Why make such assumptions? They are not true. But what if they were? It would not make one bit of difference to the argument. Would I have to list the places I have been in this vast world and wide in order to participate in a conversation with you?
What you call "anti-Americanism", I call nationalism and must be opposed in its own right, and counter-posed with internationalism. "Anti-Americanism" as a label, I believe can only give aid and comfort to the ideologists of "Americanism", which also does not exist. (To the extent that an ideology of "Americanism" can be invented, then all good nternatiionalist humanists should be "anti-Americarn", in this techinical sense, as a way of supporting the actual people living in the United States.)
> the idea that "Anti-Americanism" is
> only a creation of American reactionaries, and is
> otherwise a phantom, I just don't think anybody could
> take it seriously who has really experienced the world
> outside of the United States.
...
> That you are ignorant of such facts is not your fault,
> but I am surprised at how people on this list
> categorically deny any suggestion that there could
> even possibly be something like Anti-Americanism. Or
> anti-semitism among leftists, for that matter.
"Anti-Americanism", as a pseudo-label for various kinds of local nationalisms, is not like racism or anti-Semitism. It is more like the justification of the white supremacists. Nobody questions the fact that many black slaves in the south were "prejudiced" against white slave owners. But according to the ideologists of the slavocracy, the black slaves had to be kept on their knees or else they would cut the throats of _all_ whites. That is because according to these same slavocracy ideologists (read Alexander Stephens for example) blacks naturally and irrationally envy and hate whites. This is simply ideological projection.
One can point to similar ideological projections in all forms of oppression, which was my point about ancient Rome. And to some extent, I suppose, many Gauls were "anti-Romanists" (since they didn't write their own history we will never know. Ditto for the slaves under the Southern Slavocracy.) So what? The whole idea that there was an anti-Roman movement and that Rome was surrounded by enemies was a Roman invention.
There are people in this world who have a love-hate relationship to Hollywood culture and they blame this on the U.S. and by extension its people. Such people may with some only a little justice may be labeled "anti-American". But again this was a label applied to them by United Statesian intelligentsia.
There are some people in this world who identify the actions of the U.S. state and U.S. corporations with all of the people living in the U.S. This is the common counterfeit coin of all ideologies, nationalism, and religious sectarianism. It does not deserve a separate international label such as "anti-Americanism", as if it is a phenomena that exists beyond the specific levels of nationalism and religious sectarianism. There is no "Americanism" to be "anti" in the first place, except as an invention of various kinds of nationalisms and religious sectaraianism. And most of those inventions are of U.S. nationalism and local U.S. religious sectarianism. It is more accurate to call most of these people 'nationalists'. You mislabel them as "anti-Americans", which unfortunately follows the lead of United Statesian right wing nationalists.
Nationalists of all types tend to identify the nation-state with the people. (As religious sectarians tend to identify religious hierarchy with nominal cultural beliefs, co-extensive with territory.) Thus during World War I, here in the U.S., we had our "anti-Germans" and in World War II we had our "anti-Japanese". Such phenomena was properly labeled racism and nationalism, not simply as a matter of definition, but because it is best not to give credence to Japanese nationalism which also wants to identify nation-state with people. A little familiarity with right wing nationalism at any time and any place will show that every variation of opposition to the "national project" is given an ideological "anti-X" label and called a global phenomena. Look at Japan, Germany, and Italy during the '30s, for example. Rejecting the label "anti-American" is simply part of rejecting the whole idea that a nation-state and a people, or business-interests and a people can be identified in this way.
The whole idea that there is some kind of "anti-Americanism" -- and that people such as myself are an example of such a phenomena, was invented by right wing U.S. expansionists. As far as I can see it was first applied to many Latin Americans, who opposed U.S. imperialism, and then applied internally to U.S. leftists. If the label has become a self-fulfilling prophecy it is mostly because those same ideologists who insist on identifying nation-state with people who live in the nation-states territory, have also been successful. Nationalists of all types collaborate on this project.
You also tend to confuse, people who believe in some kind of ethno-centric 'national character' with another form of anti-Americanism. This seems to be your example from 19th century Germany. In Sweden I have noticed that all of the Scottish, Jewish and Polish jokes are some how transformed into Norwegian jokes. Should we invent a label such as "anti-Norwegianism" in order to account for this? Or simply, account for it by pointing to the usual historical factors that lead to ethno-centric expressions. In the historical context to label such a phenomena "anti-Norwegianism", even when there is a sliver of a factual basis for such a label, would only help to set the ground for Norwegian nationalism.
In my travels I have run into people who are prejudiced against we United Statesians, simply because we are from the U.S. I suppose this is one thing you mean by "anti-Amercanism." In my experience this is usually an elite phenomena. I have met El Salvadoran peasants who seem to know more about the U.S. and its system than most of my fellow citizens. I have met residents of favelas who are more open to speaking and learning about the U.S. than most people I know from upper middle class exurb of my childhood. And yet it has been only among elite nationalists in Brazil and other places in South and Central America I have been that I have had to overcome the prejudice of, for example, the "ugly American". I know this is anedoctal, but it does seem to me that even many of the cultural prejudices you refer to are simply forms of local nationalism, whether of the "left" or "right".
It is also kind of funny, and an indication of how the label is used, but I was never called "anti-Salvadoran" in El Salvador, even when the leaders of my country were slaughtering their people, but in the U.S. I get called "anti-American" often.
Finally, let me say, that your response to myself and to Carroll was condescending. If you wish to have a discussion I am willing to discuss. But I will not try to have a conversation with you unless you take what you are saying seriously enough to leave out the condescension and nastiness. There is no indication that you take what you say this seriously in your previous post.
Jerry Monaco
> Anti-Americanism is not even necessarily a "leftist"
> anti-imperialist phenomenon. In Germany, you have a
> long tradition of elitist, right-wing
> Anti-Americanism, reaching back to the 19th century,
> basically taking the form of asserting how the
> Americans are a "people without culture" lacking such
> European refinements like Goethe or Leonardo da Vinci.
> This usually also entails criticizing the "mass
> culture" of American society and lack of "history"
> compared to Europe, and may overlap with structurally
> anti-semitic topoi such as the "money hunger" of
> Americans and such.
>
>
>
>
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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/