Knee jerk liberal argument #4: Romanticism of Europe (aka, "God, they're so relaxed over there...")
Yet another way to bait conservatives to bust out the blame-America-first card, this knee jerk liberal argument backhandedly blasts America by romanticizing Europe.
To once again quote Sean,
"(This might be my favorite, largely due to my personal tendency to fall victim to it) Generalized romanticism of Europe, including ignoring its xenophobic, facist streak, consistent problems with unemployment, slow economic growth, etc. This streak is often magnified by a study abroad experience spent drinking."
As Sean gets at, even though this argument can be obnoxious, it's also really understandable. I've never even been to Europe and I romanticize it. Musicians have made Whole albums pandering to this bail-to-Europe itch American liberals often feel.
My brother-in-law Kaveh and I have had a number of conversations about this topic. One time, after a recent trip to Greece, Kaveh discussed how talking politics was so refreshingly different in Athens than it was in Naperville. As I could imagine. But then, after about 10 minutes of extolling his love of Greece and Europe at large, Kaveh added a buried footnote:
"Of course they have their prejudices there," he explained, shifting tones. "Like antisemitism." I think I saw something on the History Channel about that once.
Kaveh, like Sean and myself, was willing to all-but overlook such glaring shortcomings because the package -- as a whole -- was so appealing. Like my own views of New York City, Europe becomes idealized, utopian. Again like New York City, it becomes a projected liberal fantasy of everything that isn't George W. Bush.
So, this knee jerk liberal argument, as you might agree, is more funny than irritating. Just about everyone's been guilty of it at one point or another. And, let's not forget, the inverse American argument -- constructing Europe as a pin-up of amorality and socialism for conservative political gain -- is infinitely more offensive.
Lastly, Sean mentioned study abroad as a strong reinforcer of Europe romanticization. Let's not forget Amelie. Or Cinema Paradiso. After movies like those, I basically assume the entire continent is bathed in a warm orange glow at all times.
1 comment:
I agree that Europe has been in many instances overtly ROMANTICIZED and As we discussed from my trips overseas, the Europeans have those severely skewed streaks(anti-semitism, Genocide, etc.) in their politics but they are even fed up with the way things are going. So, relatively speaking, they were more open to discussion than the average person here in the states. I felt that the average person there was more aware of what was going on in the world and was not as self-absorbed as we are typically here in the states! But this is changing everyday and the young generation is waking up, reading, watching and learning and that's an encouraging sign!
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