Europeans: How do you really feel about America?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Was watching a show on Discovery tonight…Discovery Spotlight. Basically this episode had an American journalist going to Europe to explore European attitudes towards American’s. In addition, the reporter also interviewed various American students going to school in Europe (some in England, some in France and Germany). It was…interesting. The chasm between Europe and the US has never seemed greater than watching this show. Its seems much greater than the last time I visited Europe in fact (which has been a while admittedly…and on business so not exactly a leisurely trip).

So, what I’d like to ask Eurodopers is…how do you REALY feel about America? Not just about GW Bush, not just about the US government, but about America in general. Please, don’t hold back…I’m really curious. Don’t say whats politically correct (i.e. ‘I really like America and Americans, just not Bush’…if you REALLY distrust America and Americans reguardless of GW).

Several of the people interviewed on the show (they interviewed folks mostly from France, Germany and England…but a few from Spain and some other places) claimed America frightened them. Several (many) made statements that they would be personally afraid to come to America, afraid of police harrassment, afraid of American’s…just afraid. This seemed to go way beyond the war in Iraq. Many in fact put it in terms of religion. From the show, it seemed to go to some fundamental break between Europeans and Americans, a break that some folks interviewed doubt can ever be healed.

As a second part to this debate, American dopers who regularly visit Europe: Do you feel under attack or defensive when you visit America? What struck me, besides the interviews with various Europeans, was the near universal claims by US students of being under attack, of being constantly harrassed for what their country and president did or do…even those who are clearly against the Bush administration stated this. So, whats your take on this? For myself, I have to admit that when I go to Europe these days its usually on business, and I generally hang out with people I already know and am friends with. They certainly harrass me, but they are my friends…I expect harrassment from that quarter.

-XT

2

I’m not personally afraid of Americans or their power, I generally regard US power as benign and think to myself of the alternatives to that power, thus being greatly thankful and reassured.

the people who just don’t like America is because of one thing, its wealth and its resources, and the war, which I believe is doing great good for the people in that region.

Anti Americanism is not new, its been around for 60 years, it was just dormant for a while before 9/11.

3

Although for the time being I live in Australia I am actually a Brit and still consider England as my home. So I guess I’m European.

I had always admired the US up until recent times. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks the US seems to have become just a touch too right wing. And there is far too much political involvement from people I would consider to be religous zealots. And of course for these people to have the power they do, a large number of American must also think the same way they do.

On the other hand almost all of the Americans I have personally met have been thoughtful, considerate, and very polite. Definately not the stereotype common in the UK and Australia of loud, ignorant Americans.

I think the current political climate in the US is an abberation caused by a reaction to the horrors of September 11, and that sooner ot later things will return to normal.

4

A Dutch writer said that Europeans imitate American’s own anti-Americanism in much the same way they imitated wearing jeans and drinking Coca-Cola.

Besides, I wouldn’t put too much credit in a TV-program like this. It wouldn’t have made much of a show if every person interviewed had said: "America? Dunno. Okay I guess. "

5

On this site, I found this:

“If a European is asked whether he opposes or supports the United States over Iraq, the majority will say they are opposed. But assume that a different question was put to them: Do you prefer to live in an integrated Europe dominated by France and Germany, or would you prefer to maintain a degree of independence by aligning with the United States on security issues? There the answer would, in the majority of cases, be for limiting European integration and relying on the United States for security.”

That might very well sum up the feelings of the [smaller] European countries.
There are anti-American feelings in the Netherlands, but they are mainly due to the large population of muslims. And there still are a few 'sandal-footed, head-in-the-sand, “LALALA, I can’t hear you”-singers, who oppose America just because. :smiley:
As for America in general and for myself: I like America.
No doubt about it.

I do not like the overly religious American people, but then again: I do not like religion, period.
I’m not at all afraid of America’s power. I rather see the power in the hands of America, than in the hands of coughFrancecough or some banana republic.

And I like Americans. :slight_smile:

6

I think you suck

7

hehehehe :slight_smile:

8

I for one welcome our new American overlords.

9

I’m a Brit and probably like a lot of Brits I have a split view.

I love the energy, I love the innovation, I love many products of the culture. The best TV, some of the best films and novels, innovative social thinking, IMHO is from the USA.

But I seriously do fear the USA is now a threat to the survival of civilisation with its attitude to the environment and a huge threat to world peace with its current imperialist, might-makes-right tendencies. Frankly, the views of the Bush apologists on this board are one of the main drivers with their combination of ignorance of the world and the USA’s foreign policy impacts, disdain for the poor and the weak and their ‘might-makes-right’ attitude. It’s bought it home to me what a brutal attitude pervades what appears to be the dominant culture and manifested in your inhuman health system.

And I’m staring askance at the hold religious superstition still has and its pervasive brake on progressive social policies.

Personally, I love Americans for their open and generous attitudes. You could do with being a helluva lot less trusting though and stop letting truly malignant forces manipulate your good intentions and use it as a cloak for the worst sorts of real-politick. You don’t have a Manifest Destiny and you are not the greatest society on Earth etc.

I finally lost faith with the last election, which from my perspective was clearly stolen with the most blatant vote-rigging. That’s two strikes now and you surrendered any claim to being a democracy at that point. Here again your basic open and honest nature combined with blinkered patriotism and this belief the USA is somehow morally superior blinds you to what’s going on under your noses. You somehow just can’t bring yourselves to believe it happened just as you can’t seem to see you were lied into a war and this allows the Right to act with impunity.

There are a lot of worse countries and threats to the planet but the USA has always been something to look on with respect even when protesting the shameful war of the sixties and the disgraceful dictator and torturer loving foreign policies of the 70’s and 80’s.

Now the hypocrisy is just so blatant, the contempt for the rest of the world so obvious among the Right and their supporters, again as evidenced by some of the posters here, that that respect is replaced by both a well-founded fear and a profound sense of loss and disillusionment.

10

There is a huge ambivelence towards America in Britain and Europe (no it’s not the same thing!). In many ways we see you as the bratty younger brother that has done rather well for himself, but we still think you’re bratty.

Good things about America:

Films
Music
some TV
literature (I’ll forgive you an awful lot for James Ellroy)
Annoy the French

Bad Things:

Too much religion
Blinkered world view
All fat
Too commercial
Frankly mad. See Janet Jackson’s tit, and OJ Simpson getting away with murder.
Insanely preoccupied by race
Rubbish food (and this is from an englishman)
That whole “American Hair” thing.

In general I would say that most Brits have a fairly positive, if rather condescending, view of America and Americans. However on the continent things are not so rosey.

11

I’m a German living in the Netherlands that grew up in the U.S. My feelings are very ambivalent. There are many things about the U.S. that I love, and many that I don’t like or have me worried.

First, the things I love:

  • The people are usually friendly and open.

  • The country is so huge and has so much room and empty spaces.

  • The scenery.

  • The incredible choices you have when it comes to junk food. There are aisles the sizes of an entire European supermarket with just the various kinds of potato chips!

  • The incredible mix of cultures. In any larger city there are so many ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants.

  • The freedom you have in most everything. You can basically say, do, read, watch, etc. anything you want (at least in your own home, you can). Most European governments seem to involve themselves in the day-to-day lives of their citizens more than the U.S. government does.
    The things I don’t like or that have me worried:

  • The fact that some vocal minorities (the religious right) have such power. The majority of Americans are not like the born-again Christian right-wing nutters that are all we hear about here in Europe.

  • I think there is still a lot of latent racism in large parts of the country.

  • The complete lack of culture in large parts of the country.

  • The fact that most small towns are turning into strip-malls and Wal-Marts.

  • The dying out of the middle-classes. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Another fifty years, and the U.S will look like Brazil without the bright future.

  • The dumbing down of the average American. The country has the best institutes of higher education in the entire world, yet people graduate High School while being functionally illiterate. This is tied in with the previous problem. There is a lot of socio-economic discrimination in the U.S.

  • The “American Dream” is bullshit. How many dishwashers actually become millionaires? The richest people in the U.S. have not worked their way up from their lower class roots. They already started out in highly privileged situations compared to some kid growing up in the projects.

  • I seem to sense a lot of fear in most Americans. Europe has lived with terrorism and war for ages, yet one (admittedly horrible) attack on American soil has put your entire society into panic mode. Headless chickens usually do not make sound decisions.

  • The paradoxical behaviour when it comes to anything having to do with sex. Americans are randy buggers (just look at some of the threads on this board), yet they go completely haywire when they see boobies on TV. It’s as if they want to get kinky but feel guilty about it.

  • The fact that you can get a drivers license at sixteen, join the armed forces at eighteen, but have to wait until you’re 21 if you want a beer. This is one of the main things that leads to so much binge drinking when the kids finally go of to college.
    All in all, I still love the U.S., and I would like to go their on vacation again soon. However, I am worried about the future of the country. I really think that the country is in a downward spiral and badly needs to fix some of the problems I mentioned above. Considering all of this, I would not want to live there permanently, and I especially would not want to be old or poor there.

12

Well, yes I mistrust the US.
As a society you come across as:

Shallow
Sexually frustrated
Undereducated
Violent
Rampant crime
Over religious
Money hungry
Xenophobic
Chauvenistic
Blunt to the level of boorish
Hypocritical

As a country, interacting with fellow earthlings, there are:

Unjust wars, starting with 1812, 1848, through Philipines to Iraq.
The handling of the natives
Dirty OPs
Mercantilism
and again, the hypocracy
I wouldn’t feel so disillusioned if all the powergrabbing in the world hadn’t been accompanied with so much lying, propaganda and dirty tricks.

Growing up in the 70’s- 80’s, the brief period where you were humbled by the defeat in Vietnam, the image of the USA was of a very modern country that had very high moral values on freedom and wanted to ensure that the rest of the world lived in freedom too. Both on national and individual levels.
It was a country with new, fresh ideas about how society should be, with cool cutting edge technologies. Superior to the Europe of the colonial era and stuck-in-the mud communism.

About the time of the presidency of Reagan this image started to change as it turned out to be so much propaganda. The dirty stuff you had pulled in the more distant past, the recent past and the stuff that was still being pulled, in Nicaragua, Chili etc…
All the time shouting FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.
We Europeans gave up our colonies and power and wars under US pressure and for these ‘nice’ ideals, trying to create a better world. Only to wake up and see the US simply having taken over. Not overtly but sneaky, sneaky, behind the scenes.
All the time shouting FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.
Turns out FREEDOM is for people where you want to earn some big bushels of money. All the while expanding and having to ‘defend’ this growing empire, dirty and behind the back, with brute force if ‘necessary’

So I have a distinct sense of disillusionment and a feeling of having been betrayed.

And yes someone will come along and say that ‘Old Europe’ doesn’t come out of history smelling of roses either. Pointing out some nasty stuff pulled by one of our countries, therefore we should shut up and it’s all kettles and pots.

But see, we were all giving up on that stuff, the iron curtain came down and the future seemed bright once more. After this long shadow of the threat of atomic war things were starting to look good for the world. Look, see, we can live in peace and harmony.

Now it’s back to power games and grab what you can.

13

I forgot about another thing I don’t like about the U.S. It’s the death penalty. Posts like this one:

Which was in response to the following Ann Coulter quote:

“When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.”

in this thread, frighten me.

Both what NutMagnet and Ann Coulter are saying here is morally repugnant IMHO.

14

I like your country.

I’m frankly scared by how much influence Religion has. We should have as high a regard for it so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.

I’m scared at the direction your government is leading the world.

15

I like a lot of American exports - films, books, comics etc.

You have a great country, but lots of injustice.

Like **Owlstretchingtime ** says, religion dominates far too much of your politics.

I echo the first half of what Lagos said, but disagree that the US is no longer democratic.

I find it worrying that a lot of Americans who appear in the media are completely unaware of the world around them, even the ones in power seem to have a very blinkered picture of the world.

I have never actually been to America, so I don’t know a lot of Americans, but the ones that I encounter on this messageboard give me a positive view of Americans, although how representative you are of the whole population I don’t know.

I also think that Hollywood and American TV have contributed to the dumbing down of the population in general, we don’t need any more dumbing down, our own institutions (BBC, schools etc) are already doing a fine job of that.

16

This could be a slam or just wishful thinking from a gay European?

17

Things that worry me

Your goverments very short sighted environmental and fiscal policy.

The general apathy to revelations about things which would just about sink any government over here. (at one point these seemed to come about once a week)

The astonishing level of poverty that exists for a large percentage of people in America.

The rather blatant links between corporations and politicians in both parties and the resultant legislation which often seems to make huge concessions to big companys.

The erosion of workers rights.

The culture of fear (I don’t think this a recent thing either).

Contempt for the opinions of other countries.(I think this is going to bite your current administration in the butt in a big way)

The lack of credible political opposition that presents any real alternatives. (“I’m not Bush” is not a credible campaign strategy)

The increased influence of the religous right.

The quite incredibly bewildering notion that dissagreeing with your government is unpatriotic/unamerican (I personally think this might be the most dangerous one on the list)

I have to say that the above is based on my following the news over here, talking to visiting Americans and my friends who have been working in America recently and listening to you guys bitch on this board, I haven’t actually been to America for quite some time. Almost every american I have met over here has been polite, intelligent, and fairly svelte :slight_smile:

I hope many of the things I’ve listed above are temporary abberations, I am concerned that if not they could be laying the groundwork for unpleasant things. I am very concerned about some of the things that 51% of American voter might let happen at present, although I’d hasten to stress that I’m not talking about the present administration (I hate the Bush administration with a passion, but I don’t think they are as crazy as a few people on this board seem to think)

18

Anti-Americanism is considerably older than that. It goes back more than 100 years. Everybody loves when they can find someone else to blame for their own pathetic incompetence and weakness, and it’s just human nature to hates those that are more better off and successful than themselves. Remarkable, anti-Americanism is a thing Chamberlain, Hitler and Stalin as well as a host of contemporary Europeans could come together with in heartfelt agreement. And Americans are the near perfect scapegoat since they for some strange, if endearing, reason really sincerely, if somewhat naively, do seem to want to be loved by everybody, and generally will repay hatred & disdain with puzzlement and attempts to reform themselves, rather than the more natural; enmity. No that it will avail them anything, since obviously anti-Americanism, much like anti-Semitism, is not a based on logic and has more to do with those revelling in it than those being hated and absolutely nothing Americans themselves can do will really change anything about them being hated.

I, being European, am not overly concerned about what European anti-Americanism means and do for Americans; sure it’s unfair but such is life and an honest appraisal of human nature will tell you that the strongest and richest nation on earth could hardly expect anything less. I am, however, very concerned about what it means for Europe. Anti-Americanism poison the mind and cloud the intellect. Europeans indulging in it will avoid addressing the failings of their own societies and rather focus on those imagined ones of America. And thus we will keep falling back. And I do not want to see Europe descend to the abject stupidity of the Arab world, always droning on about Israel, the US, the west being the cause of all their self-inflicted misery, pathetic culture and idiotic rule.

Fear and hatred as well as feelings of superiority over Americans is pathetic. And saying things like the US isn’t democratic, Americans are shallow, xenophobic (from a European no less!), chauvinistic and hypocritical (the mind boggles that you don’t see the contradiction), … just to pick a few, is just fucking pathetic. Europeans should take a good long look in the mirror before commenting on the US.

Despite how can you be scared of a people with such a complete lack of fashion sense? And they talk funny too. And then they’re so cute when they try to act all cultured and all, and when they get their panties in a twist over a pair breasts. awww so cute, just like children. We just have to teach them to behave like adults is all.

19

Disclaimer: I’ve never been to America, so my views are quite likely to be rather skewed by media, entertainment and dumb tourist influences, as well as by my own cultural background.

I’m often tickled by references to ‘right’ and ‘left’ in American politics; they all look quite a way to the right to me, to the extent that I have trouble telling the difference between the parties. (Ok, so British politics has gone this way a bit too since New labour).

There’s this other thing that’s hard to describe, but comes across basically as a sort of culture of selfishness and wastefulness; borne, I think out of a wide range of factors, such as the general capitalist ethic, heightened sense of personal rights, the dream of personal empowerment, the forces of media/advertising/market culture etc.
Hard to describe this because it is subtle and in order to point it out, one is forced to exaggerate; and all the while I’m conscious that it’s deeply coloured by my own perspective - which is probably an odd blend of wimpy liberal tree-hugger that wishes for a fairly authoritarian framework.

I’ve met a number of Americans and on a personal level, I’ve found all of these to be rather nice, intelligent people. They don’t seem to understand us all that well, particularly our taste in humour, bless 'em.

I don’t mean any of this in an unkind way and I hope you’ll understand that this is more a way of detailing what opinions I might hold, if I were not prepared to critically and contextually examine incoming data, than it is a description of my actual opinions.

20

Counter arguments would be nice, Rune, instead of just calling it pathetic.

These cute children of yours just invaded another country, killing thousands of actual human beings. For no reason but for plunder.