Interesting reading

[sigerson]

As posted by my friend cmprince...

...if you have a spare half hour, an article on anti-Americanism at home and abroad

Comments

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. Fascinating.

[anacrucis.livejournal.com]

I have not, sadly, had a full half hour, but the first few paragraphs bring to mind an analogy I once used, in explaining the 'yankees suck' thing to a visitor from New Zealand:

"You know how a lot of people around the world feel about the US? That's how a lot of people in the US feel about New York."

I think maybe that analogy could be turned the other way to illustrate anti-american sentiment, to people who understand the "yankees suck" mentality.

[sylvantechie.livejournal.com]

Interesting, but it seemed to me more about the author's anti-european feelings rather than about anti-americanism - the main theme I felt was 'europeans shouldn't feel anti-american because the european countries all have their own problematic issues'. He raises some interesting and valid points, but his language is often very slanted, he makes a some tenuous connections, and in a number places he states his opinion as fact. For me this detracts from the work and greatly reduces the effectiveness of his message, and his various snarky parenthetical comments don't help.

On a more meta level, reading this reminded me what a pain it is to read long things on the web. In a magazine, book, or paper it would have been easy to read that artical, but on the web I found myself having to re-read sections multiple times and kept finding myself wanting to skip ahead sentences and even whole paragraphs. This is not unique to this article, but IME generally true of lengthy writings on the web, and I don't really understand why. How do others find reading things on the web?

[cmprince.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was necessarily an anti-european argument, more anti-european press. From there, he tried to connect them to an apologist faction of the American press, which he does with varying degrees of success. I agree that the style hindered his argument. There are a lot of well-meaning, intelligent people who make important arguments, but then leave it open to attack because of its style.

On the whole, though, I thought some good points were made. It would have been nice to make the connection that media control by the few (as in the cases he cites) is a Bad Thing, and that American media rules are leading us down a similar path.

Long articles on the web have the same effect on me. I used to think the NYT broke up it's articles into seperate web pages just to get more click-through revenue (and no doubt, this must be one of the reasons it does so), but for readability some of the longer articles are best read in sections.

[2h2o.livejournal.com]

I was with the author until part IV. As you say, his sentiments got in the way. It was a fascinating survey of the relevant literature, though, and I think it helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on the matter.

[haak0n.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link.

Most of what I was going to post has already been said - author's contributions are underwhelming, but the general topic is not. If you're interested, I can vouch for Robert Kagan as a good and serious writer on this subject.

Two thoughts:
1) American hegemony may be unique in that the U.S. produces and gives voice to its own strongest critics.
2) (warning - faint tinge of politics) The U.S. administration exudes an appearance of disdain for the opinions of others, something that exacerbates (but is not primarily responsible for) hostility at home and abroad. But given that much anti-Americanism is said to be rooted in a disdain for American culture and character, I am bemused by the notion (often implied if rarely stated explicitly) that a change of administration will repair the nation's image worldwide. Kagan's view is far more plausible.

[2h2o.livejournal.com]

> often implied if rarely stated explicitly

Um: have you watched any of the DNC speeches?