Arrogant? We're the best. It's not a matter of being big and powerful - that's a side effect - our excellence is a matter of grit and vision. Might be better for folks self esteem if we said it was luck, but what we are and have been for our history is a defining point of the human condition, we'd be doing the species not to mention ourselves a disservice
Europe existed before the 1910's but what part of that other than the harmless stuff that tends to amuse tourists remains, let alone in any state of international significance? The banking industry, kindof. Thatcher nationalized Jaguar and now India owns it. This whole culture they love and abide by of apologizing for nationalism, we taught it tothem for their own good - took two wars to do it. It's getting out of hand, taken out of context since the European mind has never lost it's penchant for absolutism in one form or another - I guess it's what takes the place of any significant level of self-determination or global importance. Now instead of all that crazy ?'Victoria Regina' or ?'stabbed-in-the-back' stuff it reads like the house rules in a touristy bar - ?'be nice or leave'. Hypocrites.
Now, to my own understanding I'm far from being anti-European - I have a touch of the Anglophile in me and I don't think I'm quite that small minded, but what it's become is at best a transitional state. I mean, I think we handled the war in the Pacific and the rebuilding well, but there's a lot to be said for the likes of Yukio Mishima, of which in their turn post-war Europe had none - like just because one has been defeated it doesn't mean victory is BS. It's like, rather, I think Europe has turned against any notion of independence or excellence, in effect striking at the painful memory of its own golden ages. In that sense Europe is anti-European and anti-American, they eschew higher realities which I count as part of what is right and good in human nature, transcendent aesthetics I hope I would count to be universal and meritorious even if they did not effect favorably in my ?'as-it-were' situation.
Despite accusations of boorishness (ha!) there is in the American character a nearly poetic, certainly philosophical sensitivity for the higher realities, unrivaled perhaps in its ability to seek past even mortal conflict let alone poor-natured whining. What I mean to say is Europe is hurting, and trying to drag the big dog down with it, in the manner that only a civilization not unacquainted with greatness can, and I admire them for it and am committed, as I believe most Americans are, to seeing our European brothers and sisters through this time of darkness...
Oy!
As patting in your own back, I think you can do better.
Have you that much contact with the world outside the United States?
Ignorance of Europeans will not make a kitch soup as SUPER POWER
Francis wrote:Oy!
As patting in your own back, I think you can do better.
Have you that much contact with the world outside the United States?
I could absolutely do a better job of patting my country on the back, but in this particular thread I feel it would be insensitive toward people of lesser nations, and only serve to drive them further from accepting the reality of the past 200 years and the foreseeable future being defined by America.
"And the song,
from beginning to end
I found again in the
HEART OF A FRIEND".
H W Longfellow
