Talk:Anti-Americanism/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Anti-Americanism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

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Archive 5

General considerations

Applying NPOV

Please, please, let's try to keep this unbiased, and let's try to avoid partisan bickering. We can do this. This article should consist of a report about what anti-Americanism is, who harbors this attitude, why they do, etc. It should also include replies; i.e., we don't want just to talk about the evils of the American military in Serbia, for example, without also giving intelligent, sympathetic explanations of their behavior. Don't try to convince people of the evils of America or the virtues of America--report the facts about anti-Americanism. --Larry Sanger

I don't see very many "fair, sympathetic" replies to the charges made. Not surprisingly, people have simply used it as a platform (for anti-Americanism, of course!). They can't be bothered to try to explore what intelligent Americans might offer in defense of some (not all) of this shockingly bad behavior on the part of Americans. I find that interesting. :-)

Definition of "Anti-Americanism"...

The article defines as, in its initial sentence, "Anti-Americanism is strong disapproval or hatred for the United States of America, its government, people, or its way of life." I don't feel thats an accurate definition. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "Opposed or hostile to the government, official policies, or people of the United States." The definition in the AHD is much broader than the definition in this article -- one can be opposed or hostile to the government or official policies without having "strong disapproval or hatred"... Furthermore, both definitions lump together such a broad category of people -- e.g., for example, both someone who strongly disapproves of American policies like capital punishment and opposition to international treaties, and also Osama bin Laden are anti-American, but they are utterly different kettles of fish. And the problem with this is that these people may well take offense at this lumping together.

Also consider the style of anti-Americanism frequently expressed by some French government officials -- that America is a "hyperpower" and that the European Union must become a new world superpower to counter American influence in the world. Now, that view might in part motivated by disapproval or hatred (though I doubt in this case the second) for the US government or its policies or the US people, but it needn't be. A mere desire to knock the US off its pedastal as sole world superpower need not be driven by any particular dislike of America, but merely by a desire to be more powerful and renowned than it. And yet the attitudes of these officials are frequently described as anti-Americans in studies of trans-atlantic international relations.

More generally, I consider myself an anti-American, in the sense that I wish the US to be removed from its status as sole world superpower, hopefully supplanted by a united Europe... This is driven in part by disapproval of a lot of US policies, but I don't consider merely opposing US policies would make me anti-American -- its diagnosis that America is on the whole (compared to generally more enlightened places such as Europe or Canada or New Zealand) a bad influence, and that its influence in the world must therefore be minimalised. But I don't hate America or its people, and I find being lumped together in one definition with mass murderers by people like Osama bin Laden rather offensive.

And what is this supposed to mean "They become anti-Americanism when the individuals or peoples affected see them as so pervasive and unremitting as to threaten indigenous values"? I don't see American national policies and political culture as threatening "indigenous values" -- I'm a first-worlder, I don't have indigenous values...

In summary, the definition in the article mostly misses the aspect of a desire to reduce the power and influence of the US in the world, and is likely to offend many opponents of the US by not clearly distinguishing with people who think US policies and political culture make it a bad influence on the world from people who think America is the Great Satan and that Allah says all Americans must die...

Specific issues

Funding "freedom fighters", terrorists and extremists

America has a history of supplying funds for "freedom fighters" and extremists. These can be provided by government, private citizens or a combination of the two. People who have suffered the consequences of this funding are naturally prone to see this activity in a negative light.

CIA funding is associated with a lot of illegal activities overseas. When they are not on US soil, they don't have to abide by US laws. Private funding should not be blamed on US, since US is made of immigrants from all over the world. Some Irish Americans support Ireland, some Chinese Americans support China, some Iraqi Americans support Iraq. They cannot represent US involvement.

Of course lots of Americans still have ties to their (previous) home countries, but they are still seen as Americans by people living there; their money is seem as "from the outside" notably as from America. even if it isn't from the US government.

If you count all involvement of US citizens as fueling hatred against the US, then we have the whole world against us because our population comprises of people who are or whose ancestors are from around the world, and they potentially interfere with every country in the world to make enemies. It is unfair to put the blame on the US for this. The mixture of people may also contribute to the hatred.

Even a close ally like the United Kingdom has a long history of Americans openly raising funds for Irish Republican causes. Funds have also been raised for the British National Party by the American Friends of the British National Party, in a manner denounced as illegal on both sides of the Atlantic by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in America and by Labour MPs in the United Kingdom.

The article shouldn't assume that funding the IRA is wrong (even if it obviously is; let your readers decide). It should also express defense of (and give an explanation for) the practice of funding of the IRA.

The word "Extremist" as used here is a propaganda term being used as a code word to demonize those out of favor with the media establishment.

Need to understand the causes

However to understand anti-Americanism you need to understand what causes it and the funding I'm talking about is well-documented. A patriotic, intelligent American should approve of being informed of this, if he didn't know of it already. To America's credit the Real IRA is a list of organisations that it is illegal to raise funds for and this possibly should have been highlighted to show that America is taking steps to stem this kind of funding.

Since we are making an attempt at writing from the neutral point of view, on such a supremely partisan topic as this, I think it is very important that we make this an example of how we can write unbiased stuff. Unbiased in this case means presenting the other side. You did know that there's another side, I'm sure. You might not want to think about it, or give it any credit, but it needs to be presented fairly if we're going to do justice to the nonbias policy. The first paragraph above is added as an example of something to which an objection is being made. Fairness demands that the allegedly objectionable behavior be given some manner of fair defense. (Actually, the manner of defense should probably be the ones used most commonly by the government or by its most prominent defenders at the time; William F. Buckley, for example. :-) ) I will celebrate if this actually succeeds in teaching you to understand your enemies. --LMS

a ground for anti-Americanism should be balanced with a defence

If you put up an example of grounds for anti-Americanism, you must also supply a fair, sympathetic reply to that, of a sort that a patriotic, intelligent American would approve.

I doubt a patriotic intelligent American would try and justify all of America's past actions. More likely they would talk about the relative scarcity of atrocities, more than made up for by America's democracy and egalitarianism, so that while noone is perfect it's still the best we've got. Or something like that. I think demanding a counterpoint for every point might not be providing an NPOV so much as restricting what material can go on here.

I contributed a piece on Americans sullying their own reputation and pointed out how other Americans can save the day by doing something positive. As Bill Clinton is too contraversal for many Americans I used Martin Luther King as a example no-one could criticise.

"Positive" is a value term here. One persons "positive action" is another's "Anti-Americanism", and vice-versa.

That comment about Americans salvaging their reputations seems more like an editorial than an encyclopedia piece; it implies a particular stand, that America needs to salvage its reputation, which is a position, not a fact. - Tim

Reasons for anti-Americanism not the same for everyone

One of the problems I have with this article is that, even though it begins the article by listing any of several things about American that various people might hate (separating the list with "or") it spends the rest of the article conflating them, as if everyone who hated American hated all those things at the same time. There might be "anti-Americans" in Europe, for example, might hate the general past and present practice of US foreign policy, but who still love to go to Hollywood movies and who don't hate the American people.

It seems to me that if you are going to begin an article by saying "X involves people who a, b, c, or d, then you have to discuss a, b, c, and d separately in the article. Otherwise, you are confusing the topic and not doing it justice.

Criticisms of U.S.A are very different depending on what culture you take. European people have very different reasons to be upset with U.S.A. than middle east people have. The reasons for anti-americanism should be categorized by cultures: European(western), islamic, South American, African, Asian, maybe more... Otherwise they don't make sense. You cannot say that some people dislikes U.S.A. because of they are too religious and some other people because they are not enough. That basically is sending the message that people who dislikes U.S.A. are extremists. But I can tell you that a lot of people that dislikes U.S.A. foreign policy are not extremists at all.

American broad strengths as offsets to individual misbehaviour

I don't see what the following is doing in an encyclopedia; again, do please look at neutral point of view.

Other observers see that actions by unrepresentative Americans can still sour the perception of America to various people both inside and outside of America. Some Americans make a practise of advocating aspects of American society known to be obnoxious to their audiences and this does help. Ultimately America's salvation is generally other Americans acting in commendable ways that show a redeeming side to a national character that other nationals have sullied, either conciously or unconciously. An excellent example of this is Martin Luther King who showed that America herself could start to heal infamous racial divides and discrimination if people worked together through non-violence.

Of course, the great strength of American society has always been its willingness to challenge political and other authorities and the "general wisdom". These values are recognized as essential to the functioning of a democracy and are enshrined in the United States Constitution which United States Military personnel and elected political officials are sworn to uphold.

The latter paragraph in particular is blatant opinion piece writing. Who says the great strength of American society is that? --LMS

I thought this was something we could all agree on -- Neutral point of view. Guess not.

I'm *not* trying to be argumentative here, but just curious: You would list the great strengths of "American" society as what??

anti-other country sentiment

There are legitimate criticisms to be raised against any country. This doesn't mean that there is widespread hatred of every country. There are plenty of bad things we could say about Mexico, if we wanted, but there is no anti-Mexican sentiment across the globe. There is no anti-Ugandan sentiment. Nobody cares about Uganda. Uganda doesn't make anyone else feel inferior, therefore, nobody hates it. That criticisms can be raised against the US doesn't say anything about why there is anti-American sentiment. Criticisms of America and anti-Americanism are really different subjects entirely. - Tim

Actually there is anti-Ugandan sentiment in the world, and there are people who care what happens in Uganda, it's actually a hot button in some circles (e.g., human rights advocates, ecologists, Africans...)

Understanding valid criticism

Bet you one of the main problems is the line "Understanding valid criticism can help Americans counter anti-Americanism", which appears right before we get into the details. This makes it seem like the details are important in so far as they help the reader be anti-anti-American. Otherwise, the article is shaping up really well, as wikipedia articles tend to do.

I agree, so I went ahead and deleted it:

Understanding valid criticism can help Americans counter anti-Americanism.

--Simon J Kissane

Religion in American life

Many sociologists theorise that the continuing vitality of religion in American life, compared to many European countries, is due to the lack of a strong state church (or indeed, any state church at all) during much of American history.

This statement does not seem to be an objection to or criticism of America, but a comment on religion in America. I do not object to the statement, as such, but think it should go in another article, such as Religion in America.

"America's religious tolerance and diversity, and its separation of church and state, are offensive to people in many cultures, such as Islam." Religious tolerance and diversity - is this why people who look like Arabs are being killed and harassed. Ask Blacks about their experience with "tolerance and diversity". Tolerance in the US is a work in progress and has a way to go. I fail to understand why someone in another country would hate Americans because they were too tolerant. The United States is not terribly tolerant of people why don't profess a belief in God (or even a non Christian version) - there is even the slogan "In God We Trust" on the money, for Christ sake. I am sick of all this self-congratulation in the media about "America's religious tolerance" - I say walk the walk before talking the talk.

Having lived here all my life, and having never been a Christian, I find these comments to be ridiculous. - Tim

I agree that these comments are ridiculous. In Afghanistan, the penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity is death. In the United States, among ordinary day to day people, nobody gives a rat's ass what your religion is. Can tolerance for diversity be improved in the United States? Sure, why not? But it still remains a fact that the degree of tolerance that we do have here is extraordinary to the majority of the world, and a source of distaste for them as well. -- Jimbo Wales

American pop culture

I was trying to make the point that much of the criticism of American pop culture in Europe seems to come from the "Cultural Elites" rather than everyday citizens, who by all accounts enjoy and view Star Wars and Sex and The City as much as Americans themselves do. --Robert Merkel

Bases of Criticism

The Anti-Americanism page sounds like it was written by Americans confused by why people might be resentful of Americans. Perhaps only those outside of the United States should be writing here. Sounds a little like CNN talking heads pondering the question, "Why could they possibly hate us? Does anyone remember the slogan, "Yankee go home"?

First of all a distinction needs to be made between what people in other countries think of Americans (U.S citizens as opposed to Canadians) and what they think of US leaders. Many in other countries direct their anger at the imperialism of the US government while feeling hospitable to citizens of the United States. To lump these two distinct concepts together into one generic term, Anti-Americanism, only confuses issues and does not help in the understanding of what is really going on.

There are a number of reasons why people might be angry at the United States:

Support for unpopular dictators in other countries
Destabilizing elected governments
Expecting everyone everywhere to speak and understand English
Double standard in the support of International norms in all countries but Israel
Unilateral stance taken toward International treaties - global warming, land mines, International court
US domination of International financial institutions
Universal jurisdiction of US laws and courts - without any world accountability
The US standard of living may be a source of envy

Which of these is not covered in the main article? --AxelBoldt

Probably 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 IMHO --Artistotle

Even phrasing the term as "Anti-Americanism" shows an arrogance toward other countries in the Americas and may even be further grounds for hostility toward those in the US who cannot imagine that there are others in this continent.

The other problem with this entry is slanted nature of the writing - " to violence, such as that shown by some Islamists and by Osama bin Laden." What violence has Osama bin Laden committed and why is he and Islamists being singled out in this entry? "mass murderers like bin Laden" - looks to me like somebody has been watching too much CNN.

Stereotypes of Americans

Anti-Americanism is often based (rightly or wrongly) on perceived "Stereotypes of American Character", perhaps drawn from the actions of some Americans who travel abroad - because that's one of the main ways people in other countries form opinions of foreign citizens):

Americans tend to see everything in black and white rather than shades of gray.
Americans place too much faith in their nation's government, particularly its morality in foreign policy.
Americans know nothing about what goes on beyond their borders.
Americans believe they know everything and don't mind sharing that knowledge.
Americans don't bother paying attention to what the rest of the world thinks of their actions, hence getting a rude shock when they find out.
Americans are braggarts.
Americans don't understand that other peoples may actually prefer some aspects of their way of life to the American way.
Americans are totally tactless.
With regard to lack of tact, when travelling through foriegn countries, they complain endlessly about things that are different to the US rather than going out and experiencing them.
etc.

These kinds of things (fair or not) are perceived in various parts of the world, and they're really about common characteristics of Americans, rather than actions of American government or other American institutions.

Islamic views of Americans

One big problem that I see with this page is that for the most part, it consists primarily of the sorts of complaints about America that only Americans (or inhabitants of similar Western countries) are likely to make. These are mostly things that we do not like about our own country.

For example, the Middle Eastern and Islamic countries which are the most virulently anti-American most certainly do not take issue with such things as our use of capital punishment.

It should be noted that people hate America for reasons that are not things that we do not like about ourselves, at all. They hate us for having freedom of religion, freedom of speech, trial by jury, a democratically elected government, an open economy permitting work by women and the charging of interest on loans, for attempting to educate everyone, for outlawing slavery.

It is a sort of (benevolent) Western bias, I suppose, to fail to recognize that these are at least important reasons why we are hated. We apply our own moral standards to the hated, searching our souls for what we have done wrong. But we should also look at the things that we have done right.

Take as an example our often misguided funding of very questionable freedom fighters. There can be no question that the victims of these so-called freedom fighters should hate us, and the article points this out quite well. But why then do the beneficiaries of our misguided funded hate us as well? Because the very ideas that make our funding of them stupid (i.e. they are not freedom fighters at all) makes them hate us (because we are free).

Afghanistan makes for a useful example. We (quite improperly, I think) helped the so-called freedom fighters there kick out the Soviet Union because we were (quite properly, I think) convinced that the Soviets constituted an evil empire. But those freedom fighters hated us even as they took our help, because of all the values that I listed above.

My overall point, whenever this gets incorporated into the article, if it does, is that we shouldn't just list things that we dislike about ourselves and then feel that we've done a good job of being unbiased and critical of our own culture. All we've done is miss the point: they hate us for the very things that we consider good about ourselves. Why that should be boggles our minds, but nonetheless it is true. --Jimbo Wales

Jimbo: I think there are two entirely different phenomena that are sometimes called anti-Americanism. There is the hatred of America by some Islamic extremists; and then there is the dislike or envy (not hatred) that people in many other Western countries have for certain aspects of the U.S. The first is more often called anti-Americanism, especially recently; but the second has been called anti-Americanism as well, e.g. in works on the history of U.S.-European relations, or French ambitions to turn the EU into a military alliance to counter American influence in NATO. -- Simon J Kissane

They hate us for having freedom of religion, freedom of speech, trial by jury, a democratically elected government, an open economy permitting work by women and the charging of interest on loans, for attempting to educate everyone, for outlawing slavery.

The UK has had all these things, most of them earlier than the US, plus the UK pissed off pretty much everybody all over the world as a colonial power. Why is there no Anti-Great-Britainism?

I don't see any evidence that either of the above factors significantly contributes to middle-eastern anti-americanism. I think middle-eastern anti-americanism has two deep roots:

US support for Israel, which is seen as a terrorist occupant.
Envy. Islam was supposed to rule the world, and it did for some 1000 years. During the middle ages, Islam was the most advanced and enlightened civilization. They kicked out the crusaders, and they almost made it to Vienna. They simply think they deserve to be in charge, and feel humiliated by their weakness.

--AxelBoldt

One recommendation I have for the article is for someone to rewrite it so that instead of saying "They hate America for propping up various evil dictators from time to time", it says "They hate America because of the perception that America props up various evil dictators from time to time". This is one of our best tricks for writing something more neutral -- talking about waht people believe, rather than what actually is the case.

The Islamic areas probably just want to lead their own lifestyle, at the various level of adherence to religious and cultural rules, and see this frustrated. Feeling impotent about Palestinian treatment is a big frustration with pollsters finding it to almost over-whelmingly one of the one of key subjects in that region. This amplifies any sense of interference and possible anger over being supported by the Americans during the Cold War and then being ignored afterwards.

September 11th was very sad, 5000 people died, mostly americans. if you do feel sorrow take 1 min silence for all thoes who have died....... if you took 1 min for thoes americans take another 3 mins for the soviet troops who were fighting in Afganastan against the taliban who were TRAINED AND SUPPLIED by the US government...... once again if you took 1 min for americans then take 5 mins for all the Iraqie civilans who died not only in the war but in the 10 years following as a direct result of the US sanctions. i could go on like this but when i had finnished then you would have taken 1 hour worth of silence, 1 min for the american casualities and 59 for all their victims of their forien policey arround the world. and if you want an view by an intelligant american (if there is such a thing) "an american life is worth more" isn't it?

English language dominance

Some of the things listed above strike me as just plain silly. Either Americans as I know them do not expect everyone to speak English (what a stupid stereotype of Americans!), or they do so rationally since lots of people do speak English as a second language in at least both Europe and Asia. They do so, of course, because the United States is the greatest country in the world and they love us. ;-) (I'm just deliberately being biased here for fun on the talk page.) --Jimbo Wales

Jimbo, I didn't say that those stereotypes were all rational or fair, nor was I saying that even if the stereotypes had some truth to them they were necessarily bad things about Americans (the ability to come out and call a spade a spade is extremely refreshing after dealing with polite obfuscators). I just said that they existed. --Robert Merkel

Oh, yes, I see that now. My apologies. :-) I think I'll butt out for a while. As I say, at the current time and probably for the next month or two, my rabidly pro-American sentiments will be running so high that any contribution here by me will simply cause more trouble than it solves. I guess one way to gracefully help us reach a consensus is to know when to bow out of a discussion because I'm hopelessly partisan. --Jimbo Wales

Equating U.S.A. with America

Nowhere in the article is it explained that U.S.A. is not America. There are more countries in America. Also, this points to one of the problems people has with U.S.A. assuming that they are the center of the world.

British attitudes

This can lead British people to suspect that Americans commonly harbor anti-British sentiments and that would be more widespread if it was not for prominent American anglophile role-models such as Bill Clinton, who was educated at Oxford University.

This makes it sound as if (1) many British people suspect Americans commonly harbor anti-British sentiments, which sounds completely silly to me; maybe some Brits have that absolutely ludicrous suspicion, but not many; and as if (2) the fact that Clinton was educated at Oxford is widely taken as indicating that he's an anglophile, that he's very much responsible for mitigating some (to me, questionable) suspicions Brits have that Americans are widely anti-British. All of this sounds extremely fishy and overblown to me, and requires some evidence, or some appropriate qualification (I wouldn't know of what sort). --Larry Sanger

de Tocqueville

I hesitate to get to far into this subject, but I am prepared to make one observation. There is a tendency with some contributors to confuse anti-americanism with criticism of the United States. Just becaus someone criticizes the USA does not imply being anti-american, even if that criticism is extensive. Americans would do well to read Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Many of his observations about the USA during the early 1830's still apply to this day. --- user:eclecticology

Effect of U.S. intellectual property law

Removed from article: Free speech is attacked by promoting ever more restrictive copyright and patent policies, with the introduction of legislation.

Free speech is not the opposite of copyrights. --rmhermen such as DMCA and UNITA and pressuring other countries to do the same.

How so? copyright prevents saying things that have been said by others previously. It also prevents extending such speech with new material. The US originally favoured free speech over copyright, but that's long ago and it's time US politicians modified their rhetoric accordingly, if they no longer believe in it. The point about DMCA and UCITA (not UNITA) is that they prevent creating even completely original material if it says things that large copyright holders would prefer not to be generally known.

I would add Digital Millenium Act and Dmitry Sklyarov case to this article, because it allows to sue foreign citizens for what they did abroad and is not a crime according to their local law. -- User:Vassili Nikolaev

Someone wrote "Its lack of actual separation of church and state is offensive to the Western world." Since I have some doubt that the entire Western world is in fact offended by the tyrannical American theocracy, I have removed this ridiculous statement. --the Epopt

Good point, considering the UK, for example, has no (concious) seperation of church and state. -- Sam

What is "Americanism", if not part of the name of a Christian radio show? (Voice of Americanism)--n8chz

Hmmm! Not to be confused with Voice of Americanism!

Ther are also two ways to interpret the title: having views that are against American, or ones that are against Americanisms. This depends on whether you treat the suffix "-ism" as modifying only the "American" in the expression or the whole phrase; the latter seems to be the usual. Eclecticology

Ultimately, the many disparate phenomena that have been labelled 'anti- Americanism' have nothing in common other than some degree of opposition to the U.S. It can therefore be misleading to place together under one label all people, ideologies, attitudes, etc., opposed to various U.S. policies or habits, particulary since, America's people are themselves quite diverse in their own values.

The above sounds like an opinion, indeed an argument for a point of view. It should be attributed to its advocate, or omitted: "Some people believe that the many phenomana labelled, etc." --Ed Poor

I disagree. Just because it "sounds like" an opinion to Ed doesn't mean that it is. Is he suggesting that there is some other commonality to these views? I'll put it back. Eclecticology 17:22 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

This parenthetical was added by 132.210.72.146:

For example, many people believe (even though this is not fully justified) that the United States have, in the past, supported both Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the Afghan Taliban

America gave Saddam weapons and economic aid during the Iran-Iraq War, and gave the Taliban economic aid in exchange for their efforts to eradicate poppy farming as part of the War on Drugs (see those articles). This statement therefore seems fully justified to me. Bryan