Home > Notes from the Underground
I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Friday, November 08, 2002
I must admit that I still consider the entire notion of anti-americanism impossible to understand. Even when one sets aside the risible notion of condensing all aspects of an extremely heterogenous culture and society into one indivisible package, the idea still seems bizarre to say the least. Would one honestly use terms like 'anti-british' or even 'anti-european' in such a vague manner, that called to patriotism without defining what the 'anti' actually entailed? More to the point, would a European nation use any of those terms at all? A state with a noble tradition of liberty of thought does itself no favours when it seeks to silence discussion in the name of patriotism.
Update: Interesting piece from Christoper Hitchens, which does a noble job of providing the best definition of this term yet. That said, I am rather inclined that the only person left in the United States who would not be anti-american on this definition would be Hitchens himself. For example, he regarded secularism as a typically American attribute but historically American has been deeply uneasy about having a separation of church and state, as with the inclusion of religious phraselogy in the oath of allegiance and the currency. To be blunt, as a secular state the United States has always had even less to commend it than England, with its appalling state church. Finally, here is a very good example of why Europeans are right to look with horror at religion in the United States.
posted by Richard 11:12 am
