Why do People Hate America?
April 27th, 2007 by Stephen
Selahv mentioned in a comment the disdain of the world for America - but there are in fact two distinct types of anti-Americanism. There is one kind which is just prejudice. There are people who disdain Americans simply because they are in a different “in group”, and it is fallen human nature to disdain out groups. Therefore every bad thing from America (fast food and sugary drinks for instance) is held against them. Every good thing (Clam chowder for instance) is ignored.
Such prejudice is hard to battle against, but it really is not Americans that need worry about this. The same people that hate Americans because of this prejudice probably have similar prejudices about any out group they care to consider.
However, there is another kind of anti-Americanism which is really anti-American policy, rather than the nation or its people. This is the feeling expressed in surveys that suggest people across the world believe that America is the biggest threat to world peace. This feeling comes around because of the gun boat diplomacy of one or other American administrations.
The Opium Wars
Note that America is no different from other nations here. In the 19th Century, the UK fought two wars against China to force them to accept the trade in opium. The drug was legal in the UK at the time - used as a seditive - particularly for gripey babies! But China banned the drug, citing public morals as the reason. After an incident when Chinese authorities boarded British ships and confiscated smuggled opium, a contingent of the British navy, including the new “iron clads” steamed into China. The fleet was larger than anything the Chinese had expected, and the first opium war was quickly lost. The peace treaty opened up a number of Chinese ports and ceded a lease on Hong Kong island to the British.
If you asked at that time who was the biggest threat to world piece, the answer in Shanghai would no doubt have been “the British”.
All countries act out of self interest most of the time. The thing that people dislike about American policy is its willingness to flout international law and order to pursue its self interest. Failure to become signatories to the ICC, arming of Israel as they kill people in Lebanon, The invasion of Iraq, support of regimes that persecute their own people, the arms trade, sidelining the UN and excessive use of the veto when the issue concerns client states, failure to ratify the Kyoto protocol - the list goes on (and these are just the recent examples).
But whilst I personally have a problem with all of these policies, I am not personally against Americans. (Indeed I am opposed to much UK policy for very similar reasons, but I am not anti-British).
Iraq
Selahv was speaking about Iraq, so the question is: how does this help Iraq?
We are where we are, and Iraq is suffering. What can we do? Cut and run? That would cause the disintegration of the nation. Stay the course? There is no sign that this strategy will ever succeed.
We pray for peace in Iraq - and we pray for wisdom and humility in our leaders. Particularly the humility to go to the United Nations and ask for help. If the occupying force could be replaced with a peace keeping force, and if we gave up our claims to Iraqi assets, just as we forced Russia and France to give up their claims, then there may yet be a hope for this country.
It would take a miracle for the US to willingly humble themselves and pursue this problem through the UN. It would take another miracle to see the policy succeed, and peace finally come to the nation of Iraq.
But fortunately, I believe in miracles.
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
Really nice post presenting a subtle argument about why people who “hate America” may not really hate Americans. Well put, well done; I can see it means a lot to you and you’ve really spelled things out quite well.
BTW, can I get a credit/link for the use of my American flag photo @ http://flickr.com/photos/jcolman/441030585/in/set-72157600038557858/ ? I know there’s one in ALT text, but I’d appreciate one in “print” HTML, maybe even a link back to by photostream in Flickr. Many thanks, Stephen.
Jonathon,
Thanks for your kind comments. I have added a text credit in with a link back as requested.
Dear Sir,
I came across your enlightening post while googling the question ‘why do people hate America’.
In my view, post-War America offered a very radical solution to the problems of the old world. This had to do with disintermediating the National Bourgeoises of reconstruced or newly constructed Nations. The Americans had never developed a Romantic ideology. The Americans did not have a Bildungsburgertum whose road to class power was a Romantic identification- or projection of their own anxieties and frustrations- even their disappointments in love- onto a grand National canvass. The Americans would have no truck with the wounded sensibilities, muddled thinking and histrionic posturing of the National Bourgeoisies of emerging or reconstituted nations. In this they departed from the rules of Great Power Politics which had admitted Romantic Nationalism as a force to be reckoned with- albeit as an infantile disease- and which needed to be soothed and placated and ultimately harnessed to the greater goal of maintaining the balance of power.
The Americans, however, pointed out that the Balance of Power had failed utterly. Furthermore, National Bourgeoises had also utterly failed in their world historic mission as carriers of Enlightenment values. This created a curious contradiction whereby it was Stalin and his successors who championed the National Bourgeoisie and pandered to their chauvinistic shibboleths even against local Communist cadres. The American disdain of National Bourgeoises went hand in hand with the truly new, the truly revolutionary weapon in their intellectual arsenal- namely their repudiation of the law of diminishing returns- which in Classical economics- predicts increasing class conflict as the inevitable price of Growth. In other words, if the management of class conflict ceased to be the main business of Politics then the Middle Class had no special status, no priviliged dialectical relationship with the destiny of the nation.
Unlike the Soviets, with their spurious statistics, the Americans genuinely represented (at that time) a mode of production with increasing returns- not diminishing returns. But this meant class conflict was bound to vanish in line with the ‘Kuznets curve’ which yielded greater rather less income equality thru the 50’s and 60’s. In other words, the Americans had found a way of doing without the middle class. The advisors they sent out proposed truly radical changes- e.g. land reform to directly emposer the peasant to boost agriculural productivity and set off a virtuous circle of economic growth. Their answer to the problem of manufacturing industry was similarly ground-breaking. It involved the adoption of a rational, meritocratic Corporate Culture which would consign traditional concepts of class and status to the dung-heap of history. Thus, like Henry Ford, the Americans were telling their clients that History was bunk. The shibboleths and irredentist claims and so on that the National Bourgeiosie termed ’sacred causes’ were nothing of the sort. They were senile ravings- nothing more.
The National Bourgeoises of client states were particularly affected by this aspect of American policy. They, who most craved American attention, were told in no uncertain terms that their vapouring and posturing was merely a senile affliction and had no connection with the ’soul’ or the ‘destiny’ of the countries they claimed to lead.
The American denial of the concept of the Balance of Power had the corollary that guaranteeing the nuetrality of small powers was no longer a Great Power responsibility. Dulles quoted St. Paul to client states saying bluntly- ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us.’ Fair enough, we might think, if the Americans had also been ‘all things to all men’ In other words if they had taken the trouble to understand the wounded amour propre, the damaged National psyches of the middle classes in the client states. The Americans refused to play that game. They were’nt going to play nanny to senile delinquents.
Fair enough, if it had stopped there. But the Americans, from the McCarthyite era onwards went a step further.They required the National Bourgeoises of their client states to sacrifice their ‘pinko’ poets and playwrights and journalists- send them to jail or into exile. But, the National Bourgeoisie needed this type of ‘Narodnik’ populist to build bridges to the masses and thus shore up their own sense of security, of being in charge. Thus clienthood to America meant that the National Bourgeoises felt cut off from the Masses. Another feature of American policy was their belief that no man was indispensable- they could get rid of a local strong-man and replace him, for some cosmetic reason, with a nonentity without rocking the boat. The consequences for the National Bourgeoises were catastrophic- they no longer knew to whom to kow tow to. The leadership in client states also responded to this increased uncertainty by cutting themselves off from the people. The basic notion of consultative govenrment was undermined becuase in the end the American Ambassador called the shots.
America, which logically should have been the champion of the Nationa Bourgeioises, turned out to be their fiercest enemy. The increased insecurity and sense of worthlessness experienced by middle class people in client states ultimately took the form of hatred. When the master is capricious (not cruel) when his reasoning is opaque to you, when there is no chance of a dialogue, the only way to preserve your psychic integrity is to hate.
Still, I think, if client states had fully taken advantage of American know-how, of radical American thinking on social engineering, they would have been better of in the 50′’s and 60’s. However, by the beginning of the ’70’s peoples perceptions changed. The age of increasing returns was felt to be over. There was a rsource crunch at the planetary level. The perception was that some at least of the client states were basket-cases. American neede to disengage. Infinite prosperity was no longer on the table.
At the same time structual changes in the U.S economy- the change in the nature and the ethos of the American business corporation- together with an ever increasing signal extraction problem with respect to American foreign poliy- too many Agencies and intrest groups having a say in foreign policy- have compounded the problem of National Bourgeoises. The doubt has been sown in people’s minds that engagement with America means locking oneself into an operating system whose licensing fee will becomong increasingly unaffordable. The terms of trade are shifting against you. Perhaps your only way to survive is through emigration to the West! But, emigration raises the danger of assimilation- of losing your National ethos and your status as a ‘cultured’ Bildungsburgertum. What on earth are you to do? Not everybody can write books like Ziaudding Sardar or Mohsin and so on. Some people are going to chuck bombs.
The American War on Terror- which on the face of it appears justifiable- has a sort of system effect, a sociological dimension which American analysts have not picked up on. This has to do with the curiously step-motherly treatment the Americans accorded their natural allies- viz. the National Bourgeoisies of the reconstructed or newly created nations of the post-war world.
What is the solution? Well, presumably, the Americans have to go back to the old style of Great Power Politics based on minutiae of the Balance of Power and an exhausting diaolgue with Romantic Nationalists.
But, this means that International Politics is closed for Presidential grandstanding. Not here, not in this arena, can President’s carve their legacy.
Ultimately, people learn to love that which they can predict. They grow to hate that which they do not understand. When no Beltway insider can predict what America’s next move is in (let us say) Pakistan how on earth is the middle class professional in Karachi supposed to feel next time he sees his neighborhood go up in flames?
America needs to speak to the world with one voice, to be predictable in its actions, to pursue long-term relationships not ideological chimeras or ‘wag the dog’ Media circuses.
The revolving door between State and the Think Tanks and Universities has played a part in destabilizing people’s perceptions of America’s intentions.
However, to conclude, nothing can justify terrorism or mindless Anti-Americanism. On the contrary, the Americans did offer something new to the world in the 50’s and 60’s when they offered to export knowledge for free. Whether it still has something to offer- now that intellectual property commands the highest price tag- is a question I am not a competent enough economist to answer.
Vivek Iyer