Europe vs USA
I'm going to write about European culture today. Recently, there has been quite a bit of banter about the rifts between Europe and the USA, about how a lot of Europeans don't like us and what not. I'm am about to take a stab at why there are such diffeneces between our cultures, at why there is friction, and why people believe what they believe. Pardon me if I wander...
Even though American culture is almost entirely spawned from European sources, we have evolved (some would say devolved) into one thing while the Europeans from which we are descended evolved into another. From the beginning, America was filled with individualists and dissidents, those who did not feel at home in Europe. This was only the beginning.
Europeans, ever since the light of the Renaissance began to shine, have been involved in the active advancement of their culture and technology. We have don the same here, but for less time and with an emphasis on technology. Americans have, for the most part, been a 'it's good the way it is' people when it comes to culture. When this factor is combined with the physical distance to Europe, it seems to a casual observer that the Europeans are moving beyond us as we stand still. The grass is always greener...
Europe has always been a cultural center, and shiny, new things are always coming from there. They are indeed advanced and sophisticated, always on if not defining the cutting edge. Look at their cars: an American made the car into reality, but is was the Europeans that advanced it. A European car of today positively shames an Amercan car... and our backward laws keep many of those refined cars off of our roads. Europeans were the first to embrace the aircraft in large numbers, especially for military purposes. Just look at what Germany had for a fighter in 1939 compared to what we had. It was the Europeans that began to make cars safer, roads safer, trains safer... They were the ones that had the downright artistic mass trasport in their cities. Appliances, clothing, electronics, culture... the Europeans seem to lead the way. They are widely held as the example to follow. If Europeans are doing it, it brings up the question 'why aren't we?'
Europe has become an ivory tower. Sure, they are sophisticated. I'd say they are too sophisticated. Yes, that's right: too much of a good thing. Where have their lofty ideals and advancements taken them? As a culture, theirs has slipped past ours in their disconnection from reality. They have insulated themselves from truth. As they tried to reach ever higher places for their culture, places ever cloer to perfection, they have been forced to confront human nature in its most elemental and evil form, forced to confront that which is not or can not be understood. When these ugly things surfaced, the reaction of European culture seems to have been to build a wall that shileded the uglieness from sight. To confront the ugliness would be to admit that so much of their path was wrong.
In the Dark Ages, reason was drowned by 'the church', in reality a power-mad organization that had about as much to do with God and Christianity as the NAACP has to do with advancement of anyone. Scientists were persecuted. When Europe was reborn, there was a move away from anything to do with God and the supernatural and toward pure reason. Reason became the ultimate authority, evolving into human reason, evolving into blind faith in humankind. They went too far, making science a god, therefor making man into a god.
When bad things happened, this new god was shown to be impotent, but still the faith persisted.
Europe began a mass disconnection, with a population that almost exclusively lives in an urban environment. The goal of the culture became control over everything. What they can not control, they ignore.
This is not totally removed from what is happening in American culture. Over here, however, we have the stabilizing influence of the Heartland, flyover country. These are people who's livelyhood is directly connected to the land. They have little patience for castles in the air, for ideas that are prettier on paper. They have measure of control over our government and it is they who have slowed our headlong rush to follow the very things that we fled to get to this nation.
In Europe, the culture has become almost completely divorced from the land upon which they live. They assume that this disconnection is a good thing, so it is cultivated. The more separated they become, the more they seem to think that they have a mandate to bring the world after them.
This is to say states with great control, massive public works to manage the population... totalitarianism, to be short. As reason bcame god became man, man has become the state and the state therefor god. The view that it is the state that grants rights to the people is very much the European way. In America, it has been held that people simply have rights, granted by God, and that the people tell the state what it can and can not do. Even if you don't believe in God, you surely believe that humans have rights that are not up for negotiation, rights that DO NOT come from the state: they simply exist.
Now, let's look at the complete folley of this European way: They are sophisticated. They are advanced, more than we. Now, has this stopped them from being any less barbaric or sadistic? Genocide is relatively unkown on this cointinent. Yes, I am aware of what happened to the natives. Compare that to the rampant and wholesale destruction that has defined Europe... we never had a holocaust here. We didn't start two world wars. We didn't bury millions upon millions because they worshiped differently.
Compare racism here and there: Anti-semitism is a way of life, in all practicality, in Europe. They had just as many troubles with civil rights as we.
Many seem to gloss over the brutality of Europe when making the point that Americans need to be more like the Europeans. most places in Europe, if you become too much of a burden, you are discarded, like if you are old and need treatment for a persistant disease. Even their crime is worse... it just does not show as much becuase here, you'll be killed. There, you'll be maimed and left to die.
To clarify and conclude:
Europe has advanced, but the advance has been heartless and soulless. They have failed to confront the evil nature of humans by making humankind a god. They have forgotten that there are things that can not be controlled. They have never recognized that rights are intrinsic. I say take their cars and leave their ways, but most of all, do not listen to them when it come to securing the world against tyranny and violence. They had the chance to stop two world wars and failed both times. Both times it was the United States that ended the wars and rebuilt. We may not be sophisticated, but we are right because we remember that there are things beyond our control and we recognize that rights are not negotiable.
That's my rabid rant for today...
Even though American culture is almost entirely spawned from European sources, we have evolved (some would say devolved) into one thing while the Europeans from which we are descended evolved into another. From the beginning, America was filled with individualists and dissidents, those who did not feel at home in Europe. This was only the beginning.
Europeans, ever since the light of the Renaissance began to shine, have been involved in the active advancement of their culture and technology. We have don the same here, but for less time and with an emphasis on technology. Americans have, for the most part, been a 'it's good the way it is' people when it comes to culture. When this factor is combined with the physical distance to Europe, it seems to a casual observer that the Europeans are moving beyond us as we stand still. The grass is always greener...
Europe has always been a cultural center, and shiny, new things are always coming from there. They are indeed advanced and sophisticated, always on if not defining the cutting edge. Look at their cars: an American made the car into reality, but is was the Europeans that advanced it. A European car of today positively shames an Amercan car... and our backward laws keep many of those refined cars off of our roads. Europeans were the first to embrace the aircraft in large numbers, especially for military purposes. Just look at what Germany had for a fighter in 1939 compared to what we had. It was the Europeans that began to make cars safer, roads safer, trains safer... They were the ones that had the downright artistic mass trasport in their cities. Appliances, clothing, electronics, culture... the Europeans seem to lead the way. They are widely held as the example to follow. If Europeans are doing it, it brings up the question 'why aren't we?'
Europe has become an ivory tower. Sure, they are sophisticated. I'd say they are too sophisticated. Yes, that's right: too much of a good thing. Where have their lofty ideals and advancements taken them? As a culture, theirs has slipped past ours in their disconnection from reality. They have insulated themselves from truth. As they tried to reach ever higher places for their culture, places ever cloer to perfection, they have been forced to confront human nature in its most elemental and evil form, forced to confront that which is not or can not be understood. When these ugly things surfaced, the reaction of European culture seems to have been to build a wall that shileded the uglieness from sight. To confront the ugliness would be to admit that so much of their path was wrong.
In the Dark Ages, reason was drowned by 'the church', in reality a power-mad organization that had about as much to do with God and Christianity as the NAACP has to do with advancement of anyone. Scientists were persecuted. When Europe was reborn, there was a move away from anything to do with God and the supernatural and toward pure reason. Reason became the ultimate authority, evolving into human reason, evolving into blind faith in humankind. They went too far, making science a god, therefor making man into a god.
When bad things happened, this new god was shown to be impotent, but still the faith persisted.
Europe began a mass disconnection, with a population that almost exclusively lives in an urban environment. The goal of the culture became control over everything. What they can not control, they ignore.
This is not totally removed from what is happening in American culture. Over here, however, we have the stabilizing influence of the Heartland, flyover country. These are people who's livelyhood is directly connected to the land. They have little patience for castles in the air, for ideas that are prettier on paper. They have measure of control over our government and it is they who have slowed our headlong rush to follow the very things that we fled to get to this nation.
In Europe, the culture has become almost completely divorced from the land upon which they live. They assume that this disconnection is a good thing, so it is cultivated. The more separated they become, the more they seem to think that they have a mandate to bring the world after them.
This is to say states with great control, massive public works to manage the population... totalitarianism, to be short. As reason bcame god became man, man has become the state and the state therefor god. The view that it is the state that grants rights to the people is very much the European way. In America, it has been held that people simply have rights, granted by God, and that the people tell the state what it can and can not do. Even if you don't believe in God, you surely believe that humans have rights that are not up for negotiation, rights that DO NOT come from the state: they simply exist.
Now, let's look at the complete folley of this European way: They are sophisticated. They are advanced, more than we. Now, has this stopped them from being any less barbaric or sadistic? Genocide is relatively unkown on this cointinent. Yes, I am aware of what happened to the natives. Compare that to the rampant and wholesale destruction that has defined Europe... we never had a holocaust here. We didn't start two world wars. We didn't bury millions upon millions because they worshiped differently.
Compare racism here and there: Anti-semitism is a way of life, in all practicality, in Europe. They had just as many troubles with civil rights as we.
Many seem to gloss over the brutality of Europe when making the point that Americans need to be more like the Europeans. most places in Europe, if you become too much of a burden, you are discarded, like if you are old and need treatment for a persistant disease. Even their crime is worse... it just does not show as much becuase here, you'll be killed. There, you'll be maimed and left to die.
To clarify and conclude:
Europe has advanced, but the advance has been heartless and soulless. They have failed to confront the evil nature of humans by making humankind a god. They have forgotten that there are things that can not be controlled. They have never recognized that rights are intrinsic. I say take their cars and leave their ways, but most of all, do not listen to them when it come to securing the world against tyranny and violence. They had the chance to stop two world wars and failed both times. Both times it was the United States that ended the wars and rebuilt. We may not be sophisticated, but we are right because we remember that there are things beyond our control and we recognize that rights are not negotiable.
That's my rabid rant for today...
posted by Charlie Foxtrot at 08:18
Noone and Nothing Forgotten...
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