Hating America: A History Read online

  Hating America:

  A History

  BARRY R UBIN

  JUDITH COLP RUBIN

  HATING AMERICA

  BARRY RUBIN

  JUDITH COLP RUBIN

  A History

  As always to Gabriella and Daniel-our co-authored children

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  PREFACE

  Yet as this project was being conceived the situation should have been the opposite. The United States had attained victory in the Cold War against communism, which had begun immediately after it had done the same thing in a war against fascism. Moreover, there had been the September ii, zoos, attack on America, the single most horrific terrorist attack in world history. Although the event itself showed the extent of anti-Americanism in the Middle East, the United States on September 12 should have been at the height of its global popularity, praised, appreciated, and sympathized with around the world, whatever undertone of reasonable criticism also existed.

  then writing a book, an author often has the sensation of being surrounded by that topic. In the case of anti-Americanism that experience was particularly strong. As the twenty-first century began it seemed as if the amount of criticism the United States was receiving around the world was matched only by the quantity of passionate debate about why this was happening. Almost every day brought more evidence that anti-Americanism was an omnipresent global phenomenon.

  Nevertheless, in the aftermath of September u, although many in the world did sympathize with America, the response of others was that the United States somehow deserved it. That there could be such hatred after the death of so many of their fellow citizens was a shock to many Americans. The displays of hatred only increased as America sent troops to Afghanistan and then fought a war in Iraq.

  Certainly, images of the American flag and effigies of the U.S. president being burned throughout the Middle East were disturbing, yet not new. But in Europe, which Americans considered their strategic ally and cultural partner, signs of this hatred were especially disturbing. The German chancellor used demagogic criticism of America to win an election, while one of his top aides likened the U.S. president to Hitler. In France, a book claiming that September a was a propaganda stunt by American intelligence agencies and the military-industrial complex to justify world conquest became a best seller. Even in Britain, America's closest friend, a former cabinet minister claimed the United States was planning to dominate space, cyberspace, and just about everything else.

  Almost without exception, both the critics and those defending America viewed this outpouring of anti-Americanism as unprecedented, as the result of contemporary or at least recent events. But the tone of such rhetoric would not have been at all surprising for Americans living a century or two earlier. Only by understanding the historical development-and powerful continuity-of anti-Americanism can one comprehend it as a contemporary issue.

  The American expatriate Henry James, who had little love for his native country, once mused, "It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world."

  But given the historical evidence it was hard to see how Americans could feel otherwise. Indeed, even before it was a country, America was being harshly criticized. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin spent much time and creative energy trying to prove to Europeans that their country was not inherently barbaric. There were always many intellectual figures in Europe who could not resist the facile put-down of America: "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American," said the British author Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century. The respected British historian Thomas Carlyle in 1850 merely found Americans "the greatest bores ever seen in this world."

  The French statesman Georges Clemenceau said that "America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization," while Oscar Wilde, who would agree with Clemenceau on little else, declared, "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." Decades later the British writer George Bernard Shaw jeered: "An asylum for the sane would be empty in America."'

  This book in no way seeks to suggest that all criticism of America constitutes anti-Americanism or is invalid. One reason why it is important to examine the history of this debate is to see what can be learned about the real defects of the United States, as well as ways to communicate its virtues better. Similarly, those governments, classes, groups, ideologies, and individuals who have held anti-American views can be better understood by investigating the reasons for these attitudes.

  In this book we have carefully defined anti-Americanism as being limited to having one or more of the following characteristics:

  • An antagonism to the United States that is systemic, seeing it as completely and inevitably evil.

  • A view that greatly exaggerates America's shortcomings.

  • The deliberate misrepresentation of the nature or policies of the United States for political purposes.

  • A misperception of American society, policies, or goals which falsely portrays them as ridiculous or malevolent.

  We have also restricted our discussion to anti-American views held by non-Americans (or in a few cases to Americans who lived abroad for so long as to become virtually part of this category). Otherwise, the issues that must be dealt with more properly fall into the sphere of domestic political and partisan debate.

  Of course, opposition to specific American actions or policies is easily understandable and may well be justifiable, but anti-Americanism as a whole is not. The reason for this conclusion is simply that the United States is not a terrible or evil society, whatever its shortcomings. It does not seek world domination and its citizens do not take pleasure in deliberately injuring others.

  There are many occasions when decisions inevitably have drawbacks and bad effects. There are equally many times when mistakes are made. But here is where the line can be drawn between legitimate criticism and anti-Americanism.

  One of our most important conclusions is that there has been a historical continuity and evolution of anti-Americanism, coinciding with the development of the United States, changes in other societies, and the world situation. We have detected five phases in this process:

  The first phase (Chapter i) began in the eighteenth century, when America was a little-understood place whose society was still under construction. At this time, criticism focused on the idea that it would be difficult or impossible to create any civilization there due to environmental conditions.

  The second phase, from around 1800 to about 1880 (Chapter 2), was characterized by the idea that the United States was already demonstrably a failed society, ruined by democracy, equality, and other dangerous experiments. Its system was said to be so unworkable that no one elsewhere should view this new society as a model.

  The third phase, from the 188os to the 1930s (Chapter 3), took place when America's growing size, power, and economic might showed that it could no longer be described as a failure. Then, however, there was a growing fear abroad that the bad American model-populist democracy, mass culture, industrialization, and so on-might in the future take over the world and change the way of life of others in a dangerous and negative manner.

  In this context, Chapter 4 discusses how the twentieth century's two main counter-ideologies-communism and fascism-dealt with the American challenge. Chapter 5 deals with the specific forms of antiAmericanism taking place in Latin America.

  By the fourth phase, from the end of World War II in 1945 to the end of the Cold War by 199o (Chapter 6), the fear of American domination was moved from the future to the present. The United States was su
pposedly in the process of taking over the world. During this phase, the Middle East (Chapter 7) became increasingly conscious of the United States and anti-Americanism became an important phenomenon there.

  Finally, in the current phase (Chapter 8), those who hold antiAmericanism views see the U.S. domination, both as a great power and as a terrible model for civilization (as the centerpiece of globalization, modernization, and Westernization), to be an established fact. That is why it is the most angry and widespread exemplification of anti-Americanism ever seen. Moreover, hatred was intensified by a new doctrine that claimed that America's higher level of development was at everyone else's expense and, by the same token, the relative failure of others to duplicate this success was due to America's sins.

  Chapter 9 analyzes anti-Americanism in the early twenty-first century, also summing up the book's main arguments and conclusions.

  Finally, it is important to note the spirit in which this book is written. Our goal has been to produce a useful work of analysis and narration rather than one of preordained ideological content. Most of the conclusions were developed by the authors in the course of examining the evidence. There is nothing innately "liberal" or "conservative," left or right, about the line of reasoning used in this book. Rather than take sides in an ongoing partisan debate, the book tries to suggest the need for a totally new framework for understanding this vital issue.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  7e want to thank our editor, Dedi Felman, who, as always, was a pleasure to work with. Thanks also to staff members at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, especially Cameron Brown, Joy Pincus, and Ehud Waldoks. Many others have helped in various ways, and we wish to especially thank Mark Falcoff, Josh Pollack, Brian Loveman, Steve Grant, and Eleanor Howard.

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  CONTENTS

  i A Naturally Degenerate Land 3

  2 The Distasteful Republic 21

  3 The Fear of an American Future 45

  4 America as a Horrible Fate 75

  5 Yankee Go Home! ioi

  6 Cold War and Coca-Cola 125

  7 The Great Satan 155

  8 America as Super-Villain 187

  9 An Explicable Unpopularity 219

  Notes 245

  Bibliography 273

  Index 293

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  HATING AMERICA

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  A NATURALLY DEGENERATE LAND

  Certainly, it seemed reasonable for people to expect that the climate, soil, and other physical features in such a thoroughly distinctive place would make for a very different type of human being and social order. The very fact that Europeans knew that the new world they found populated with Native Americans was technologically behind them, and the fact that they considered it to be spiritually inferior as well, made it easy for them to conclude that this relative backwardness had been inevitable. Obviously, too, the idea that America was inferior had a great appeal for Europeans, since this validated the natural human propensity to believe in the superiority of themselves and their own way of life.

  Perhaps, they thought, America was doomed and destined to be always inferior. If so, any effort to implant civilization there would fail or, even worse, produce a monstrous hybrid, a Frankenstein's monster that some day would menace its creators. Even those who accepted the basic principles on which the United States would be ostensibly based often strongly rejected the way they were implemented there.

  Many themes of later anti-Americanism began to appear from this very start. A key, though often subtle, element would be the view of America as a separate civilization, at first by Europe and later by other parts of the world as well. Though descended from Europe, it was also different, an experiment with unique features. Long before America was a power on the world scene, it had power as an example, a role model to be exalted or despised.

  Thus, while some Europeans as early as the eighteenth century would think that America offered the vision of a better future, others would consider it a horrifyingly distorted caricature of all that was good in their own society. The debate between these two standpoints, with many variations in each camp, would continue for centuries, shifting emphasis over time but maintaining the same basic themes down to the present. Such arguments, and the divisions between pro-American or antiAmerican sentiments, were always related to local political or philosophical conflicts as well.

  This dispute's first round took place in the eighteenth century as part of a broader debate over the proper form of society. Was change a good thing or something better to avoid or limit? Would such new forces as a faster pace of life, lower class barriers, democracy, and a mass rather than elite culture advance or destroy civilized life? For better or worse, America was seen as a test case of these and other propositions.

  Advocates of material progress, like the mercantilists, saw the development of America with its vast natural resources as a remarkable opportunity to enhance Europe's wealth. By providing raw materials and furnishing markets, colonies there would bring the mother country endless riches, though obviously only as long as they remained under European control. It was in this context that Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, an eighteenth-century French minister of finance and advocate of economic development, called America the "hope of the human race."'

  But their rivals, the physiocrats, asked why Europeans should become involved in this far-off land instead of focusing on preserving their way of life at home, with an emphasis on agriculture rather than commerce or industry. They feared the coming of a new type of society whose shape had not yet even become clear. But they already felt that American products or ideas would undermine traditional life. It was a sentiment perhaps best put into words later by the romantic Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, who warned in 1820 that America was a danger because it would destroy Europe's "supremely poetic" "other world" of "pleasant dreams" and "beautiful imaginings" with a soulless, low-quality, hardedged society.2

  America similarly became a test case in the debate over the nature of human beings themselves. Was America's newness a sign of unspoiled innocence or a rawness that would make it reject higher civilization? If everything good was already created by tradition, if European society was already at the peak of achievement, starting afresh was a dangerous and doomed enterprise. To the majority, the new land was simply backward, but a new wave of thinkers-whose agenda was also the renewal of Europe-argued that the very lack of deep-seated traditions and an established structure would let America create a successful society.

  One of the American experiment's most passionate and articulate proponents was Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur, a Frenchman who fought in his country's losing war against Britain and then became a farmer in upstate New York in 1765. When the United States gained independence two decades later, he wrote lyrically that America was "the most perfect society now existing in the world" because it was so fresh and flexible. It was welding together immigrants from all over Europe "into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great change in the world." In contrast to Europeans, Americans did not "toil, starve, and bleed" on behalf of princes but for their own benefit under leaders they freely chose. Europe would learn new ways of living and governance from this people's achievements.3

  Crevecoeur was in the minority. Most members of Europe's governing and intellectual elite believed that civilization was a delicate matter. They feared that any deviation from the existing order-a stable class system based on a monarch and an aristocracy setting standards-would be a catastrophic failure. From this perspective would arise the conservative version of anti-Americanism.

  Not even all advocates of change in Europe liked the American experiment. Many of them had their own vision of society to propose that they considered better and more worthy of global imitation than what the United States offered. While conservatives disdained America'
s innovations as too extreme, adherents of the romantic cultural movement and radical political ideas, which spread at the eighteenth century's end, found them to be too limited.

  Both schools would also have much in common, sometimes combining in strange and unexpected ways. When the United States was just a few years old, they were already agreeing to decry it as too materialistic and middle class. Its version of democracy was directionless, amplifying the worst impulses of the masses rather than the leadership of a cultured superior or intellectual elite. Radicals and conservatives certainly concurred that such a society would be a disaster if it was to be the model for their own countries or the world.

  But the very first debate on America, in the eighteenth century and long before the United States even existed, was over whether civilization was possible there at all. The initial thought of eighteenth-century European science, then in its infancy and much taken by ideas of innate and permanent characteristics, was that something "degenerate" about North America's environment made it innately inferior. This degeneracy theory would be discredited and eventually forgotten, yet its basic concept continued to form the basis, a subbasement in effect, for the nagging proposition that the United States was certainly different and also somehow inevitably wrong, bad, or a lesser place altogether.

  European civilization's striking discovery that it was more technologically advanced and the belief that it was more spiritually and culturally advanced than America's native inhabitants had to be explained. Why were the people of this little-known land relatively backward? Were they cursed by the lack of the proper religion, some racial handicap, or an environmental deficiency? Even if one recognized the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Incas in South America, why was there nothing remotely equal in the north?