The fifth day of deep snow. The initial festive atmosphere has turned
distinctly grouchy. I tried to get to work, but there were many hundreds
of people on the Metro platform and the trains—which passed through
about four times an hour—were so packed that no one was getting on.
I stayed for 45 minutes and then gave up. At home for the fifth straight
day, I was reduced to inventing a Napoleonic naval wargame with blocks
and tiddly-winks.
Another day of snowdrifts and no public transportation. Cabin fever is
beginning to affect us all, although we had some fun sledding. I could
have composed something for this page, but instead I devoted the part
of my brain that blogs to writing a contribution for the Deliberative
Democracy blog.
Today, President’s Day, was supposed to be the White House Forum on American
History, Civics, and Service. We were excited, because we had just launched
our report on The Civic
Mission of Schools; John Bridgeland had formally praised it on
behalf of the administration; and it was to be distributed at the Forum.
But with Washington buried under perhaps the biggest snowfall in its recorded
history, the Forum was cancelled. I am, however, delighted to link to
a Sunday article
by David Broder that not only endorses The Civic Mission of Schools;
it also deftly and accurately summarizes it. And today’s Washington
Post has a masthead
editorial endorsing the report. (Unfortunately, the Post was
hardly delivered to anyone today, since side streets were impassable.)
During a conference call of the 
we
were asked to say what we are doing to keep our spirits up during this
time of looming war. Most of my friends and colleagues reported practically
useful or spiritually worthy activities that they have embarked on recently
to bolster their spirits—ranging from playing music to rediscovering
grammar school friends to co-teaching a course with Noam Chomsky (literally). All
I could think of was our family decision this morning to follow the instructions
in the newspaper and buy plastic sheeting for an emergency shelter room.
(Unfortunately, all the sheeting is gone from local stores).
Although I probably should focus on the damage
that we may be about to do in the Middle East, my actual thoughts range
from fear for my family, to irritation at the way the Bush Administration
handles diplomacy, to equally profound irritation with the European
anti-War movement. Everyone’s instinct in a time of crisis is to use
it for pre-existing political ends, whether they want to bash American
culture or impose US power on the Middle East. Each group interprets everyone
else’s motives as narrowly selfish or self-indulgent. And all the parties
act so as to confirm the worst interpretations of their enemies.
This blog is becoming interactive! My friend Lars Hasselblad Torres sent
me the following email, which I quote with his permission: "Hey peter,
scouted out your blog today, and noted your irritation
with European anti-war movement. Is it safe to say their anti-americanism,
or is it their tactics to get in the way of Bush policy? Anyway, thought
you might find ‘of
paradise and power: america and europe in the new world order‘ of
interest: robert kagan lays out a hobbesian vs. kantian mood form each."
Lars then followed up with a set of good references to the whole question
of US-European relations, including this link to the Foreign
Policy Association. To Lars’ list, I would add Timothy Garten Ash’s
good New York Review piece
that collects virulently anti-European comments by senior US officials.
These are at least as inflammatory and unjustified as the anti-American
comments that set me off.
I suppose my suspicions about European anti-Americanism were born a long
time ago, especially in graduate school in England. There’s a lot of bad
faith and scapegoating on the European left: a desire to attribute bad
things to the US when European countries are just as responsible. I also
think that people on the European left tend to attribute undesirable features
of American life to something intrinsic and cultural about us—for
instance, "American individualism"—when the causes of our
problems apply to them as well. Three examples:
high schools. Universally, British pundits attributed these crimes to
a profound sickness in US culture. I would have said that the "epidemic"
of school shootings (which involved about 1 in every ten million students)
was not a symptom of anything; it was a copy-cat phenemonon. Indeed,
copy-cat school killers subsequently turned up in France, Scotland,
and Germany.
of American culture, although European and Japanese firms generate a
considerable amount of it; the US also produces a mighty stream of high
culture; and the demand for the worst products is global. So I think
it’s largely irrelevant to interpret Hollywood and pop music as "American"
phenomena.
although the gap is not as big as Europeans tend to think. (They focus
on the federal government and don’t realize that our states take 8.5
percent of GNP in taxes and spend it on domestic programs. As a result,
the government’s share of GNP is almost exactly the same—30 percent—in
the US
and in Sweden.) In any case, I do not believe that our social policy
is more conservative because of American individualism or some other
feature of our culture. We have a median
family income of $62,228 (for 4-person families). At that level,
people don’t believe that they will benefit from social spending, except
to support retirement and local public education. Hence the solid support
for Social Security and Medicare and local education. In Europe, median
family incomes are lower—but rising. Hence the political center
in Europe is gradually drifting right, and will not stop soon.
Which brings us to the current debate about Iraq. I think the French
and others are completely right that we should postpone an invasion and
try to strengthen the inspections. But to what extent is this difference
of opinion a result of a cultural gap between the Europeans (allegedly
"from Venus") and the Americans ("from Mars")? The
US has an offensive military capacity that the Europeans lack, singly
and collectively. So perhaps the US must play bad cop in order
to allow the Europeans to play good cop. Absent a military threat from
the US, there would be no inspections, and the Saddam regime would go
completely unchecked and unchallenged. This would be morally unacceptable
to the European left, especially if European companies continued to do
profitable business with Iraq. If this is right, then there are not different
cultures on either side of the Atlantic. Rather, the West is one culture;
it relies on a powerful military that happens to be headquartered in the
USA.
None of which excuses the ham-handed and sometimes offensive way in which
Rumsfeld and other Bushies handle diplomacy ….