Criticizes Pascal Bruckner's anti-anti-Americanism
Rule, James B.
PASCAL BRUCKNER'S embarrassing antiantiAmerican diatribe ("The Paradoxes of Anti-Americanism," Summer 2006) starts out by reminding us of some things that most of us thought we knew. For one,...
...What message are these overheated exhortations really supposed to convey...
...energetically seeks to exempt itself...
...His cloying words would bring a blush to the cheeks of Nancy Reagan...
...her dissolute, illegitimate daughter who brings together all the negative traits of her parent countries...
...Here is how he characterizes the views of his adversaries: "America is the bad Europe, colonizing and arrogant...
...They support efforts to strengthen global rule of law, from which the U.S...
...America remains carried away by a meliorist optimism," he continues, "while Europe combines an idealism in international relations (peace, tolerance, dialogue) with pessimism about change...
...They maintain diplomatic contact with Iran, Syria, and Cuba—certainly without assurance of success—whereas America disdains direct communications with its most serious adversaries...
...They fund efforts on behalf of birth control and AIDS prevention, without allowing religious fanatics to impose requirements for abstinence or anti-abortion policies...
...Yes, that's us, I guess, full of good intentions—just a little awkward here and there...
...For one, that visceral antipathy to America and Americans is widespread around the world these days...
...It feeds on itself and is 104 n DISSENT / Winter 2007 emancipated from reality: an event doesn't shake it but confirms or reinforces it even when the event seems to contradict it...
...Among other things ". . . it has faith in the perfectibility of man, a cult of the ordinary hero...
...By the time it's all over, we're hearing the echo of American neoconservatism from across the Atlantic...
...DISSENT / Winter 2007 • 105...
...A]ntiAmericanism is an autonomous discourse of its own," he notes...
...Combined with this is an equally categorical hymn of hate against Europeans who fail to salute America's missionary self-image and the resulting repercussions in world affairs...
...But when he starts extolling America's alleged virtues, Bruckner soars into a world of pure fantasy...
...Bruckner's line, in the mouths of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, could galvanize neoconservative opinion in this country—a few years ago...
...By now, most of those voices on the right have subsided into pained silence...
...It's enough to make Europeanstyle peace, tolerance, and dialogue look good...
...Such "optimism" has plunged the United States into confrontation with countries it counterproductively decries as axes of evil, while supporting equally unsavory regimes where it suits American geopolitical strategy...
...I can't believe I'm reading this in Dissent...
...line...
...Thus entire nations and regions are plunged into fiery turmoil of death and destruction—sacrificed to this country's would-be global reign of virtue...
...second, that its military prowess grants it some kind of divine responsibility to enforce American dictates throughout the globe...
...There's so little time, and so much evil to be eradicated...
...European governments support efforts to cope with climate change, which the United States disdains...
...European states have much to answer for—particularly in their all-too-willingly learned dependence on American military might in solving problems in their own neighborhood...
...What is it that seduces us about American culture, popular or elitist...
...And indeed, these countries do act as though they considered their own interests and aims morally superior to those of other countries—if that's what we mean by being "fomenters and favorites...
...There's no point competing with Bruckner in his hyperbolic and categorical statements on foreign policy...
...For another, that these attitudes often coalesce into worldviews that resist nuance or revision in the face of evidence...
...Bruckner detests European critics of America, he tells us, because their stance pays no heed to fact or reasoned analysis...
...If this were the extent of matters, Bruckner's message would amount merely to old news...
...he wonders...
...As one reads on, it becomes clear that Bruckner is upholding the essential neoconservative creed: First, that American political morality is superior to that of the rest of the world...
...ARGUMENTS The "meliorist optimism" that Bruckner cites is apparently what underlies the worldwide neoconservative crusade whose somber course in the Middle East Americans are now struggling to escape...
...They are still there,' " he quotes his disdainful (and fictitious) anti-American critic of the Iraq debacle...
...But then Bruckner goes on to exemplify these shortcomings by his own wild swings with the broadest of brushes...
...You can regret it," Bruckner continues, "but everywhere people suffer and shiver in their chains—Bosnia and Kosovo yesterday, Georgia, Ukraine, Kurdistan, today—they turn toward the United States . . . " Except, of course, for those peoples, past and present, whose lot has been to live under oppressive regimes supported or condoned by American power—Argentina, Chile, and South Africa yesterday, or Pakistan, China, and Egypt today— acknowledged perhaps as "authoritarian" but entirely tolerable to American statecraft, if they toe the U.S...
...Fair enough...
...But his remarks quickly devolve into sweeping and unsubstantiated paeans of praise for America's role in world affairs—and ultimately for the moral superiority of American values—that provide a mirror image of the mindless anti-Americanism he loathes...
...But not everyone would accept this self-congratulatory verdict as Bruckner does...
...political visions of every description all too often work that way...
...Title major crime of the United States (and of Israel to a lesser degree)," he writes, characterizing the European anti-Americanism that he deplores, "is to be history's fomenters and favorites...
...Yet Europe, he assures us, "has no alternative solution to offer to the policies of the White House . . ." Really...
...JAMES B. RULE has been contributing to Dissent for more than twenty-five years...
...By this point, I'm scratching my head, wondering what works Bruckner's been reading or watching...
...Toward the end of his essay, Bruckner finally discloses what I believe is the crux of concern— to uphold the disastrous American doctrine of democracy by conquest as applied in Iraq...
...But given the choice, European-style diplomacy and low-key engagement have everything to recommend them over American insistence that all those not with us are against us...
...Europe, we learn "still depends on the Yankee big brother for its security" This was news to me, but listen to what comes next: "It is he . . . who continues to play the thankless role of world policeman, even if he's an awkward and overworked cop...
...For statements as gamy as this, a bit of substantiation might seem in order—both as to who actually espouses such views and where they go wrong...
...trapped in a difficult situation and forced to get out of it with only courage and will as weapons...
Vol. 54 • January 2007 • No. 1
