THE CULTURE WAR -- A BATTLE AGAINST THE OLD COUNTRY?

Why Do They Hate Themselves? (Nelson Ascher, Europundits, 7/6/2003)

Normal people, when taking to the streets, march against their own governments, while a very idealistic and very small minority might sometimes march to protest the most awful things that may be happening elsewhere. But this is not how things happen in Europe....

The Europeans' worst crimes always took place in their own continent ... And, as in some way, European unification or pasteurisation goes on, instead of seeing the French turn against the Germans and the Germans against the French, what we have been witnessing is how they’ve managed to direct their common or mutual hatred against the next best target, the Europeans overseas, that is, America.

The Europeans don't care for the other, darker, peoples, they do not even hate them because, in their view, those belong to another, lower, species. Obviously it is not love for the Palestinians (not even cynical self interest) that explains their anti-Israeli animosity. No. The trouble with the Jews is that they look so much like the Europeans themselves that the wish to see them erased from the face of the earth cannot be repressed. Their hatred, directed ultimately against themselves, is naturally the other side of the perpetual European self-admiration, their almost unbelievable narcissism.

Ascher's observation not only illuminates the trans-Atlantic divide: it also helps explain U.S. politics.

American leftists are cultural Europeans. It is not just that they admire Europe, love to vacation there, adopt Europe's academic fashions, share its secularism, and seek to import its politics. They also exhibit the symptoms Ascher describes: the narcissism, the indifference to genuine foreigners, and the hatred toward cultural fellows. Consider how often American leftists praise their own compassion, their intelligence, their selflessness and altruism. Consider how rarely suffering of non-European peoples enters their political decisions - how little, for instance, the travails of Iraqis under Saddam influenced the left's willingness to dethrone him. And consider how passionate is their hatred for Republicans, those callous conservatives who do not admire leftists sufficiently.

On July 4, we celebrated our declaration of political independence; but cultural independence is another matter. The Old Country still seeks to dominate, and victory in the American Revolution still has to be won.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at July 9, 2003 4:16 AM