Correspondence
Correspondence BOURGEOISOMANIA AS A JEWISH KID GROWING UP in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, I experienced the deep misunderstanding and envy of America that David Brooks writes about in "Among...
...Brooks asserts that the United States has never lashed out violently or point-lessly...
...He even considers Bush the Younger to be its product...
...David Brooks gives us a third choice...
...However it may stick in Brooks's craw, the simple fact remains that other nations—even America's dutiful, often supine, ally Down Under— don't believe the American way to be the apotheosis of human endeavor...
...The events of September 11 gave no license to exert unfettered power or become a world policeman...
...While European snobs sit around in pubs and cafés snorting about the idiocy of our president, probably only 10 percent of Americans could name the prime minister of Great Britain...
...It's not stupidity or even arrogance that drives this unawareness...
...The lowly inhabitants of other nations tend to see him as the undereducated son of a rich dad whose oil-enriched mates herded him into the white House...
...However meritocratic capitalism was, it was never about rampant accumulation or self-indulgence...
...indeed, the moral benefits of our society can be seen in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks...
...The violent history of U.S...
...The nation will have to settle for being a member of a family—one among many...
...when people are allowed to do so they grow intellectually and spiritually even if they fail to rise to the level to which they aspire...
...i have owned a couple of companies, drive a nice import, live on the North Shore of Long Island, and send my daughters to private schools...
...But a prerequisite for joining the Soviet "intelligentsia," and any other European intelligentsia for that matter, was a hatred of America...
...Moreover, the civilian dead in Afghanistan—measured in their thousands—will be delighted to know of America's benign intent...
...There has always been, as Brooks so eloquently describes, a bourgeois attitude toward the west among the intellectuals in European society...
...During each visit home, he insists on illuminating his bourgeois, midwestern family about the European opinion of America...
...it's the sheer fact that no one gives a hoot because, for the most part, it doesn't matter...
...it may be the biggest and the strongest, but there are strictures upon the use of its power...
...David Kendall Chicago, IL...
...My response to him is often the same— who cares...
...Many in my family were able to overcome the rampant anti-semitism of soviet society to rise to prominence in the fields of education, science, and national defense...
...He's right about the latter—there is always a point to foreign policy decisions and they are always based on the protection of perceived economic interests...
...His rage at world indifference to America's charms is a sad document marked by an overweening and aggressive smugness...
...My uncle has lived in various places throughout Europe over the past 15 years...
...JULIE KELLY Oak Forest, IL AS AN EXERCISE in jingoistic chest-thumping, David Brooks's "Among the Bourgeoisophobes" is hard to beat...
...My relatives in the diplomatic corps spoke of visits to the pillars of European society including paris, Belgrade, Brussels, Berlin, and Rome...
...He also argues that Norman Mailer, a man he once deeply admired when he lived in the Soviet Union, is a degenerate...
...ALEX RENKO Northport, NY DAVID BROOKS's article is a brilliant exploration into the "hate America" attitude that exists around the world and within our own country as well...
...Typically, the line was drawn between the educated, who understood pursuing American interests to be avaricious and immoral, and the uneducated, who were quickly dismissed as ignorant...
...policy is only too evident: Vietnam, Central America, Chile, etc...
...one must live in this country to fully understand its beauty...
...Such talk is nonsense...
...it maintains heroic aspirations...
...Every conversation about the West included rants on America's greed, lack of sophistication, bad manners, and puritanism...
...These days he argues that Jefferson and Locke were far superior to Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky...
...My father, who brought me to this country at age 11, is now comfortably retired in Florida...
...Twenty-five years later, as a naturalized U.S...
...KEVIN SUMMERS Melbourne, Australia FOR THE PAST SIX MONTHS, and indeed for much of our lives, Americans were left to choose between blind patriotism and apologetic self-disgust...
...Far fewer could name the president of France...
...citizen, I have lived the American dream...
...So, the United States is imperially confident...
...it was the understanding that those with ability should be able to obtain power and wealth according to their efforts...
...Euroworld intellectuals will never understand us...
...Correspondence BOURGEOISOMANIA AS A JEWISH KID GROWING UP in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, I experienced the deep misunderstanding and envy of America that David Brooks writes about in "Among the Bour-geoisophobes" (April 15...
...presumably, Brooks sees meritocratic capitalist culture as the apex of civilization...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 32
