Anti-Americanism as Buffonery

Anti-Americanism is a form of mental illness, a manifestation of a personality disorder, and a fashion-statement all in one. What a bargain. If only there were some real money in it the world would be filthy rich. The problem is that the illness makes it nearly impossible to cope in the world. Anti-Americanism is a serious mental disorder and personality disorder that flourishes in weak people. Most of them start life with serious mental and personality disorders, and like the fool who starts out smoking crack "occasionally" and ends up a full-blown addict, so it is with the anti-American who finds his attitude has taken over whatever original mind and personality he might once have possessed, leaving him a shouting, maniacal, fucked-up lunatic. I got curious and looked into a bit of Buffon, and then turned to a review of Jean-Francois Revel, Anti-Americanism.

I've written a number of times here on Buffon, and more often on the origins of anti-Americanism. Here's a bit from wikipedia. I cut out most of it because it's so silly it wasn't worth looking at. I use these posts as resources for further writing, and this piece below is in line with that project. I keep what I hope will be of use. Hope it's of interest to you, too, dear reader, and also the final product, whenever that comes about.

The degeneracy thesis

The Comte de Buffon, a leading French naturalist, developed the "degeneracy thesis" in the mid-eighteenth century. It held that the American landmasses were inferior to Europe and in decline due to atmospheric conditions.

In the mid- to late-eighteenth century, a theory emerged among European intellectuals that the New World landmasses were inherently inferior to Europe. The so-called "degeneracy thesis" held that climatic extremes, humidity and other atmospheric conditions in America physically weakened both men and animals.[27] Two authors, James W. Ceaser and Philippe Roger, have interpreted this theory as a "a kind of prehistory of anti-Americanism." [4][28] Purported evidence for the idea included the smallness of American fauna, dogs that ceased to bark, and venomous plants;[29] one theory put forth was that the New World had emerged from the Biblical flood later than the Old World.[30] Native Americans were also held to be feeble, small, and without ardor.[31]

The theory originated with Comte de Buffon, a leading French naturalist, in his Histoire Naturelle (1766). [31] The French writer Voltaire joined Buffon and others in making the argument. [29] Dutchman Cornelius de Pauw, court philosopher to Frederick II of Prussia became its leading proponent.[4] While Buffon focused on the American biological environment, de Pauw attacked people native to the continent.[30] In 1768, he described America as "degenerate or monstrous" colonies and argued that, "the weakest European could crush them with ease."[32]

The theory was extended to argue that the natural environment of the United States would prevent it from ever producing true culture. Paraphrasing de Pauw, the French Encyclopedist Abbé Raynal wrote, "America has not yet produced a good poet, an able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single science."[33] The theory was debated and rejected by early American thinkers such as Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson; Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1781), provided a detailed rebuttal of de Buffon.[4] Hamilton also vigorously rebuked the idea in Federalist No. 11 (1787).[31] The living examples of Jefferson and Franklin—vigorous geniuses and clearly not degenerate—helped refute the thesis.[30]

Research into the degeneracy idea dates to at least 1944 and the work of Italian historian Antonello Gerbi.[30] One critic, citing Raynal's ideas, suggests that it was specifically extended to the English colonies that would become the United States.[34]

Roger suggests that the idea of degeneracy posited a symbolic, as well as a scientific America, that would evolve beyond the original thesis. He argues that Buffon's ideas formed the root of a "stratification of negative discourses" that has recurred throughout the two countries' relationship (and has been matched by persistent anti-Gallic sentiment in the United States).[28]

Politics and ideology

The young United States also faced criticism on political and ideological grounds. Ceaser argues that the Romantic strain of European thought and literature, hostile to the Enlightenment view of reason and obsessed with history and national character, disdained the rationalistic American project. The German poet Nikolaus Lenau commented: "With the expression Bodenlosigkeit (absence of ground), I think I am able to indicate the general character of all American institutions; what we call Fatherland is here only a property insurance scheme." Ceaser argues in his essay that such comments often repurposed the language of degeneracy, and the prejudice came to focus solely on the United States and not Canada and Mexico. [4]

The nature of American democracy was also questioned. The sentiment was that the country lacked "[a] monarch, aristocracy, strong traditions, official religion, or rigid class system," according to Rubin, and its democracy was attacked by some Europeans in the early nineteenth century as degraded, a travesty, and a failure.[35] The French Revolution, which was loathed by many European conservatives, also implicated the United States and the idea of creating a constitution on abstract and universal principles.[4] That the country was intended to be a bastion of liberty was also seen as fraudulent given that it had been established with slavery.[36] ("How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" asked Samuel Johnson in 1775.[37] He famously stated that, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."[35])

With the rise of American industry in the late nineteenth century, intellectual anti-American discourse entered a new form. Mass production, the Taylor system, and the speed of American life and work became a major threat to some intellectuals' view of European life and tradition.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "The breathless haste with which they (the Americans) work - the distinctive vice of the new world - is already beginning ferociously to infect old Europe and is spreading a spiritual emptiness over the continent."

It has been argued that this thesis transformed into a Heideggerian critique of technologism. Heidegger wrote in 1935: "Europe lies today in a great pincer, squeezed between Russia on the one side and America on the other. From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same, with the same dreary technological frenzy and the same unrestricted organization of the average man." Oswald Spengler had made similar claims in 1931's Man and Technics and his 1934 bestseller The Hour of Decision. In 1921, the Spaniard Luis Araquistáin wrote a book called El Peligro Yanqui ("The Yankee Peril"), in which he condemned American nationalism, mechanization, anti-socialism ("socialism is a social heresy there") and architecture, finding particular fault with the country's skyscrapers, which he felt diminished individuality and increased anonymity. He called the United States "a colossal child: all appetite..."[38]

As European immigration to the United States continued and the country's economic potential became more obvious, anti-American stances grew a much more explicit geopolitical dimension. A new strand of anti-American sentiment started to appear as America entered the competition for influence in the Pacific, and anti-Americanism was widespread among the Central Powers after the U.S. entered the First World War. Furthermore, many of the anti-American ideological threads spread to other areas, such as Japan and Latin America, where Continental philosophy was popular and growing American power was increasingly viewed as a threat. In political terms, even among the allies of the United States, Britain and France, there was resentment at the end of the war as they found themselves massively in debt to the United States. These sentiments became even more widespread during the interbellum and Great Depression and sometimes tended toward the anti-Semitic: the belief that America was ruled by a Jewish conspiracy was common in countries ruled by fascists before and during World War II.

French author Jean-François Revel wrote that "For skeptics of democratic capitalism, the United States is, quite simply, the enemy. For many years, and still today, a principal function of anti-Americanism has been to discredit the nation that stands as the supreme alternative to socialism. More recently, Islamists, anti-modern Greens, and others have taken to pillorying the U.S. for the same reason."[26]The belief that America was ruled by a Jewish conspiracy or that Israel was an American puppet state has also motivated anti-American hatred in some circles during the last third of the 20th century.

In early 2002, the #1 best seller in France was L'Effroyable imposture, which claimed that 9/11 was a conspiracy orchestrated by the U.S. government[50]. It broke the French record for first-month book sales.[51] In Europe in 2002, vandalism of American companies was reported in Venice, Athens, Berlin, Zürich, Tbilisi, and Moscow.[52]

French anti-americanism predates the founding of the United States with the belief that it was a barbaric land and all who went there also degenerated.[54] A particularly strong source of anti-americanism has been the European Extreme-Right. This has been very visible in the French National Front, for example.[55]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism


In a fit of better judgment I deleted my concluding comments. Feel free below to make any coherent points you care to.