Another Western Way of War
Lee on Mar 01 2008 at 7:40 pm | Filed under: Around the Web
From a somewhat shocking interview of Victor Davis Hanson by Swiss newspaper Junge Freiheit, Abe Greenwald clips a portion where Hanson ferociously thrashes the contemporary European Weltanschuuang. He calls it a secularized, socialist pacifism, that has deluded a continent into a perilously ephemeral sense of pride and “arrogance.” The degree and form of the animosity exhibited by Hanson is so striking, that it is actually evocative of the antagonistic criticism of the United States we hear so often from the European intelligentsia. Because of that, one is reminded that however much Europeans bemoan American indifference or dismissal of their views and values, it is very rare indeed that anyone dishes them back some of their own rhetorical excess in such similarly adversarial terms.
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Not to mention Hanson’s reputation for measured, reasoned arguments bashing Europeans.
While your admonishment is well taken, Josh, Hanson has the distinction of arguing from the position of an apostate. The difference between his critiques of Europe and virtually every European critique of America is that Hanson has at least lived the life of the typical democratic socialist man of the left. The criticism from Europe does not come from anyone who has given capitalism a fair shake, much less had the decency to acknowledge that American military prowess is the reason that Europe even exists in this day and age. Europeans who recognize that fact don’t suffer from the same anti-American virus, and typically don’t attack America.