Reed of the Valley People wrote:

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Are Americans especially unique in having, in general, such a ridiculously rose-colored view of their Government's influence in the world?

I think they tend to have a rose-colored view of their government's intentions, but they're (by now) thoroughly versed in how those intentions might "go awry." And they're more aware than ever of being hated internationally I would say. I'd say the guilt factor is at or near a historical peak right now (which may however not be all that high in absolute terms).

The other problem is that "our government's influence in the world" is a pretty opaque thing to try and come to terms with, since it's so tied up in dealings and goings on the average citizen can not expect to know much at all about, or be able to know if he tried looking into it. Much of American influence is dictated by corporations, or some hazy connection between them and the government, and I think most people just don't have the time or wherewithal to truly understand what goes on.

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Maybe it's just a case of power corrupting. Just spitballing here, but maybe France or Germany or the UK or Canada would appear just as ugly and blood-thirsty if, by some random happenstance, they were the most powerful country on earth.

You mean sort of like those times when the UK or Germany actually were the most powerful countries on earth? The U.S. surely compares at least somewhat favorably to those eras.

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I'm not asking this rhetorically. I know that Americans are a lot more cut off from the rest of the world, in more ways than one, are are therefore pretty ign'rnt about it, but there is an awful lot of really nasty right-wing fuckers all over Europe, Japan, China, Australia, Africa, South America - maybe even Canada. What if they suddenly had some power?

I mean, we sing the National Anthem at ballgames but on the other hand our equivalent of the National Front doesn't do nearly as well in the polls as it does in many European countries.

Maybe that's the wrong comparison.

What's our equivalent of the National Front supposed to be? And what's wrong with singing the national anthem at ballgames?

When was Germany the most powerful country on earth? About half an hour in 1940?

The US doesn't really have an equivalent of the National Front because the Republican Party is enough of a broad church to include the really vile extremist wackos in it's ranks (I'm thinking your Jerry Falwells and your Pat Robertsons). When the mainstream right wing party is right wing enough the far-right party tends to shrink/disappear - the BNP in England virtually vanished under Thatcher.

Singing the national anthem at sporting events is just fucking weird.

ad hoc wrote:

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When the mainstream right wing party is right wing enough the far-right party tends to shrink/disappear - the BNP in England virtually vanished under Thatcher.

Actually it was the National Front who were (accidentally) destroyed by Thatcher; the BNP came along later.

ad hoc wrote:

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Singing the national anthem at sporting events is just fucking weird.

Quite.

AIATL's approach to capitalisation is, I honestly think, completely random. I wouldn't take offence. He's being honest about not caring, as well.

Anyway, I think what strikes us Euros as even odder than singing the National Anthem at non-international sporting fixtures is the fact that it never strikes Americans as odd.

I mean: ostentatious, emotionally overwrought, collective public displays of patriotism, marked by strong social pressure to conform (as you'll know if you've ever sat through the Anthem).

Whose interests are these rituals serving? To ask the question is to answer it. Or so it looks to a left-leaning European.

And compounding the oddness is the phenomenon (rooted in America but becoming increasingly common over here on this side of the Atlantic) of the anthem as a solo performance and so becoming something other than a "collective display of patrirotism" - or, at any rate, a passive one.

"I think they tend to have a rose-colored view of their government's intentions, but they're (by now) thoroughly versed in how those intentions might "go awry." "

Really? I mean, sure there are a lot of well informed liberalish people who are fully aware of the bad the US has done while still believing that it's a force for good overall, but I'd argue there are many more people who are simply ignorant (of eg Iran-Contra or Guatemala or whatever) or who insist that these intentions only go awry because those damn liberals keep stabbing America in the back.

Their anthem's unsingable by mortals, that's the root of that.

And it's happening over here because people with money who want more money, who make these decisions, subscribe to a kind of cargo cult: "If we copy the way Americans stage sporting events, we'll become properly US-style rich, not just Limey rich."

I've mentioned before the Star Spangled Banner was the first song that I knew all the words of, because of its ubiquity in baseball and my obsession with the sport from age 2. It didn't seem weird then, but it definitely did as time passed and all such public displays of "patriotism" got caught up in the debate over Vietnam (say by age 7, I stopped singing entirely by age 8 and started not the stand shortly thereafter). That said, it was never as weird as the Pledge of Allegiance, which struck me as bizarre even at age 5 (why would anyone pledge allegiance to a flag?).

And yet there is also an argument that the ubiquity of these displays in the US makes them less meaningful than they may seem to be to outsiders. Consider institutions like the Queens' Speech and the general way in which Britain presents the Royal Family to the world, and how congruent that image is with what the Great British Public actually thinks of the Windsors.

Bruno has the advantage of being in the US (where I have not been for more than 10 days at a time since 9/11), so I give his view of the current reality a lot of credence. At the same time, I share GY's view of there being a very significant portion of the electorate that is genuinely ignorant and/or deluded. We've remarked before on how few US citizens have passports and how few of those who have been anywhere other than Mexico or Canada. That is a massive difference with the current reality of the average Western European, and it makes a difference.

At the same time, having lived in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy and visited virtually every other European country, I'm not convinced that "Europeans" are materially more informed about their country's "place in the world" or that they hold instrisically more incisive opinions on such issues. This is particularly true when the latest initiative can be seen as the continuation of existing policy; in both cases there tends to be a more robust debate when it represents a break with the past (as with Germany's committment of combat troops in Afghanistan).

There is a tremendous amount that is either taken for granted and/or simply ignored on both sides of the Atlantic.

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At the same time, having lived in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy and visited virtually every other European country, I'm not convinced that "Europeans" are materially more informed about their country's "place in the world" or that they hold instrisically more incisive opinions on such issues.

I think you're dead right there.

Oh, definitely. I do think America's political amnesia is more or less unique, though (among Western democracies). I know I keep banging on about it, but the fact that there are/were so many convicted Iran-Contra conspirators in the Bush administration, and basically nobody gave a shit, is simply mindblowing.

Gangster Octopus wrote:
ad hoc wrote:

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Singing the national anthem at sporting events is just fucking weird.

Quite.[/quote]

translation: countries with traditions different from my own often frighten me.

GY, is is really that different than the general indifference with regard to Blair's torpedoing of the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into BAE?

Ginger Yellow wrote:

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"I think they tend to have a rose-colored view of their government's intentions, but they're (by now) thoroughly versed in how those intentions might "go awry." "

Really? I mean, sure there are a lot of well informed liberalish people who are fully aware of the bad the US has done while still believing that it's a force for good overall, but I'd argue there are many more people who are simply ignorant (of eg Iran-Contra or Guatemala or whatever) or who insist that these intentions only go awry because those damn liberals keep stabbing America in the back.

There's always going to be the 20-30% who feel that way, but as of 2008 most Americans feel the Iraq invasion was a mistake.

BTW, it is also "f*cking weird" to sing hymns before Cup Finals.

BrunoMaggiore wrote:

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translation: countries with traditions different from my own often frighten me.

You seriously think that's what's meant? Come on.

Ginger Yellow wrote:

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Oh, definitely. I do think America's political amnesia is more or less unique, though (among Western democracies). I know I keep banging on about it, but the fact that there are/were so many convicted Iran-Contra conspirators in the Bush administration, and basically nobody gave a shit, is simply mindblowing.

I can't but agree with you, having never gotten over the fact that George H.W. Bush should have gone to prison before he went to the Oval Office. However, a government scandal has to be of a certain stamp before it truly affects the American conscience. Iran-Contra just looked to most like some shifty gamesmanship in the name of fighting Communism, i.e. the greater good. And nobody understood what was really going on in Nicaragua. As scandals go though it was more harmful to our constitutionality than most of the subsequent ones.