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Date Posted: 01:47:48 09/12/02 Thu
Author: Perceptor II
Subject: Criticism and anti-Americanism
In reply to: FawnDoo 's message, "European credibilty and what that says about the US" on 14:35:14 09/11/02 Wed

Fawndoo, I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make.

At sports events you get every kind of "anti" feeling in the world, PII: sporting events do tend to attract those people to whom the term "lowest common denominator" would represent a promotion (again note, I know perfectly reasonable people attend sports events, but they can, like any other field of interest, attract the idiots and the deep feelings aroused by sporting competition can sometimes arouse these morons to angry words). To relate grousing at a sports event to legitimate criticism of treatment of prisoners is a bit of a stretch.

That's a good point, but some of that "grousing" came from journalists and European pundits, particularly over the pairs-skating controversy (as one American put it, "A French judge conspired with Russian officials to deny the gold medal from the Canadian pair, and yet somehow it was all America's fault.") and the Apollo Anton Ohno gaining a gold medal when the South Korean (I apologize for forgetting his name) was disqualified. Drunk sports fans I can easily dismiss, but I expect better from journalists.

"the moaning and wailing over our most recent Presidential election (which, for some reason, led to a lot of calls in Europe for the U.S. to change to a parliamentary style democracy, surprise, surprise),"

Not entirely sure what you mean here.

Just that it wasn't a surprise to find that for some Europeans, the solution to America's problems was to become more like Europe. Yes, the European press does do a much better job at covering world events than the American press and Europeans tend to be more world-aware than Americans, but from what I've seen that hasn't translated into a more balanced world perspective. From the evidence I've seen, Europeans have as much tendency to be Euro-centric as Americans tend to be Yanko-centric.

Nah, the only thing I would suggest the US adopts for its next election is a slightly clearer voting form (which seemed to be the problem, from what I remember on the news):

You're quite correct there. And steps have been taken to improve voting procedures and equipment to make them clearer and easier to use. We've got midterm elections this year (some House and Senate seats are up for election, as well as some governor seats, but not the President).

There may have been anti-American feeling in newspapers. That does not mean that they speak with one voice for every European citizen, however.

Very true, just as our news organizations don't speak for every U.S. citizen. However, in free societies they do tend to reflect the viewpoint of a significant portion of those societies, as otherwise they don't sell very well.

Bear in mind that though there has been criticism about the US from Europe, there has also been an unceasing flow of moral support, money and resources, with some governments (and I am thinking of the UK one especially at this point) standing by the US in thick and thin, even sending our own men and women in to crisis situations alongside their US counterparts.

Very true. I don't think anyone here is forgetting that, and it is appreciated.

"With so much of the criticism being nonsense or worse, when you actually do call us on something that deserves criticism, our natural response is to dismiss it as more B.S. and just not listen."

That says something bad about the US, not Europe. Any power in the world today has a responsibility to listen and respond to its critics.

I was not defending this, but I was trying to explain why that reaction is taking place. Currently, Europe's fair criticism of the U.S. is drowning in the B.S. This is not to say that most European criticism is total B.S. or worse, but it is prevalent enough to be noticed, and its human nature to focus on the negatives, especially when someone is criticizing you. It's wrong, but it's human.

I am not saying that Europeans should not criticize the U.S. On the contrary, they not only have that right, I would say they have a responsibility. However, they should keep in mind that 1) when you criticize, you open yourself up to criticism as well, and 2) when you or someone asociated with you says something hateful and insulting, it does end up reflecting bad on you, whether that's fair or not.

Again, I'm not trying to defend Americans' general dismissal of European criticism--or trying to say that America is above critisism because it definitely isn't--just trying to explain why is occurs even among those that are very well read, world-aware and are willing to be critical of their own country.

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