The Roots of Anti-Americanism


By Con George-Kotzabasis

Public opinion is the lowest denominator of opinion and it would be foolish to take it seriously on important issues. Often the apparent reasons for ones' aversions and hates against someone have deeper reasons that lay in the unconscious.

"Anti-Americanism flourishes" among peoples and nations that have failed to succeed in their objectives and hate and envy those who succeed. Also its virulence is even stronger among nations which in the past were the beacons of culture and civilization to the world, such as France, Britain and Germany, and therefore view with contempt the upstarts, in this case the Americans, who dare to emulate them, and indeed who so incomparably succeed in their enterprises with cosmopolitan chutzpah and "cowboy" aplomb.

Anti-Americanism is related to the Rupert Murdoch paradox. Most people would have liked to be Rupert but most of them hate Murdoch. In human beings as in nations, the spell of envy is hard to exorcise.