Information AboutAnti-americanism |
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Interpretations of anti-Americanism have often been s, Prejudice s and Critic isms towards Americans or the United States. O'Conner, Brendan. "A Brief History of Anti-Americanism from Cultural Criticism to Terrorism" , Australasian Journal of American Studies, July 2004, pp. 77-92 Whether sentiment hostile to the United States reflects reasoned evaluation of specific policies and administrations, rather than a prejudiced and Iraq Documenting the Phenomenon of Anti-Americanism By Nicole Speulda, The Princeton Project on National Security, Princeton University, 2005 wars. For this reason, critics sometimes argue the label is a Propaganda item that is used to dismiss any censure of the United States as irrational.O'Connor, Brendan, op. cit., p 78: "... Cold War (1945-1989) ... In this period the false and disingenuous labeling of objections to American policies as ‘anti-Americanism’ became more prominent." USE OF THE TERM The use of the term anti-Americanism has been catalogued from 1948 , entering wide Political language in the 1950s .Roger, Phillipe. ''The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism,'' introductory excerpt , University of Chicago Press, 2005. The related term " Americanization " (which is thought often to elicit anti-Americanism) has been dated to a French source as early as 1867.Rubin, Barry. "Understanding Anti-Americanism" , Foreign Policy Research Institute, August 2004 Labeling earlier attitudes and commentary "anti-American" is thus partly a retroactive exercise, though there are numerous examples of hostility directed at the country from at least the late 18th century onwards. Contemporary usage is often status.Kagan, Robert. ''Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order'' (2003) Its status as an " -ism " is a greatly contended aspect and it is often called a Propaganda term by critics who feel it is used to dismiss any censure of the United States as irrational. American academic Noam Chomsky , a prolific critic of U.S. policy, asserts that the use of the term within the U.S. has parallels with methods employed by Totalitarian states or military dictatorships; he compares the term to "anti-Sovietism", a label used by the Kremlin to suppress Dissident or critical thought, for instance. Interviewing Chomsky Preparatory to Porto: Alegre ''Zmagazine'' Other scholars have also suggested that a plural of Anti-Americanism''s'', specific to country and time period, more accurately describe the phenomenon than any broad generalization.Katzenstein, Peter and Robert Keohane. " Conclusion: Anti-Americanisms and the Polyvalence of America ", in ''Anti-Americanisms in World Politics,'' Katzenstein and Keohane, eds., Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006 (forthcoming). The widely used "anti-American sentiment", meanwhile, less explicitly implies an Ideology or belief system. HISTORY Since the founding of the United States of America, anti-Americanism has existed in different forms and for different reasons. Some anti-American views derive from ideological resistance to American values and culture. Other views are expressions of group identity, racism, and xenophobia. Still other anti-American sentiments are reactions to the policies of the United States government. The degeneracy thesis Anti-American sentiment in Europe originated with the discovery of America, the study of the Native Americans , and the examination of its Flora , Fauna , and Climate . The first anti-American Theory , the "degeneracy thesis," portrayed America as a regressive and Culturally bankrupt Continent . The theory that the Humidity and other Atmospheric conditions in America physically and Moral ly weakened both Men and Animal s was commonly argued in Europe, and occasionally debated by early American thinkers such as Alexander Hamilton , Benjamin Franklin , and Thomas Jefferson . In 1768 Cornelius De Pauw , court Philosopher to Frederick II Of Prussia and chief proponent of this thesis, described America as "degenerate or monstrous" colonies and argued that, "the weakest European could crush them with ease."de Pauw, Cornelius. ''Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains ou Mémoires intéressants pour servir à l'histoire de l'espèce humaine.'' London, 1768. The theory was extended to argue that the natural environment of the United States would prevent it from ever producing true culture. Paraphrasing Pauw, the French Encyclopedist Abbé Raynal wrote, "America has not yet produced a good poet, an able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single science."Raynal, Abbé Guillaume-Thomas. ''Histoire philosophique et politique des deux Indes.'' Amsterdam, 1770. (So virulent was Raynal's antipathy that his book was suppressed by the French monarchy.) A derivative of the thesis regarding the soullessness of America and its inherent threat to Europe was also used in Fascist rhetoric and in German and Japanese propaganda during World War II . Anti-technology and Romantic hostility poster addressing the Dutch public in 1944 with the words: "The USA are supposed to save European culture". The image utilizes a number of themes, some of which (racism, use of excessive force, American culture and the influence of Judaism) are still in use within some varieties of modern anti-Americanism.]] The French Revolution created a new type of anti-American political thought, hostile to the political institutions of the United States and their impact upon Europe. Furthermore, the Romantic strain of European thought and literature, hostile to the Enlightenment view of Reason and obsessed with History and national character, disdained the American project. The German poet Nikolaus Lenau encapsulated the Romantic view, "With the expression ''Bodenlosigkeit'' (rootlessness), I think I am able to indicate the general character of all American institutions; what we call Fatherland is here only a property insurance scheme." With the rise of American industry in the late Nineteenth Century , intellectual anti-American discourse entered a new form. Mass production, the Taylor System , and the speed of American life and work became a major threat to some intellectuals' view of European life and tradition. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "The breathless haste with which they (the Americans) work - the distinctive vice of the new world - is already beginning ferociously to infect old Europe and is spreading a spiritual emptiness over the continent." It has been argued that this thesis transformed into a had made similar claims in 1931 's ''Man and Technics'' and his 1934 bestseller ''The Hour of Decision''. Racialism In the middle of the Nineteenth Century , the racialist theories of Arthur De Gobineau and others spread through Europe. The presence of blacks and "lower quality" immigrant groups made racialist thinkers discount the potential of the United States. The infinite mixing of America would lead to the ultimate degeneracy. Gobineau said that America was creating "greatest mediocrity in all fields: mediocrity of physical strength, mediocrity of beauty, mediocrity of intellectual capacities - we could almost say nothingness." Anti-globalism ''See also: Anti-globalization '' graffiti in San José, Costa Rica ]] |
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