Talk:Anti-Americanism/Archive 13

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Introduction to Possible causes of Anti-American sentiment

I do not like that part. "Anti-American sentiment is a broad term" is a non-information. I find hard to see that any reasonable person would honestly claim that any racist sentiment could be "legitimate", and those who allegedly hold it - I deleted them - are probably spread all over the world - I know that there are many in Korea and Muslim communities in Asia and I find hard to believe that there are none in Africa. The opinions parts of this article connect to "anti-Americanism" are widespread in the US as well. Plus, it is ridiculous to put emphasis on left-wing intellectuals. Intellectuals per se are not more racist than average people, and have no doubt that Neonazis hate the US as much as any "evil commie". Get-back-world-respect 21:55, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

If "anti-Americanism" is taken to mean criticism of American foreign policy or culture, it isn't racist. Nowhere is it claimed that racist sentiment is legitimate. I'm fine with no singling out any particular groups in the intro, in fact I'd prefer it — I just didn't want to make too radical a change from the previous version. It is certainly informative to say that anti-Americaan sentiment is a broad term, because it's important to know that no-one agrees on what exactly it is, or whether the term is even meaningful. Cadr 22:01, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

If "anti-Americanism" is taken to mean criticism of American foreign policy then we have to start articles about "anti-Indianism", "anti-pakistaniism", "anti-Saudiism", "anti-Japanism", "anti-Libyanism", etc., etc. Words ending on -ism and describing an attitude usually label a strong, nearly fanatical conviction of something, like marxism, jingoism, anti-semitism. Hence when connected with "anti-" and a particular country they are racist. The problem is that many try to label criticism of policies as anti-...ism in order to defame and downplay it. Get-back-world-respect 01:41, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately we can't change the meaning of the word in order to make it easier to write articles on it. Many people who criticize American government policy only, and actually praise other aspects of America (e.g. Chomsky) are frequently labelled as anti-American. True, this may be deliberate exaggeration in order to dicredit such people, or there may be people who genuinely believe (wrongly, IMO) that strong criticism the government during a war is anti-American. The article needs to take into account the whole range of POVs. I do agree that "anti-Americanism" looks like it ought to mean fanatical and irrational dislike of anything American, but the fact is that so many people who aren't like that at all are labelled anti-American that we have to be a bit more flexible about what the word means. Still I would be welcome to see a careful distinction between people/things that are accused of being anti-American and people/things which almost undoubtably are anti-American by any reasonable definition of the word. Cadr 12:54, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

It's not important if neonazis hate america just as much as commies or more. The important part is that historicly propaganda spread by the Soviet Union has greatly increased antiamericanism across the world. Earlier propaganda by the Third Reich was much less spread and has been almost completly forgoten.

It is your opinion that:

* "Soviet propaganda" was propaganda.

* It increased anti-Americanism (whatever you take that to be).

We cannot state these things as facts in the intro; it's too controversial and POV. Cadr 12:54, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think no one would reject that there was anti-American propaganda in the Soviet Union or Islamic countries and that it increased anti-Americanism in the countries of the Warsaw Pact and Islamic countries. What we should not do is pretend that legitimate criticism of the US could legitimately be labeled anti-Americanism or that this kind of racism was more widespread in Europe than elsewhere or that leftist intellectuals had a greater tendency to it than working class nationalists. Get-back-world-respect 16:47, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I mostly agree with you here. However, we should not call anti-American propaganda in the Soviet Union propaganda, because calling anything propaganda is inherently POV. Of course, if we had any specific examples of such propaganda, we could certainly point to information showing it to be false — a far more NPOV aproach. My issue with your argument is only that "anti-American(ism)" is frequently used to label people who are clearly not racist or reflexively against anything that has any association with America, and this useage of the term (even if it has its origins in hyperbole and smear-tactics) should be mentioned and discussed in the article, since it is so widespread. Othwerwise, the article is in danger of implying that lots of (potentially) legitimate criticisms of America are anti-American. If we really want to describe anti-Americanism as a form of racism, we would have to remove all mention of criticism of American culture and foreign policy from the article, since such criticism could not have anything to do with anti-Americanism in this narrow (racist) sense. (NB: I do not regard criticism of specific aspects of a country's culture to be racist, which may be moderately controversial, I don't know. In any case, my point about foreign policy still stands...) Cadr 17:53, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I live close to the former Berlin wall. That wall was called "anti-fascist protection fence" by the government of the GDR. Do you think this should not be called propaganda?

It shouldn't be called propaganda for the reasons I gave above. It's fine to explain why it is usually preceived as propaganda, though. Cadr 20:30, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Propaganda just means that the information was presented in a way to fit the ideological preferences of the one who uses it. It is overdone if you always avoid the term propaganda. The "Country of Evil" term is clearly propaganda, as were Soviet terms used towards the US. Get-back-world-respect 20:36, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Calling something propaganda implies that it isn't true, which is POV in the case of subjective statements such as "X is evil" or "X is Fascist". Easier for everyone to avoid using the P word in such circumstances, or at least explain who thinks that it's propaganda and why. Cadr 20:43, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think it is legitimate to write that anti-American racism exists, that "anti-Americanism" is often used to defame and downplay legitimate criticism of the US and understanding those legitimate criticisms is vital for understanding "anti-American" racism because the negligence to distinguish between criticism of particular aspects of a country and hatred towards the country as a whole is what makes the difference between racists and critics. Get-back-world-respect 20:25, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with what you say, but it's still POV. Anti-Americanism is often used to describe non-racist sentiments. This is possibly owing to exaggeration on the part of the user of the word, but it might be because they actually think that certain criticisms of American policy or culture are inherently anti-American. For example, flag-burning is not racist by any stretch of the imagination, but people who indulge in the practice might well be described as anti-American by commentators on the right. In my opinion, this is because they're using smear-tactics — labelling people who make legitimate protest as anti-American when in fact they are not, but this is just one POV. We can't promote this POV in the article, because it isn't NPOV to imply that large number of right-wing commentators are duplicitous in their use of the word. Cadr 20:43, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think when foreigners burn US flags that is usually racist. Get-back-world-respect 20:46, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Well I completely disagree, and so would a lot of other people. You can't promote that POV in the article. Cadr

Also, you keep picking out peripheral issues in my comments and not responding to any of the arguments in them. Cadr 20:57, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I do not see a need to discuss the propaganda thing at large because the article can remain as it is with us agreeing to differ. Get-back-world-respect 21:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

The sentence "Anti-American sentiment" is a broad term, and opinions vary greatly on what constitutes anti-American sentiment, whether it is legitimate, who holds it, and what can be said to cause or explain it. is obsolete after the introduction. If you want to keep parts of it move them to the top, it does not make sense to define the term twice.

I do not want to keep the Muggeridge quote because it makes seem as if anti-Americanism was mainly based on envy which I doubt very much and that explanation is described above already. Get-back-world-respect 20:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Not sure I quite agree on either point, but you can have your way on this one. Cadr 20:45, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

For an American to understand why so many people hate America, all they must do is walk into their local Wal-Mart (especially the food section) have a look around and think "Half the world is in poverty and dying of hunger." That should explain it.

Greece presiding over EU, US media hatespeech and singled out anti-US regions and individuals

As I exlpained in the edit summaries, the mentioning of Greece presiding over the EU during the outbreak of the US war against Iraq ads nothing here but could be misinterpreted because Greece was not presiding over NATO and it had nothing to do with the previously mentioned Greek dictatorship.
The US media hatespeech is not my POV but factual and sourced.
Regarding the singled out alleged "anti-Americanists" see above. And do not revert before checking talk. Get-back-world-respect 03:24, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Pro-American sentiment

That article was voted to be deleted. I find it a good idea to include valuable parts of it in this article as another user suggested. Get-back-world-respect 17:45, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

At GWBR's request, I undeleted the mentioned article long enough to extract the contents. It is at Talk:Anti-American sentiment/Pro. I support his desire to include appropriate material from that article in this article and rename this to something more appropriate and neutral. Does anyone object? -- Cecropia | Talk 15:27, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. What do people think the new name should be? Some ideas:

• Attitudes toward the United States of America

1. Cecropia | Talk 04:55, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
2. Get-back-world-respect 17:13, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• Views on the United States of America
• Opinion on the United States of America
• Criticism of and support for the United States of America

My vote's for the first of these options. The original articles were (putatively) about sentiment, and so I think that "attitude" best mirrors the original conception of the articles. --Atemperman 20:16, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The first one is also the one that I suggested to Cecropia. We should not have titles like "anti-" at all, they are inherently not neutral - except for antibiotics and such 8^p I do not like the fourth variant because this article does not only deal with criticism but also with racism. Second and third are to wide because one might start to sneak in opinions on a whole bunch of things that are not connected with the topic - like they have the best baseball team, the most beautiful vice president, the greatest camping areas or whatsoever. Get-back-world-respect 22:24, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Would you criticize an title like "Pro- and anti-American sentiments" as much? I think "anti-American" is a word of such wide spread that it is merited to be put in a title. It's nothing Wikipedia has made up. It's one important aspect limiting the posibilities of many a democratic US-friendly government (and some undemocratic also, I think).

--Ruhrjung 05:08, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I regard it as sufficient to have a redirect. Just because a smear term is used a lot does not mean it needs to be in an article title. Get-back-world-respect 17:12, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

the usage of accusations of anti-Americanism

The following sentence has been removed in the last day. Maybe it ought to be polished and re-inserted at an appropriate location?

It is controversial whether such perceptions are always correct, since it may be that "anti-American" is sometimes used to smear countries which are merely critical or unsupportive of the US. It could conversely (and again, controversially) be argued that some kind of anti-Americanism is usually the root cause of such criticism and lack of support.

--Ruhrjung 19:46, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What do you see in that sentence that is not already dealt with in the introduction? Get-back-world-respect 22:24, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would put it the other way around. The introduction sumarizes the article. If this isn't considered important enough to be noted in the body of the article, then surely it will soon also be removed from the introduction.

--Ruhrjung 04:47, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

4.228's paragraph about Canada

An anonymous user in the IP range 4.228 has been repeatedly trying to insert this paragraph for several days now:

It is worth noting in this connection that patriotism and nationalism exists all throughout the world. One particularly egregious example is the Canadian press, which often purports that Canada is more racially diverse than the United States. Many Canadians believe this, when in fact, 87% of Canada is white [1][2]. Many Canadians are also unaware that slavery existed in Canada's history and that discrimination still exists.

But Get-back-world-respect and I have been removing it because this paragraph is purely about Canada, whereas this article is about what people think of America. Rather than discuss it here, he's been trying to sneak it in via various deceitful edit practices. I figured I might as well start off a discussion here myself, taking the moral high road as it were, and see if that gets him to follow along and actually talk about it here too. Bryan 21:33, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

He was discussing above (Death penalty and Canada), saw that what he wrote could not convince anyone and decided to engage in edit wars. Get-back-world-respect 22:24, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I see now. Never mind then. I was planning to stick to the three-revert rule and do everything "by the book" trying to get him to talk about this, but at this point he looks like a plain old troll to me. (I also notice that he hasn't touched the talk: page in ten days, so I can't really count the stuff above as being discussion of this particular edit.) Bryan 22:46, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Intro

Before edit war: "When used by Americans, these terms are perhaps mostly used by people who are labelling the views of their opponents, rather than by people who are describing their own position." (11:40, 30 May 2004 User:193.219.28.144)

After: "While the term implies an ideological tendency and racism (cf. anti-semitism), its use is often perceived as an attempt by Americans to defame and downplay legitimate criticism, particularly of US foreign policy." (16:34, 30 May 2004 User:Get-back-world-respect)

Less wordy suggestion: Those who disagree with the use of the term often perceive it as an attempt to dismiss criticism of the USA, and to hint at prejudice (c.f. anti-semitism). Andy G 17:51, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A prefer it as it is because the use of the term increased tremendously after the criticism of Bush's Iraq war, so it is noteworthy that foreign policy is the major issue. Also, anti-semitism implies much more than prejudice, and it is important that people try to label legitimate criticism with a term that implies racism. Get-back-world-respect 17:12, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why is this article here?

This article seems to have a core of confusion. It's just a list of things that the US may have done to annoy people; which is okay, I guess, but what is the connection between groups that dogmatically hate the US and people who disagree with their foreign policy? I think that the fact that this article exists demonstrates the success of the American (hugely right-biased) media in confusing the issue of international disapproval of the actions of the American government (for an example, check out 'Hating America: the New World Sport', by some Fox News wacko). I mean, lots of Americans disapprove of their government for doing a lot of these things as well, don't they? Are they, like a Jewish person who disapproves of Israeli occupation, to be accused of self-loathing? I think the issues in this article needs to be separated. Dogmatic anti-Americanism shouldn't be mixed up with protests against concrete issues, which could maybe be moved to an article of their own, perhaps entitled 'Human Rights Abuses Perpetrated by the American Right'.Teefteef 01:56, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you. The very first sentence "Anti-Americanism or anti-American sentiment is strong disapproval for the government, culture, history, and/or people of the United States of America" is so broad that it makes the whole article pretty meaningless. I mean, most people will agree that US history has been pretty bloody, like the history of all nations, and that has not necessarily anything to do with how they view American culture which is very diverse anyway. Quite objectively, the US government has little to do with the American people, half of which did not vote in 2000 and of those who did, the majority wanted a different government. To equate America=govmt+history+culture+people and then state boldly that anti-Americanism is the rejection of these is an incredibly distorted analysis. One could argue that to conflate all these different aspects is very strongly POV, in fact the extremist POV shared by both chauvinist Americans and chauvinist anti-Americans. Most people in the world are rather more discerning. IMHO, 'Anti-americanism' is not directly about the "government, culture, history, and people of the US" as a whole. Instead it is a reaction to the global dominance of US power, which expresses itself at times though these various aspects. pir 02:16, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree as well, albeit on a bit of a different basis. I definately think this page should be condensed by several hundred percent. To me, this page seems to be essientially of a long mockery of the term "Anti-Americanism." If there was a thesis, it would be something like "People throw around the term anti-Americanism a lot, but just look at all the bad things America did to Latin America in the 1970's! Who wouldn't be an anti-American!" There seems to be a strong desire among certain people on Wikipedia to just compile a long list of "bad" foreign policy things that the United States did in the 20th Century, as alleged by Noam Chomsky and left-wingers of his ilk. This page in its present from reminds me a lot of the History of American Imperialism page, and the conflicts that have gone on there.

I'm not trying to white-wash, or anything like that. It's just that in the grand scheme of things, in the 21st Century, what the Truman Administration did in Greece in the late 1940's would be near the bottom of the reasons anyone would cite for being passionately filled with America-hate. I know it is popular in left-wing circles to denounce the term "anti-Americanism" as being some sort of McCarthyist term to supress criticism, but I don't see why that in turn means that this whole page has to be a rampage against that obvious straw man argument. There is a modern anti-American phenomenon, and it has nothing to do with academic tut-tuting of US foreign policies.

A more concise page would move quickly to denounce the wrong, straw man, argument against the term "anti-Americanism." All that needs to be said would be a few sentences about how "within the United States itself, the term 'anti-American' is often used to denounce critics of past and present US foreign policy, especially those on the political left. Such critics denounce the allegation, citing that disagreement or dislike of the actions of the US government, or US politicians, does not amount to a total hatred of the nation of the United States or the American people." In my opinion, something like that would be sufficient. We don't need to revisit the entire 20th Century history of the United States Defense Deparment on this page. user:J.J.

Perhaps this should be split out back to how it was with two seperate pages: Anti-Americanism and perhaps Reasons for Anti-American sentiment or something like that. Gem 15:05, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Have you guys had a look at the above discussion about the proper title for this article? Get-back-world-respect 22:46, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would be hard-pressed to title any article about prejudice (remembering that prejudicial opinions may include both accurate and false perceptions) as "Reasons for..." The question is always present: "Is that a reason or an excuse? Or both?" I have never in my life met a bigot with the honesty to consider that "I hate [blank] because I'm envious, or ethnocentric, or my parents did, or everyone else I know does so I go along, or because they're more powerful/more successful/richer than I am." It's always "I hate them because of the terrible things they've done." -- Cecropia | Talk 02:20, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Do you want to show us with this that you are one of those who are so obsessed with themselves that the only explanation they could think of why someone would not share it must be envy? Get-back-world-respect 20:11, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not at all. What I'm saying is that any article of this nature has a chicken-and-egg quality to it. Do I hate a certain group of people because they're bad, or do I hate them for personal reasons I might not be really be aware of and then look for bad things about them to back up my prejudice? How can an article possibly be NPOV if the writers may not be able to acknowledge their own prejudice.

Compare this article with the one on anti-French attitudes in the US. That article cites supposed dislike toward France and concludes that the reason is that Americans are mean, stupid and bigoted. Then this article looks at why others dislike America and comes to the conclusion that Americans are mean, stupid and bigoted. Americans (excuse me, United Statesers ;-) must be really really bad people. -- Cecropia | Talk 13:14, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

But Anti-Americanism is an important phenomenon, I cant see any reason put forward why the reasons as to why it exists should not be listed. what are you suggesting exactly?.G-Man 13:31, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that the article lacks proportion, so it is not useful to a person who might actually be studying anti-Americanism, or as GBWR would probably better put it, "attitudes towards the U.S." It mixes material reasons such as American hostility toward socialism with absolutely ridiculous ones as complaining that "In God we Trust" is on the currency.

Additionally, there are a number of complaints of the pot-kettle-black variety: for example, an entire heading is devoted "Relationship with Israel" and "America's Blind Support for Israel" without examining the concomitant international support for the Palestines. Especially considering Europe's centuries-long history toward Jews, this is especially curious. -- Cecropia | Talk 13:55, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I cannot follow you here on two points. First, why should a person who believes in secularism not complain about religious phrases on a state controlled object he has to use every day?

Presumably anti-Americanism has to do with non-US sentiment. I'm questioning why "In God We Trust" on a coin is important enough to anyone outside the US to fuel anti-US feeling. If I were to say I was anti-British because they have a monarch on their coinage, and I'm a (small r) republican, wouldn't you say that's weird? Might you not ask what business it is of mine what another country puts on its coins?

I personally think it is completely ridiculous to pay monarchs millions every year to keep up their pompous lifestyle. If someone else feels this so strongly that he makes it a point against the British I cannot follow him but I would not ignore if such feelings existed. Get-back-world-respect 09:12, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Second, because the holocaust happened in Europe now Europeans should accept that the U.S. block every attempt to protect Palestinian human rights?

A lot more than the holocaust happened to Jews in Europe. Jews were persecuted literally for centuries in Europe, culminating in the murders and expulsions of WWII. Today most of Europe's pre-war Jewish population is murdered or driven out, many to Israel. There are many, many horrors in the world (take Durfar right now), but the Israel-Palestine one seems to be the only one which consistently interests Europeans, even to the point where this article cites pro-Israel support in the US as a cause of anti-Americanism. Why? Europe does not have a historic connection to Palestinians, but it does to Jews. It was a negative one before WWII and a negative one after WWII. Why? Is this just a coincidence? Would you be surprised if a non-Jewish, non-European outsider wondered whether the antipathy to Jews in Europe before the super-pogrom of WWII transferred to the only Jewish country in the world? -- Cecropia | Talk 00:28, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No, the article clearly states that America's support for Israel is a major cause of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, which it is. It doesn't say anything at all about Europeans. G-Man 13:45, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is overly covered in the media all over the world, not just in Europe. Claiming that Europeans are anti-semitic is as racist as saying that Americans are ignorant of international law just because they have a government that does it. And the fact that human rights were violated in Europe in the past should only make Europeans pay more attention that human rights are not violated again, regardless of where those whose rights are violated live. Get-back-world-respect 09:12, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, above you compared this article with Anti-French sentiment in the United States. If you do not like that article discuss it there. To what conclusions you come from an article is your choice, I cannot see either article making conclusions, that is not the job of an encyclopedia, especially not on such topics. Get-back-world-respect 17:56, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I too question the relevance of this page. I am confused as to whether this is an article ABOUT anti-American sentiment or an article OF anti-American sentiment. Everything below "Possible Causes of anti-American sentiment" is a thinly-veiled attack on everything from American movies to capital punishment that anyone would be hard-pressed to say was NPOV. I think the article is insulting both to Americans (are they all supposed to apologize for the "sins" of their entire country throughout its entire history?) and to people who have legitimate complaints about specific policies of its government and attitudes of its people (by lumping liberals, conservatives, and extremists like terrorists into one group of "anti-American sentiment"). The article leaves no room for discussion and the viewpoints stated as fact (represented by the repetitive "some people think ..." lines of argument) are extremely generalized and largely uncited. I love Wikipedia, but this article is far from being one of its brightest achievements. CES 08:53, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If you read the introduction you see that the article strictly distinguishes between legitimate criticism and anti-Americanism. Since the legitimate parts occupy the better part of this article I think the title should be changed as soon as possible, which would allow to cover all attitudes toward the U.S., including gratefulness for the defeat of Nazism or protection during the Cold War. Get-back-world-respect 17:56, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)