Editorial: Europe strikes back

Extract

In 1831, a French administrative official of the name Alexis de Tocqueville went to the United States to study the American prison system as a model for the planned penitentiary reform in France. He came back with a book that brought him fame and lasting position as a classic of political science and sociology: La democratie en Amerique (1835–1840). America at that time was seen as far ahead of Europe in the development of its institutions and quintessential principles of Western modernity: democratic government, capitalist market and free thought. Tocqueville became fascinated with America, but did not limit his story to the description of American institutions and ways of life. He dug deeper, toward hidden axiological, mental and cultural premises which he labelled ‘habits of the heart’, and which later came to be known as the ‘American Dream’. This he believed to be the secret of American success and the emerging American hegemony in the world. His view was vindicated by the history of the 20th century. But times change.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the American social critic Jeremy Rifkin came to Europe to serve as an adviser to the head of European Commission, Romano Prodi. And he came back with a book that may easily become a bestseller, if not necessary a classic, entitled The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream (New York 2004: Penguin Group, USA). This comes as a follow up to a series of books in which American writers indulge in self-flagellation, drawing doomsday scenarios of the ‘decline’, ‘decay’ and ‘collapse’ of American greatness, with Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival (New York 2003: Henry Holt) as a prime example. This climate settled in earlier than the excesses of Bush administration, and has only been spreading wider in the intellectual community as a reaction to current policies. At a recent convention of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in San Francisco in August 2004, I was absolutely amazed by the intensiveness of anti-American feelings among my American colleagues. Presenting a paper provocatively titled ‘American Hegemony as Seen from Eastern Europe: Twenty Reasons why we Still Admire America’, I was feeling a complete deviant, evoking paternalistic reprimands for my short-sightedness and naivety, which can only be excused by an outsider's perspective. Well, I believe that self-criticism, or what sociologists now call ‘reflexiveness’ is a great asset in every society, but American intellectuals seem to me to go a bit too far.