Americanism and Anti-Americanism
By: DonPMitchell · Section: Diaries

Anti-Americanism is not a grass-roots movement in the world, it is not the result of our nation being less generous or less moral than other nations. It is the result of a small class of elitists who hold the power to incite the masses in many nations.
America is a democracy of the common man, a civilization that provides for its own cultural and political needs without the significant involvement of an intellectual class or a ruling clerical class. And that is why the spread of our ideals so threatens such men in Europe, in the Third World or even here at home.

Feb 28th, 2005: 19:01:02, Not Rated

Following Bush's latest visit, a poll showed that more Europeans trusted Russia than America. As remarkable as this seems, it is nothing new. For the last fifty years, anti-Americanism has been widespread in Europe and much of the Third World.
In 1976, the American philosopher Eric Hoffer discussed this puzzling fact in his book Ordeal of Change. In the midst of the Cold War, Hoffer asked why so many people in the world turned to Communism. America was generous, helpful, successful and its citizens enjoyed unprecedented personal freedom. Communism had a long record of purges, censorship, propaganda and had failed to provide economic success. Why would anyone chose the far left?

Hoffer's claim is that most common people do (or could) view America as admirable and desirable. Many people would live here if they could, to give their families a better life and greater opportunity. The source of discontent and anti-Americanism is a small class of self-appointed spokesmen, the intellectuals who dominate the media and endlessly criticize America. In much of the world, men of words hold the power to steer their nations direction.

To understand why these spokesmen hate America, you must first understand what Americanism means. And I am amazed by how few people today have a clear sense of that. Principles that were familiar to every schoolchild in the 1950s are rarely articulated by modern teachers or the media. Speaking them out loud in many forums will elicit laughter.

America was established as a democracy of practical common men. We govern ourselves, we manage our vast economy, and we satisfy our cultural needs, without a hereditary nobility, without holy edicts of all-powerful clerics, without the guidance of an elite intellectual class. Today the whole world watches our movies, listens to our music, uses our software, and benefits from our inventions: atomic power, the internet, communication satellites, etc. For people with talent, bravery and a willingness to be productive, our system offers the opportunity to rise from any circumstances, to be successful, even to shape history.

Now look to European (or even American) intellectuals, or look to the radical Islamic clerics, and imagine the threat they feel in the spreading influence of Americanism. No society has ever been as successful as America, but in no society has the intellectual or the cleric ever been less powerful. We as a people admire men of action, the brave soldier, the hardworking laborer, the practical inventor, the common family man. We instinctively distrust men who eschew hard work, or who step back from a fight when our society is threatened.

Intellectuals ridicule Americanism and Capitalism because it is a game they cannot win, a system that fails to grant them the status and power some of them crave. Just as radical clerics in the Middle East have denounced Democracy. For those men, radical mass movements offer a tempting path to fame and status. If you cannot engineer new food crops that feed billions, then become a spokesman for the radical environmental movement and try to ban those crops. If you cannot be a Bill Gates and make computers accessible to 500 million people, then become an industry pundit who denounces it as just a greedy trick. If you cannot develop a drug to cure disease, then incite people to burn down a medical research lab in the name of animal rights. And those are small movements, compared to the scope and suffering caused by Marxism and Jihadism.

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Americanism and Anti-Americanism | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Take it from someone who knows... By: ArrogantConservative

anti-Americanism in Europe has been there for years! Although WW2 was a great victory for americans liberating europe, many were resentful. Some people had no food and blamed Americans. If people were bombed they blamed Americans. Currently we are being blamed for the death of Van Gough's nephew or whatever!
In the 70s Communism and Socialism prevailed in many European nations and these had anti-American sentiment. The Cold War had actually divided many European nations who saw America as the land of capitalists and oppressors. Many governments that sympathised with the US were plagued by internal terrorist bent on toppling it. The French didn't just suddenly start hating us!

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The French By: DonPMitchell

So are you saying the French (for example) hate us because it is a grass-roots sentiment among its people? I'm suggesting there is a long history of this feeling being incited by elitists.

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Not so sure about the status of intellectuals By: modo

no society has the intellectual or the cleric ever been less powerful.
Clerics in America command a great deal of respect and in the case of Pat Robertson, a dose of political power at times. Intellectuals in the Cato Institute and especially the Heritage Foundation have more direct access to power and influence on policy than JS Mill or John Dewey ever did.

Intellectuals ridicule Americanism and Capitalism because it is a game they cannot win
Be careful assigning unconscious motives to whole groups of people. Or even nefarious conscious motives. This statement sounds like the flip side of "conservatives just promote capitalism because it's a game they themselves are winning". It is just as possible to believe capitalism has limitations as a system, as to support capitalism because you think it does the most good to the most people. That said, I know plenty of 'intellectuals' who simultaneously are doing quite well in the capitalist arena.

It is true that there are differences between the way academics make a living compared to most of working people; tenure, publish or perish, and I'm sure a host of other things i'm not privy to, are conditions particular to academia. Every job has such unique characteristics. True they are not motivated to work by profit incentives, but by the chance to advance in their universities and achieve professional recognition. I can understand that would be hard for some people to accept as an honest motivator. But they still have to produce ideas to achieve tenure, they have to teach, they have to maintain professional ethical standards, and I'm not sure why they garner such disdain as a group. Do you feel the same way about the intellectuals at Heritage Foundation? If not, what allowed them to escape the fate of anti-Americanism, since you seem to believe that the position of intellectuals in society destines them to it?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." --A. Lincoln

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Hoffer and Intellectualism By: DonPMitchell

When Hoffer talks about Intellectuals, he is talking about a particular flavor and a particular activity, and I have probably not made the distinction clearly.
He's not talking about a great teacher, or an academic who made a discovery, or a professor who started a company. He's talking about intellectual elistist, pseudo-intellectuals, and journalists who are anti-american because they fear that americanism will diminish the status they enjoy.

I think Hoffer is correct in identifying this as a driving force in foreign anti-americanism.

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Thankfully ... By: coemachine

I am glad my ancestors took the initiative and fled.
Take heed, Europe! The fat and happy welfare state years sheltered by the US backed NATO defense umbrella are coming to a close. Cozy up to China and Russia at your own riisk.

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