>
> I've been writing for an audience that I assumed knew the things I've
> said here and elsewhere.
>
i presumed as much in my response to your question. the question "why are you here?" is i believe an interesting one and not without content. it might turn out to be a non-question (like those metaphysical queries that arise out of the inadequacies of language, that the positivists warned us about), but that is not immediately obvious. coming from a person on the "left", such as you, it prompts me to examine it with seriousness, rather than with suspicion (about your motive) - i do not read your question as saying "why dont you go back?" (as it has been posed to me by others in my past), but as "you have seen two different nations and seem to indicate a preference to inhabit this one. why?".
i apologize for resorting to common sense in my first stab at an analysis:
my continued presence here is a function(inertia, security, comfort). if the security (job, health, physical safety, etc) and comfort (including all the trappings of consumer life) here are not lower enough (than say in canada) to overcome my inertia, then i continue to stay here. this of course implies that i am acting under "enlightened self-interest" and my implicit measurements of these variables is accurate - in truth we probably err on the side of short-term interests over long-term ones.
to address the initial issue of "anti-americanism" and the subsequent uses of "america" (america has done some bad but also some good, etc), my question is is there a single identifiable entity called america to which these attributes can be applied? are we speaking of the american govt? and even there, is that a single meaningful entity? or are we speaking of the people? do they act in any unitary sense? when a non-american (or an american) criticizes "america", is she using the term "america" as a shorthand notation for the particular aspect that she criticizes? if i may be so bold, i believe you (doug) err in the initial premise that there is some identifiable thoroughgoing "anti-americanism", which then leads to the puzzle of why "america" is then also seen as an attractive environment.
also, in general, is the current environment (geographic, cultural, political, etc) that goes by the lable america fairly contingent, or are there hard deterministic causes for it that we can identify?
finally, if the answer to the last question is that no such causes can be found, then the question "why are you here?" reduces to a trivial one i.e., the causes that lead to my finding this an attractive environment, being indeterminate and varied, are not susceptible to grouping under theses such as "liberalism", "enlightenment rationalism", "welfate state", etc.
apologies for the long post and stream of contradictory thoughts,
--ravi
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- man is said to be a rational animal. i do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. more often i have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the 2nd degree. -- alasdair macintyre.