Europe and "the world"

Macron looks tough

It is amusing to observe how European leaders and, indeed, the "thinking" population of Europe believe that they are responsible for managing the world. Every weekday I receive via email a daily digest of news reports from a German site called euro|topics. (The link here is to the English version.) Every weekday there is a topic, and two of the recent topics prompt the observation with which I began.

For instance, on August 28 the question was "Was the Paris refugee summit a success?" Thus, the photo above.

Apparently European and African leaders met in Paris to discuss ways of stemming migration across the Mediterranean. The summit came up with this response to the refuge problem: Asylum applications can now be processed directly in African states. Commentators have reacted variously, "welcoming the move," but doubting that it can be implemented. Others are aghast, and call the meeting "the summit of disgrace." Among the different news outlets weighing in were The Guardian, Deutschlandfunk, La Stampa, Kurier (Austria), and a Czech newspaper. In other words, these are all the responses of editorial writers of European media.

The UN Security Council meditates

On August 30, today, the question was "How should the world deal with North Korea?"

Indeed.


This topic came on the heels of North Korean launching a missile over Japan and the Pacific. Perhaps I am being supercilious: certainly we should be worried about North Korea. But Europe has got itself in a morass because of Angela Merkel's welcome to immigrants. The reaction to the morass is always a summit. The picture here is apparently a meeting of the UN Security Council. I am sure they will figure things out.

Photos: picture-alliance/dpa

Group think in our time

The Czech Republic is obviously a country not well known by many in the U.S. or Canada. Yesterday on the the ferry several local people were asking a man from that country about his  home. The name "Havel" came up, as lots of people may know of the former president, even if they know very little else about the Czech Republic. The Czech man mentioned the current president, and in doing so introduced several current "tropes" into his comments that show the effect of how group think has taken over the minds of many people. Group think releases you from the necessity of thinking for yourself; you simply have to repeat phrases that people around you are saying, especially if they are saying these things as if they were the truth. As in The New York Times or in American universities.

One trope is "businessman." Business now means for many people greed, lack of concern for others, selfishness, etc. If you are trying to tell another person what someone is like, if your first descriptive term is "businessman," then everyone gets the picture, right?

The comment that really captures group think, however, was the man's characterization of the current president of the Czech Republic as "immigrant hating." Again, no need to think. Hate closes off all discussion, e.g., of the subject of whether there might be a valid reason for limiting the number of immigrants that can enter a country.

Picture credit: Shutterstock

Lithuanian outhouses

The EU's love of regulations strikes again. The Latvian minister for environmental protection has just issued regulations concerning outhouses, of which there seem to be quite a number in this still poor country. My daily European news digest has this startling headline: "Droht lettischen Plumpsklos das Aus?" (Do Latvian Outhouses Threaten an "Out"?). I think "out" here refers to exiting the EU.

The Canadians, it seems, already have regulations for outhouses. It appears that outhouses are part of a growing environmental movement.

Photo credit: Tomasz Kuran

German anti-Americanism

The title of this post is perhaps a bit overdone (überspitzt, as my friend Eberhard in Marburg would say). I spent six days in Germany last week, visiting friends of my youth with whom I had studied in Marburg so many years ago. I found myself forced into some discussions with several of them concerning American politics.

For several years now I have withdrawn from offering opinions on American politics. Frankly, I cannot bear the logorrhea, whether from liberals or conservatives. In Canada, where I am spending two months, few people have even bothered to ask me about Donald Trump. Whenever the subject comes up, I simply say that I did not come to Canada to discuss American politics.

Several of my German friends, because we go back so far, were more aggressive on the subject, and I occasionally let myself be drawn into responding, but not often. It goes without saying that they are anti-Trump and that they follow, in their newspaper reading, the president's goings on. I suppose it is understandable that they might be concerned about his foreign policy or the fate of alliances between the U.S. and Europe. It goes without saying that they are apocalyptic about the environment. In other words, they sounded like New York liberals.

There is a world of difference, however, between these Germans and American liberals. Liberalism in its true incarnation has not had much purchase in Europe. Whatever their commitment to representative democracy, the nations of Europe are strongly interventionist in economic and social policies. They have managed (for the time being anyway) to establish strong welfare states, while at the same time being capitalist. It strikes me that the success of this model has depended on the support of the U.S. since World War II, without being burdened by the large military outlays of the U.S. Evidently, Germans think they have done better than the U.S. (Maybe they think they should rule the world again?) One can't help wondering how long these countries can keep the balls in the air.

To the anti-Americanism. What I found surprising was that my friends would be so concerned about healthcare in the U.S. I mean, what does it have to do with them? America's failures in respect of health care, however, serve to point out the superiority of Europe. That's what I mean by the anti-Americanism, which is not a new phenomenon. American liberals, in their hatred of Trump, have simply given the Europeans a cudgel with which to beat up on the U.S.

What really distinguishes the Germans who criticize the U.S. from their American counterparts is the much deeper level of historical and literary understanding of the former. Whether they are on the right or on the left, Germans know their history and they understand not only its faults and failures (Nazism), but also its achievements. They are balanced about their country. American liberalism, on the other hand, is shot through with disdain for the American past, is embarrassed about patriotism. Ironically, in recent years Germans have taken to waving their flag, at least at sports events.