The Foreignist

I ended the last post by asking, “So what’s the solution. How can we reduce the anti-American and even anti-EU sentiment in these areas?” Well, the fact that I would even think there is an answer to these questions proves that I am still truly an American. Americans often think Europeans are either pessimistic or pretentious when they call us naive. I really don’t believe they think they are better or smarter than Americans, maybe just a bit more experienced. This has made them a little more jaded and often a little pessimistic, but maybe a little more willing to accept the fact that there isn’t a solution to every problem. In America we still believe that there is an adequate solution to each and every problem facing American society. From a secular perspective, the European viewpoint is more realistic. In the eyes of Europeans, the world has lots of problems, and an unchallenged America playing the role as the lone world super-power is one of them. I don’t believe this fear is 100% justified, but in the words of James Madison, “The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

With America standing as the victor after the Cold War, I get the feeling that we have elevated free-market economic principles to the status of a religion. And we are exporting this religion to every corner of the globe. Our money says,  “In God we trust.” The US Treasury Department originally put that motto on our money during the Civil War (see here) to make sure if we destroyed ourselves as a nation in that war so that subsequent generations wouldn’t think we were a heathen people. If archaeologist were to dig up the remains of American civilization at some distant point in the future, and they saw the remains of our society I’m sure they would think that the motto meant,   “In THIS god we trust.”  The US economy has become a god. Obviously,   I’m talking in a metaphorical sense - but not far from the literal sense.   Listen to CNN, MS-NBC, Bloomberg, and Fox News and you’ll hear what I’m talking about. Don’t all of the news anchors and analyst talk about the economy like an entity unto itself, or even a person? It all sounds so strange to me when I hear them say things like this or that will “upset the economy.”  Or the way the whole media community turned someone as dull as Alan Greenspan into a star because he was the high priest/prophet of the religion of the economy. President Bush, as a Christian, called on us all to pray after the 9/11 attacks. Then as an MBA from the Harvard Business School he called on us all to fulfill our patriotic duty go shopping and travel. Being a consumer makes you a great patriot these days.

Maybe a partial solution to the problem of anti-Americanism in the world would be to tone down our “free-trade” rhetoric. Not that we should become protectionist or isolationist, but there are other ways to engage the rest of the world without trying to turn them all into American-style consumers, which by the way is what American corporations mean when they talk about “free-trade.”  The marketing and media blitz that has been unleashed on the globe assumes people will fall into line the way the American public has. This is not the case — yet.   It’s probable that the developed world will eventually succumb. People who realize what’s happening resent being categorized as a consumer, not a person. When the goal of our society is to consume, how can that be healthy.?  When George Bush says,   “We need an energy bill that encourages consumption,” how can that be healthy? The rest of the world knows that unrestrained consumerism is not healthy. This is not a full explanation of a solution of anti-Americanism, but a further characterization of what the problem is.   More on the solution in a later post.