, as it turns out, perhaps it was. No less than seven journalists worldwide assisted the main author, Stryker McGuire (great name, by the way), which may account for some of its inconsistencies.
There’s no missing its point of view, however. The author[s] manages to write an entire piece about how Europe has become friendlier to the US recently and yet begrudges giving Bush any credit—except, of course, for causing the previous anti-Americanism in the first place.
But anti-Americanism has a long and illustrious history in Europe. In fact, it originated around the same time as America itself, and hatred and contempt for the rambunctious, naive new country was often combined with envy and fascination, making for both an enduring love-hate relationship and a cyclical one. For some eye-opening historical perspective, please read this fine James W. Ceasar article on the subject. Bush didn’t start the anti-American fire, although there’s no doubt some of his actions fanned the flames.
McGuire seems to believe that both Sarkozy’s and Merkel’s wins in their respective countries had nothing to do with their clearly expressed relative friendliness towards the US, and speaks of both leaders as “going against the public grain at obvious political risk.” But, empirically speaking, the political risk seems to not only not be obvious; it seems to be relatively small, as the elections of Sarkozy and Merkel versus far more anti-American opponents would appear to demonstrate.
McGuire writes:
Remarkably, the [European] continent’s political elites are embracing pro-Americanism at a time when people on the street are as anti-American as they’ve been since Coalition forces rolled across Iraq.
but then says:
According to the Pew Center Global Attitudes Project, European opinion of the United States””highly favorable during the post-9/11 year of 2002””nose-dived at the time of the invasion of Iraq and has only marginally recovered since then.
So they’re not as anti-American as they been since coalition forces entered Iraq; they’ve rebounded somewhat (five percent in Germany, the article goes on to state, for example). And those “highly favorable” pre-Iraq-invasion 2002 figures, with which the present survey is compared, were—as McGuire himself hints—probably unusually high because of post-9/11 sympathies.
It would be interesting to find Pew surveys on the subject that go back further in time and compare the waxing and waning; on the Pew website, however, I could only find the current survey, which contains only some brief and incomplete comparisons to the previous one.
One thing we can learn from the present survey is that opinions of world leaders in general may be down. It would be interesting indeed to compare the changes in opinion of the US with changes in opinion of other countries and other leaders; the survey only compares Bush with Putin, and the US with China, and the trends are similar in each case: down. The US’s opponents fare no better, it seems: Hugo Chavez is popular nowhere, even in Latin America, and people the world over are highly concerned with Ahmadinejad and his nuclear posturing.
On the other hand, even in Europe, Americans (the people) remain very popular (63% favorable in Germany, for example). And even America (the country) retains a favorable rating in Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Canada, and Britain, and comes close to breaking even in Sweden and the Czech Republic. The really negative European ratings are confined to France, Germany (the country McGuire chose to spotlight), and Spain—the first two of which have just elected notably pro-American leaders.
McGuire’s piece was about Europe, so he didn’t mention other Pew survey findings that indicate that opinion of the US is sky-high in Africa, is good in Japan and India, and is even fairly high in much of Latin America—even Venezuela. South Korea’s positive opinion of the US has increased strongly since 2003, from 46% to 58% favorable, and even in Arab countries the US’s stock has risen since that nadir year.
Neither the Pew poll nor McGuire’s article goes into the fact that Western Europe has been on a fairly precipitous decline lately, both economically and socially, and in dealing with its sizeable Muslim population, and looks to the US for help and as an example. That, more than anything, is probably the reason that admiration for the US is on the upswing despite the almost constant pummeling of both Bush and the US by both the European press and elites. It’s hard to deny the obvious (although one can always try). As Sarkozy says:
No one in France dares deny the truth. The United States is the premier economic, military and monetary power in the world. Your economy is flourishing, your intellectual life is rich, research in the United States is organized such that the best researchers in the world work in your universities…”
People often resent what they admire and envy, as well as those on whom they are dependent—as Europe is on America for its own defense. That’s not the only reason for Europe’s anti-Americanism, of course. But it’s a goodly part of it, and it didn’t start with Bush and the neocons.
Why would anyone in the USA give a fig what any part, or all of Europe thinks of us?
Give a fig? Take a steady look at liberals–they are obsessed with not being disliked. “When we see that the world at large has a very poor opinion of America we have to accept the fact that this is due to the election of George Bush,” etc. They need to guard themselves from being called “racists,” ergo the further need to unload their racism onto others, which explains also their need always to posture in public as occupying “the moral high ground.” It’s always “les autres,” somebody else who’s “racist,” “classist,” and “sexist.” That’s what coservatives are good for, namely provideing scapegoats to carry the guilt. So, yes, it makes very good sense that Newsweek should obsess over whether Other People like us–liberals–or not.
Perhaps because they no longer see value in this country and what it stands for. So they look elsewhere for someone to tell them how good we are. It looks like the self-esteem/character issue on a national scale.
In a country with as many sets of ‘core values’ as the USA, there will always be some disagreement about what our essential character is. But the split has become extreme, and the various Sanity Squad members have put forth some likely reasons, as have others.
Whatever the cause, it’s time to wake up. We have too many of “The idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone/All centuries but this and every country but his own.” The words might or might not have been Mr. Gilbert’s, since the song was constantly revised, but they certainly apply now. It’s time to gain Mr. Chesterton’s wisdom, when he declared that he did not want his country ruled by foreigners for the same reason that he didn’t want his house to burn down: because he could not even begin to name all the things he would miss.
This does not mean that we should hate others, or ignore what is admirable in them. It means that we should find what is admirable in our own culture, with all its branches and ways.
Perhaps because they no longer see value in this country and what it stands for. So they look elsewhere for someone to tell them how good we are. It looks like the self-esteem/character issue on a national scale.
Based on my personal experiences with liberals, I have to say I think that’s a fairly accurate assessment.
Europe is facing danger outside and inside. Polls show they favor America more than before.
Why is that not surprising? When they need you, Neo, they’ll always be polite and nice.
The reason why the Germans dislike American policy in Iraq and the reason why they want the US out of Iraq, is because they want to make sure that plenty of US troops continue to stay in Germany to make sure that Germany doesn’t become fascist again. So you can look at it as a sort of backhanded compliment when the Germans rant about Americans. They’re only doing it cause they envy the Iraqis.
Although most Europeans probably can’t wait for President Bush to leave office, I think that his last year or so in the White House can be productive on the foreign policy front. This is especially true for transatlantic relations and more specifically with France and Germany. I think that both Sarkozy and Merkel (esp Sarkozy) are in a position to influence President Bush on Iraq and other Middle East policies. Sarkozy’s pro-American rhetoric help him at home and abroad and he is obviously trying to leverage his political capital to position himself as a leader on the international stage more effectively than Jacques Chirac did by exhibiting blatant hostility to the US/UK Iraq policy.
Who gives a rat’s patoot would Europe thinks? Europe is basically a theme park, and but for historical ties, they are irrelevant.
If we’re going to worry about what other people think – an undertaking of debatable merit in any case – let’s focus on what important parts of the world think. What about China? India? That’s where our future lies. Europe is done.
On second thought, let’s worry about it at all. I don’t recall the Romans taking that many polls.
Seriously, Europe has to clean up its own house, before it can induldge in hate for America. Two words: Nazism—-Marxism. Two European political movements which caused far more misery and death than America’s alleged “soulesness” and “materialism.”
Great post neo-neocon, as usual.
Here’s a post on the Futurist about a 2006-03 Pew survey on anti-Americanism.
Who Hates America?
Here are some other interesting developments from this year
The French Will Never Forget
Ugh, We’re French
A must read from 1973.
The Americans by Gordon Sinclair
Great topic for discussion. I think European elites have realized the necessity of a strong North Atlantic alliance to face serious existential threats to a shared western culture. They are perhaps also looking at that the fact that we are fast approaching the end of the Bush administration and are rethinking the wisdom of forming EU identity by casting the US as an adversary. The election of Sarkozy means the end of Chirac’s counterweight philosophy.
For an expansive discussion on European anti-Americanism, I’d like to recommend readers look into the work of University of Michigan professor Andy Markovits.
The European dumb arse intellectuals are going to copy the Saudi Arabian aristocracy. Try to be buddy buddy with the US State Department and other branches of power, while funding as much anti-American propaganda as they can churn out to get votes and what not.
The French will never forget??
Who are they kidding? They’d forgotten by the time the first GIs moved inland from Omaha Beach.
I agree that America shouldn’t worry too much about what the world thinks. I also agree that the left is narcississtically obsessed with what other people think – including what “the world” thinks.
I used to visit the comments of a left blog. I would frequently be told “You don’t understand how much the world hates America.” I would say “I understand it, I just don’t care about it all that much. Just b/c they are ‘the world’ doesn’t mean they are not stupid.” Of course, that would stir up an even larger hornets nest about how idiotic I was.
I sincerely engaged – for over a year – some of the smarter people on that blog. 100% of the time, when their viewpoint would not hold up, they would change the subject. I was surprised. I was as polite and as amenable as I could possibly be. Not one time – not once – did a single person admit their viewpoint would not stand up to scrutiny. Not once. I had some of them dead to rights – and I was being very polite. I really wanted some of them to see the light about some of the issue opinions they held. Never happened.
After more than a year, I moved on. I still check in on that blogger, to see what the official Kos/Media Matters opinions about various things, but I never comment in the comments section. There’s no point.
My favorite riposte to “the world hates us,” and in particular “Europe hates us” is “But what do the Peruvians think?”
To which the answer, of course, is who gives a @#$%^ what the Peruvians think? (No offense to Peruvians.) Then my interlocutor understands my perspective on world opinion.
Put another way, who cares what we think? And we’re the 800 lb gorilla.
Since so many statistics were quoted in the article, I read an interesting one the other day (hopefully not here; that would be embarrassing). Did you know that, among those who develop the habit of eating, very few survive?
Envy looks like, and can easily turn into, hate.
We could be the 800 lb gorilla, but we are not. I believe we have been profoundly weakened by our sheepish acceptance of BAD ideas, commencing in the 1960s. And unless there is massive international tumult that somehow gets a large majority of Americans on the same page, or in the same pew, that trend will not be reversed, much less undone. We have become a nation of craven apologists for even minor slights (e.g., modest collateral damage) and fictitious slights born of propaganda.
That ain’t no gorilla, chum; that’s a chimp, just scratching his head.
And, as the Euros attest, it’s easier to smile at a chimp than at a gorilla.
Oh, pleasa. The German’s envy the Iraquis because they’d like to be occupied instead. That’s a new one. Perhaps, you should acknowledge that the Right has never liked Europe and most anyone alive during the sixties will confirm that today’s enmity against the US rivals or is worse than the emotions of that time. I have never seen the world so united against us and it isn’t liberals who’ve brought us there.
Yep. Never have so many gone through such great personal danger to become part of a country so hated.
Seems to me it’s the Europeans who have hated the Right. “Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute” wasn’t first coined in defiance of muslim pirates; it was against Lord Tallyrand, foreign minister of France.
After showing us how much more enlightened and progressive Europe was by outlawing slavery, they then overtly supplied the Democrats with money and weapons for their rebellion and cheap cotton and tobacco. France even set up the progressive Maximillian in Mexico in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine.
Unless they’re threatened, then suddenly it’s “Help us America; oh, dear GOD! PLEASE, help us!”
It’s not that Germans want to be occupied. They just get upset when they are not our first concern.
And when, exactly, has Eurpoe had to “stand in line” for our attention? Hmmmm….let me think..
Oh, yeah! During our involvement in Vietnam, and Iraq.
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When Lefties say “others” don’t like us, it usually means France and Germany.
Having spent considerable time among my own in France, I can attest that most do like us, which is incredible…because most of what they hear about us is anti-American ranting from their own leftwing media in one ear, and anti-American filth from Hollywood and our own left-media (e.g., Michael Moore) in the other ear.
Moreover, my traveling friends assure me that our reputation is generally quite good in Asia, Africa, Latin America and significant parts of the Middle East.
What on earth are you talking about?
Germans envy Iraqis?
Woops. Got mixed up. The post asking what on earth JS is talking about is from me, Richard Aubrey
The German’s envy the Iraquis because they’d like to be occupied instead. That’s a new one.
Thanks. I pride myself on originality.
I have never seen the world so united against us and it isn’t liberals who’ve brought us there.
The world united? You must be talking fantasy, cause the world has never been united without the guidance and aegis of American wisdom and power.
Moreover, my traveling friends assure me that our reputation is generally quite good in Asia, Africa, Latin America and significant parts of the Middle East.
People living on the edge of starvation and economic devastation have clearer and better priorities than to engage in hate baiting of a country far away. Course dictators like Chavez still try to stoke up the hate anyways for personal power. That will never change. Usually, however, more wealth means more time to waste time.
Germans envy Iraqis?
Of course. The Iraqis have vitality and strength of belief as well of will. It reminds Germany of their past destiny, forever altered when they submited to the guidance of the United States. The Iraqis are being offered a similar choice of destinies. Guidance under American power and flaws or standing alone amongst a sea of enemies involved in perpetual war. Germans are envious of a people that the US is paying lavish attention to, when Germany was used to the US paying them lavish attention during the Cold War. The Cold War is over, however.
The American protectorates in Europe, also called countries, are resentment of their inferior and childlike status. Yet they are not mature enough to strike out on their own, to pay for their own upkeep and to face dangers without US support. As any teenager would feel, they feel both resentment towards US protection as well as envy of it. Any threat of such protection shifting to another person is met with hostility, for it endangers the protectorate’s ability to draw American attention to itself.
I too am puzzled by leftists obsession with popularity. JFK’s book Profiles in Courage was about men taking tough, unpopular, but sound decisions.
For some reason they seem to fear that other countries won’t sign our yearbook, a fixation on social standing and popularity that reminds me of nothing so much as a high school girl. Curious.
“I too am puzzled by leftists obsession with popularity.”
It’s because popularity is power. Always has been, since before democracy was ever invented. One of the earliest discoveries that brought about civilization was the realization that two people working together could accomplish more than two people working independently, and far more than two people working to sabotage one another. This power scales up enormously well, with diminishing returns easily surmounted by simple, easily understood management and logistics structures. With enough popularity, one leader can move a mountain with stone age tools… even if only to use it as a monument to his own death, as the Pyramids at Giza were. Popularity is the true power, and it can be plied toward goals great, petty, and even devastatingly self-destructive.
The true wisdom of the US founders was in both realizing the power of the popular will, and the fact that it needed to be constrained, focused toward Christian virtues in fact if not in law. Fully unleased, runaway popularity serves leaders like Hitler and Stalin better than Washington and Lincoln, and so the system was built to harness the power of popular elections while ensuring that small-minded populists would never rise to power for more than a short time, and the damage they could do is limited.
Tatter,
Fair enough within one country, but I don’t see how international popularity translates into power. So the French love us or hate us – what difference does it make?
Put another way, if international popularity and power went together, why aren’t the Europeans worried about the disdain we feel for them? Logically, given the respective statures of the US and any given European country, you’d think they’d be frantic about our low opinion of them.
I read a number of left and right blogs and have for some time. my conclusion is that some of you guys on the right have lost touch with reality. sort of like black panthers in the 60’s or something – your ideology appears to have consumed you to the exclusion of the ability to perceive what is right in front of you.
with respect to the international opinion: yes, it’s good to be resolute and trust your judgment. within limits. as the old saying goes, if someone tells you you have a tail tell them to take a hike. if all your friends do it may be worth checking behind you, just in case.
also: it’s never to late too admit you’re wrong. everyone is wrong sometime. conservatives were wrong on civil rights. they could be wrong to foreign policy today too. in fact, the odds are that they probably are. there is a reason that the liberals have taken to calling themselves the reality based contingent. they certainly weren’t in the 60’s. they may (temporarily?) be right about themselves now.
A lot of attitude from someone who hasn’t figured out standard orthography yet.
“[C]onservatives were wrong on civil rights.” Is that why half of the Democratic Party opposed them? Google the “Solid South.”
“All of our friends”??
That would be the British and the Australians. Period. And they’re with us. Fuck the rest of the world. Pardon the French.
“So the French love us or hate us – what difference does it make?”
The difference between being able to keep France free, and having to lose another thirty thousand American soldiers in the next Normandy invasion. Yes, there would be one, because while it would be poetic justice to watch France’s Muslim overlords force them to tear down the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, we would still have to go through them to get at the terrorists who would keep launching suicide vehicles at us as long as there were Europeans left to build them.
And, T, in the case of a Muslim-dominated France or Britain, suicide vehicles armed with nuclear warheads. It would not be good for international trade and American jobs, either.
Nobody likes champions – at least, amongst their rivals. What is new here? But Euroutopia is crumbling now, the whole idea behind it was to construct a counterbalance against American might. Euroscepticism directly translates into Atlanticism as the only alternative to euroutopia. It would be instructive to see correlation in dynamic of these two trends.
Occam’s Beard: Not sure what orthography has to do with anything but maybe some remedial English would help some of us…
(1) Yes, a lot of Southern Democrats were against civil rights. I never said otherwise. That’s why they became Republicans. Ever hear of the Southern Strategy?
(2) As someone who is part-Australian, I can tell you this: don’t know about the Poms but we are NOT with you. Most of us think the foreign policy neocons espouse are a danger to the US and to everyone else.
My father, and a lot of other guys, were shot in several countries straightening out an earlier good idea the Europeans had.
I’m not convinced they have any more ideas we’re bound to respect. Not on their record, anyway.
Hey Richard, check out France’s latest bright idea.
Anti-Feeding the Hungry
From “let them eat cake” to “let them eat only natural foods while we jack up everything”.
“…It will not make the US-Australian alliance relationship, already one of the world’s closest, that much tighter.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/hus_on_first.php
Sorry to disappoint you, comrade. Maybe the part of you that isn’t Australian can hook up with North Korea.
I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with you, Occam’s Beard, but you might consider that Howard’s views are not the views of the Oz population as a whole. Much like the fact that a majority of the American public now disapproves of Bush and his policies.
Or of course, you might keep on drinking what you Americans so charmingly refer to as the Kool-Aid. Enjoy.
I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with you,
praise heaven for that, at least.
Though I’m firmly in the camp of those other U.S. Americans who don’t give a flying flip what those
useless genocidal barbariansfine people in Europe think of us, I have to say it’s very funny to note when I visit the UK (as I do regularly for work), literally one-half of their news broadcasts each day, every day, are covering events in the US. You tune in to the BBC, you get 15 minutes of US news, 15 minutes of British news, zero minutes of continental Europe news.Truth is, despite what they may say when the pollster asks, a lot of those Euroweenies (just like Canadians) are absolutely obsessed with America and crave nothing as much as our attention.
“Pragmatist,” you’re an expert on the popular views of both the American and Australian publics? How do you find the time to shuttle back and forth and be so knowledgeable about both? Do you live one week in America, the next in Australia, something like that, to gain this profound knowledge?
How do you find the time to shuttle back and forth and be so knowledgeable about both?
Two quantum particles connected to each other, through both space and time.