The United States and Europe

Although the United States was born as an extension of Europe – the pilgrims of the Mayflower were searching for a land more favorable to their “European dream,” and the fathers of the Constitution, rightfully restrained, instated in it the ideals of the French Revolution – the reality is that the United States and Europe have followed very different paths. Of note between them has been a certain growing tension, as long as over time one will go up and the other down. It’s true that both maintain common roots, which are: Greco-Latino culture, Western rank, and Christian religion – adapted in the United States by the diversity of people who continue to form its society. Meanwhile, Europe, much more mature, finds it difficult to absorb immigrants and hasn’t even been able to avoid internal fighting. The United States had a civil war. Europe had two hundred.

I have reviewed some North American opinions of Europe, and the one that is most convincing is from James Baldwin: “Europe has what we do not have yet: a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life’s possibilities.” To this one could add: for this reason, Americans are optimists and Europeans, pessimists. “I am inclined to notice the ruin in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy,” said Arthur Miller.

The difference is such that, despite sharing a culture, and in the case of the United Kingdom, a language; it is difficult to understand each other and even speak of a rivalry based on subjects of both parties. The European, he who above all doesn’t know the United States, observes with an air of superiority “the lack of culture” of North Americans: their junk food, their slovenliness in dress.

This does not impede [North Americans] from ignoring what is going on outside [their] own circle, to gorge on hamburgers and go out in ridiculous attire at any time. This is something that made Mary McCarthy, who is familiar with both shores of the Atlantic, say, “Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof.” And Emerson: “We go to Europe to be Americanized,” which is to say, to reaffirm our American-ness. It is similar to when one visits the town of his grandparents, and adores it, but would not stay there to live even if it were a matter of life or death.

In any event, the common substrate is there, operating and recalcitrant at the same time. Europeans are curious about the United States and it’s a hoot for them to examine the scenes they have watched in movies and on TV – the last, Ground Zero – feeling like an extra in the same. In the meantime, it worries Americans to acknowledge certain European traits. “Can we never extract the tapeworm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?” asked Emerson, without being able to hide his annoyance.

Possibly, no. Just as, in the same way, we [Europeans] cannot liberate ourselves of the American tapeworm. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this rivalry, as long as it’s a creative tension. What I reject is the European attitude of blaming the United States for all of our grievances, from multiple assassinations to the economic crisis. It is a theory that is not only self-accommodating, but also false. This Europe presents itself as the innocent maiden that killed the beast in the last century and those before it.

Although it is also true that is not completely unreasonable to attribute to North Americans a good chunk of advancements in our recent history, with its corresponding vertigo. If [Americans] had stayed home, instead of landing in Normandy at the expense of thousands of lives, Europe, today, would be extremely calm under the Third Reich, and there would be no swindling or street violence; or Asian or African immigrants, for that matter. In the same way, if North America had not been firm in 1945, Russian tanks would have reached the Atlantic and we would be enjoying a Soviet paradise which, without a doubt, would be thrilling to some, even though I doubt the rest would feel the same. Something similar can be said of the Marshall Plan. If America, instead of helping with the reconstruction of Western Europe, had washed its hands of the issue, we Europeans, at this stage, would be worried about the kilos we lack, instead of those we’ve packed on in excess.

Yes, Americans are guilty of junk food, infamous television series, deterioration of the environment, the increase in violence, and, in general, all of the negative afflictions of our society, copied mostly from their own. But above all, they are guilty of not knowing how to fulfill the role that corresponds to them. History has made them the most “complete” empire since the Romans. But the United States is not ready for it. They are a nation of farmers and merchants who arrived in the northern part of the New World in search of “a place in the sun,” and nothing else mattered to them. They are lacking the sense of command, of rule, of the ancient Romans and Victorian English, and instead, in their respective empires, have imposed that everyone should live and work in peace, and he who moves deserves a slap.

The United States has not exported order because they don’t have it. Better yet, they have exported their order, which is creative disorder. The bad part of it is that it doesn’t work for anyone else, and it transforms into simple disorder.

In any event, something has changed since Barack Obama’s arrival in the White House, as much for Americans as for Europeans. We have moved beyond blaming the United States for everything; to seeing it as the solution to everything. “We’ll see if that black man can fix the crisis,” I hear from people who only utter insults at North Americans. I fear that Obama, with luck, can pull his country out of the crisis. But that does not mean he’ll be able to do it for the rest of the world. It is a matter of governments and communities – which are so different – that what is successful in one may not be available, or doesn’t apply, in another. And so I fear that, shortly, we will revert back to the same: it’s the fault of North Americans. Furthermore, I have the premonition that the United States will continue to become even more different from Europe, as its European minority, which until now has had little to say, will become a more influential player.

We now have the first African American president, but the day in which an Asian American, the most vigorous minority, is voted into the White House, could produce the most change.

But now I am entering the chapter of prophecy, which is always dangerous. I was only trying to show you the similarities and differences between the United States and Europe, which are greater than what is believed by either optimists or pessimists. Even the European American, that’s to say the American with European heritage, feels strangely about it, because we share a culture, but not attitudes, which are more important in life. “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” or so the saying goes. But they do meet. In the United States. If one day all paths led to Rome, they now lead to the United States.