# What's up with the term "anti-Americanism"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 16, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146 "2003-04-16T19:24:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@regnad\_kcin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regnad_kcin)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/1 "2003-04-16T19:24:12Z")
Chomsky, everyones favorite around these parts :rolleyes: says in a 1998 interview that the term “anti-Americanism” and its ilk are usually only found in totalitarian regimes (anti-Soviet, etc), and not in modern free democracies – excepting the US.
He says if you accuse someone of being “anti-Italian” in Italy they would laugh at you. My own personal experience in Germany is that if you call someone “anti-German” you will be called a Nazi and everyone who heard you say will be very suspicious of you.
So whats up with this term? I must admit, now that I think about it, it does sound a bit brownshirt-ish.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/2 "2003-04-16T19:33:50Z")
Well, not “brownshirt-ish” since it predated the rise of the Nazis by many years, but, yes, it is basically an attempt by the establishment to stifle dissent by portraying all dissenters as seeking to destroy the country.
It is a form of _demonization_ employed by people who otherwise would oppose demonizing people that they favor.
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### Author:  [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/3 "2003-04-16T19:43:09Z")
Umm… no. While the term can be used to stifle dissent (much like the severely abused term “McCarthy-ism”), intelligent people mean something different. The word “anti-American” refers not to people who simply disagree with our nation’s course of action, but to those who constantly assert that the US is a force of evil in the world. When you see someone say that the US is the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, or compare the US unfavorably with the cold war-era Soviet Union, or wish “a million Mogadishus” upon our troops, _those_ people are anti-American - they actively wish harm to come to this nation. Noam Chomsky himself, ironically enough, is hugely anti-American, though he manages to hide it well behind a gilded veil of intellectualism.
Jeff
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### Author:  [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/4 "2003-04-16T19:47:25Z")
Yes, Jeff; thank Og we have _you_ to peer into Noam’s soul and tell us how he really feels about America.
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### Author:  [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/5 "2003-04-16T19:51:16Z")
Don’t need to peer into his soul, **xeno**. Just need to read his screeds… er, I mean writings.
Jeff
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### Author:  [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/6 "2003-04-16T19:54:42Z")
(Ah, I wish I weren’t so quick on the “submit” button, sometimes.)
The point of my snarky comment, **ElJeffe** , is that to say someone “hides” his anti-Americanism well (behind a “veil of intellectualism”) is to imply that you aren’t fooled by the villain’s protestations of pure motivation; you have some sort of gage by which you can test his _true_ feelings. I think that’s a prime illustration of the demonization that **tom~** is talking about.
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### Author:  [@I\_Know\_Lots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Know_Lots)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/7 "2003-04-16T20:06:00Z")
I think the term “anti-Americanism” is needed to describe the current prevelance of automatic opposition to _anything_ the Yanks do or say. Anti-Americanism is a pretty broad church, ranging from the fairly sane, if sophomoric (Chompsky or Pilger) to the downright batty (“Hey- the CIA flew remote-controlled planes into the Twin Towers!”)
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and knee-jerk anti-Americanism is breeding a knee-jerk “anti-anti-Americanism”, in which those who criticize American policy are starting to be dismissed as anti-American as soon as they speak. Unfair, but not unsuprising. Anti-Americanism is its own worst enemy in that respect, as people are beginning to see it is riddled with self-contradiction: for instance, the criticism of the USA for not intervening in the former Yugoslavia, followed by criticism when they _do_ intervene.
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### Author:  [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/8 "2003-04-16T20:09:46Z")
I don’t claim to have some sort of unique insight by which to gauge his true feelings. But if you were to see someone rant for 20 minutes about how those damn darkies were ruining the nation, and they should all take their ignorant, inept, genetically inferior asses back to Africa where they came from, and then they claimed that they weren’t racist… well, would you need any sort of magic mind-reading True Motivation Indicator to figure out what they really thought?
The accuation of racism gets thrown about cavalierly, but there are, in fact, racists. The accusation of McCarthyism is used willy-nilly, but there are those who would stifle speech and demonize their opponents. And although there are some who make poor use of the anti-American bugaboo, there are those among us who are quite definitely anti-American. However, few people will admit to being racist, or to being anti-American. Does that mean that we have no way to judge whether or not they are?
Jeff
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### Author:  [@regnad\_kcin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regnad_kcin)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/9 "2003-04-16T20:15:37Z")
Whatever “intelligent” people may mean by the term (and we all fit in THAT category, dont we), I hear the term all the time.
It is used almost exclusively to mean someone questioning the policy of the present administration. Only.
Let me pose a question to non-US dopers: what do people in your country think about the term “anti-[insert-your-country-here]ism”? Is it a common term?
Thats kind of what I was asking in the OP, after all.
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### Author:  [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/10 "2003-04-16T20:21:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by I Know Lots \*
> \*\*Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and knee-jerk anti-Americanism is breeding a knee-jerk “anti-anti-Americanism”, in which those who criticize American policy are starting to be dismissed as anti-American as soon as they speak. Unfair, but not unsuprising. Anti-Americanism is its own worst enemy in that respect, as people are beginning to see it is riddled with self-contradiction: for instance, the criticism of the USA for not intervening in the former Yugoslavia, followed by criticism when they _do_ intervene. \*\*
Poorly-reasoned. If you’re right about the knee-jerk “anti-anti-Americanisms,” (and I think you probably are) then it means that anti-Americanism is the worst enemy of reasoned, thoughtful criticisms of U.S. policy, because of the knee-jerk reaction from the other side of the table to cast any such criticism as “anti-American.”
Frankly, the jerking of knees is just a bad habit, no matter the politics behind it, as stifles meaningful debate. I avoid it whenever possible.
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/11 "2003-04-16T20:24:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ElJeffe \*
> **When you see someone say that the US is the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism…**
Allow me a quote:
> [@](#):
>
> …I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.
This sentence was uttered in a [speech](http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.html) on 4 April 1967 at the Riverside Baptist Church in New York City by Martin Luther King, Jr - remarkably enough in a speech against the war on Vietnam.
My question to you, **ElJeffe** : Is Dr. King therefore anti-American?
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### Author:  [@Fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fang)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/12 "2003-04-16T20:25:12Z")
Hitchens has written a pretty good (IMO) [article on anti-Americanism](http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074645&device=). You might want to look there.
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### Author:  [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/13 "2003-04-16T20:25:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ElJeffe \*
> \*\*But if you were to see someone rant for 20 minutes about how those damn darkies were ruining the nation, and they should all take their ignorant, inept, genetically inferior asses back to Africa where they came from, and then they claimed that they weren’t racist… well, would you need any sort of magic mind-reading True Motivation Indicator to figure out what they really thought? \*\*
Are you seriously comparing this example against Chomsky’s writings?
You may be right or wrong about Chomsky (I don’t profess to know), but a comparison of his writings to that sort of racist rhetoric has about as much staying power as wet toilet paper.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/14 "2003-04-16T20:30:06Z")
\>\> there are those among us who are quite definitely anti-American
I do not think many Americans would want their country destroyed. There might be very few but I would say that 99.9999 % of the time the term anti-American is abused in order to stiffle dissenting opinions.
In Spain the term anti-Spanish was used liberally during the Franco years for the same purpose and since Franco died it has not been heard because who said it would be taken as a joke. It would be a good thing if America recognized that each American is as American as the rest and his opinion just as valid. What Americans think is American, by definition.
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### Author:  [@I\_Know\_Lots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Know_Lots)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/15 "2003-04-16T20:41:13Z")
**Avo** , I meant that anti-Americanism is its own worst enemy in that, in its poor reasoning and self-contradictory nature, and of course its continued application to anything the Yanks do, it is beginning to undermine genuine and sensible criticisms of US policies. I’ll include the more reasoned wing of anti-Americanism in that, as people can now write-off Chompshy or Pilger with the term “anti-American” instead of arguing against their ideas properly.
Not that that would bother of lot of anti-Americanists. It’s a broad church as I said, and includes many, many people who are either trendies or fanatics and are not geuinely interested in proper, reasoned debate (or in affecting positive change in US policy).
Believe me, the UK has very many anti-American trendies in it, and it’s very annoying. They will accept any claim or argument, no matter how absurd, _as long as it slags off the Americans._ In early March I went to an anti-war meeting just to see what people were saying, and one woman claimed that Saddam had stayed in power in 1991 because the Yanks sold him some of their state-of-the-art helicopters as soon as the war was over. I can’t even begin to list the flaws in that nonsensical claim. Nevertheless, she recieved thunderous applause and sat down with an air of great smugness. A microcosm, I think, of the anti-American movement.
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### Author:  [@regnad\_kcin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regnad_kcin)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/16 "2003-04-16T20:45:45Z")
I Know Lots: is “anti-UK” or “anti-Britain” something to sling at war protestors? Or would you be laughed at for the term?
Im looking for countries that commonly use analogous terms.
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### Author:  [@I\_Know\_Lots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Know_Lots)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/17 "2003-04-16T21:44:18Z")
You’d probably get laughed at for the term “anti-British”, but actually it is quite valid. British anti-Americans could be considered “anti-British” in that they have the automatic opinion that everything the British government does is the act of being America’s poodle. Genuinely benevolent actions by the British government are criticized (Bosnia, Kosovo) or ignored (Sierra Leone).
To focus in on a more UK-specific phenomenon, there also exists strong anti-_English_ sentiment, particularly on the part of “guilty” English people themselves. It’s just not fashionable to be English, you know. But that’s another thread for another time.
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### Author:  [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/18 "2003-04-16T21:54:10Z")
Freedom of speech is a funny thing. Someone from the IAC can call the US “imperialistic warmongering fascists.” That’s fine by me. OTOH, I can call them “anti-American ill-informed yahoos.” See, that’s freedom.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/19 "2003-04-16T22:00:31Z")
“Anti-american” generally is a term used by conservatives in the U.S. to demonize liberal thought, most often in the area of foreign policy, but it has also seen widespread domestic use, too. People who use the phrase as if it had something other than cheap rhetorical meaning are not to be taken seriously.
Period.
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### Author:  [@ThomasGreg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThomasGreg)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2003, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-the-term-anti-americanism/169146/20 "2003-04-16T22:13:03Z")
The term anti-americanism cant be used with other countries, you cant be anti-british the same way as this term is being used. Being anti american means your against its policies of the day, inc the supposed globalisation of the world on an american template, and it in no way portrays any hate of Americans of a people.
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