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Definitions of the term anti-Americanism have been much debated. German newspaper publisher and political scientist Josef Joffe suggests five classic aspects of the phenomenon: reducing Americans to stereotypes, believing the United States to have an irremediably evil nature, ascribing to the U.S. establishment a vast conspiratorial power aimed at utterly dominating the globe, holding the United States responsible for all the evils in the world, and seeking to limit the influence of the United States by destroying it or by cutting oneself and one's society off from its polluting products and practices.
In the mid- to late-eighteenth century, a theory emerged among some European intellectuals that the New World landmasses were inherently inferior to Europe. The so-called "degeneracy thesis" held that climatic extremes, humidity and other atmospheric conditions in America physically weakened both men and animals. Two authors, James W. Ceaser and Philippe Roger, have interpreted this theory as "a kind of prehistory of anti-Americanism."Purported evidence for the idea included the smallness of American fauna, dogs that ceased to bark, and venomous plants;[20] one theory put forth was that the New World had emerged from the Biblical flood later than the Old World.Native Americans were also held to be feeble, small, and without ardor.
The theory originated with Comte de Buffon, a leading French naturalist, in his Histoire Naturelle (1766).The French writer Voltaire joined Buffon and others in making the argument.Dutchman Cornelius de Pauw, court philosopher to Frederick II of Prussia became its leading proponent.While Buffon focused on the American biological environment, de Pauw attacked people native to the continent. In 1768, he described America as "degenerate or monstrous" colonies and argued that, "the weakest European could crush them with ease."[
The theory was extended to argue that the natural environment of the United States would prevent it from ever producing true culture. Paraphrasing de 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."
According to Brendan O'Connor, some Europeans criticized Americans for lacking "taste, grace and civility" and having a brazen and arrogant character.British author Frances Trollope observed in her 1832 book Domestic Manners of the Americans that the greatest difference between England and the United States was "want of refinement.", explaining that "that polish which removes the coarser and rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of" in America
Other writers critical of American culture and manners included the bishop Talleyrand in France and Charles Dickens in England. Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) is a ferocious satire on American life. In the novel, Americans are portrayed as snobs, windbags, and hypocrites and the Republic is described as: "so maimed and lame, so full of sores and ulcers, foul to the eye and almost hopeless to the sense, that her best friends turn from the loathsome creature with disgust". Dickens attacked the institution of slavery in America: "Thus the stars wink upon the bloody stripes; and Liberty pulls down her cap upon her eyes, and owns oppression in its vilest aspect for her sister"
"French statesman Georges Clemenceau commented: "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
Simon Schama says: "By the end of the nineteenth century, the stereotype of the ugly American—voracious, preachy, mercenary, and bombastically chauvinist—was firmly in place in Europe." O'Connor suggests that such prejudices were rooted in an idealised image of European refinement and that the notion of high European culture pitted against American vulgarity has not disappeared
The young United States also faced criticism on political and ideological grounds. Ceaser argues that the Romantic strain of European thought and literature, hostile to the Enlightenment view of reason and obsessed with history and national character, disdained the rationalistic American project. The German poet Nikolaus Lenau commented: "With the expression Bodenlosigkeit (absence of ground), 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." Ceaser argues in his essay that such comments often repurposed the language of degeneracy, and the prejudice came to focus solely on the United States and not Canada and Mexico
The nature of American democracy was also questioned. The sentiment was that the country lacked " monarch, aristocracy, strong traditions, official religion, or rigid class system," according to Rubin, and its democracy was attacked by some Europeans in the early nineteenth century as degraded, a travesty, and a failure
The French Revolution, which was loathed by many European conservatives, also implicated the United States and the idea of creating a constitution on abstract and universal principles. That the country was intended to be a bastion of liberty was also seen as fraudulent given that it had been established with slavery. "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" asked Samuel Johnson in 1775. He famously stated that, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."
Drawing on the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau (1816–82) European fascists decried the supposed degenerating effect of immigration on the racial mix of the American population. The Nazi philosopher Alfred Rosenberg argued that race mixture in the USA made it inferior to countries like Germany which had a supposedly pure-bred racial stock
Anti-Semitism was another factor in these critiques. The belief that America was ruled by a Jewish conspiracy was common in countries ruled by fascists before and during World War II.The Jews, the assumed puppet masters behind American plans for world domination, were also seen as using jazz in a crafty plan to eliminate racial distinctions.
Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Forgive me but are Americans almost all of them, not from origin European ?
Journalists Brendon O'Connor & Martin Griffiths state in their book Anti-Americanism that they would at first glance think that Canadians seem as likely as other to embrace characteristics that are characterised as anti-American. O'Conner and Griffiths include such actions as criticising Americans as a people, or the US as a country as being anti-American often demonising, denigrating and resorting to stereotypes. They have also written that the Anti-Americanism found in Canada had unique qualities, no where else has it been so entrenched for so long, nor so central to the political culture of Canada. Canadian columnist Larry Zolf has written that "anti-Americanism is a core part of the Canadian identity since Day One of this country."
Canadian historian Kim Richard Nossal thinks that the a low level attenuated form of anti-Americanism permeates Canadian political culture, though "designed primarily as a means to differentiate Canadians from Americans."
In a 2003 article, Historian David Ellwood identified what he called three great roots of anti-Americanism:
1.)Representations, images and stereotypes (from the birth of the Republic onwards)
2.)The challenge of economic power and the American model of modernization (principally from the 1910s and '20's on)
3.)The organized projection of U.S. political, strategic and ideological power (from World War II on)
He went on to say that expressions of the phenomenon in the last 60 years have contained ever-changing combinations of these elements, the configurations depending on internal crises within the groups or societies articulating them as much as anything done by American society in all its forms
Sergio Fabbrini, in a 2004 article wrote that the perceived post 9/11 unilateralism of the 2003 invasion of Iraq fed deep rooted anti-American feeling in Europe, bringing it to the surface. In his article, he highlighted European fears surrounding the Americanization of both the economy, culture and political process of Europe
Following the 2008 South Ossetia War, anti-Americanism was said to have grown amongst the intellectual-political class in Russia too.[citation needed] In response to the conflict with Georgia, Boris Kagarlitsky said: "Ironically, one of the dominant trends here is that we are anti-American because we want to be exactly like America. We are angry that Americans are allowed to invade minor nations and we are not
In Turkey, Anti-American protestors held signs saying “Obama, new president of the American imperialism that is the enemy of the world’s people, your hands are also bloody. Get out of our country.” when Barack Obama visited Turkey. Protestors also shouted phrases such as "Yankee go home" and "Obama go home
Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Forgive me but are Americans almost all of them, not from origin European ?
Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by tauempire
Sorry chum, the internet was created by an Englishman
Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
reply to post by tauempire
Well they didn't leave if they liked it here.
The problem I have with America ( not its citizens )is that they continuously Not mind their own business. That upsets me a little. Almost all the wars and troubles since WW2 are because of their meddling.
I don't know what the world would be like if they didn't.
We got a saying here in the Netherlands.
The Highest trees catch the most wind.
Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
reply to post by tauempire
Now you know why we hate your guts.
Really I don't know what else it could be.
Originally posted by Misoir
I think we need to mind our own damn business....