America by Numbers

There are two major schools of thought about anti-Americanism. One postulates that it is a response to the wrongheaded policies of the United States and the defects and injustices of American society. By contrast, in the second view, such sentiments stem from grievances of a wide range and variety nurtured by a hostile predisposition largely independent of what the United States does. Many of these grievances are associated with the problems and unintended consequences of modernity, of which the United States is the major symbol and vehicle.

The second perspective also draws on the recognition that human beings prefer to find the sources of their misfortunes and frustrations outside themselves. Anti-Americanism is one expression of this impulse which, in our times, finds a plausible target in the United States, especially since it has become the only superpower and the only country that has produced a popular culture with both global appeals and a capacity to undermine traditional cultural values and ways of life.

Anti-Americanism may also be seen as blending reasonable critical responses to the policies of the United States with less-than-fully rational attitudes that are not dependent on specific actions or policies. To make matters more complex, well-founded critiques of specific policies often merge into or culminate in the diffuse, undifferentiated hostility nurtured by predisposition.

Nonetheless it is possible to differentiate anti-Americanism from rational critiques of specific American policies, foreign or domestic, or from the moral failings of American society. Anti-Americanism entails wholesale rejection resting on the apparent conviction that the defects of American society and U.S. policies abroad are not corrigible, but inherent and endemic. In its most florid and extreme form, it rests on the conviction that the United States is the most evil and corrupt social-political entity ever known in history.

This volume, based on 91,000 interviews conducted between 2002 and 2005 in 51 countries, is doubtless the major repository of information about attitudes and opinions about the United States and about political and cultural values relevant to these attitudes. It does, however, come with a substantial conceptual flaw: There is no discussion of the many possible meanings or shadings of anti-Americanism. The authors don’t tell us about their understanding of what it is, or offer a widely accepted definition. They do tell us about some of its sources and manifestations, but not what exactly it is. For example:

In these observations, the sources of anti-Americanism are conflated with its symptoms. Elsewhere, they write that the new anti-Americanism is “an amalgam of discontents” which includes negative reaction to American popular culture, resentment of American-style business practices (such as longer work days), and, more generally, the “acceleration in the pace of modernization [that] threatens to overwhelm traditional ways of life.”

Later they single out unilateralism as the major factor: “This perception of American unilateralism in international affairs is at the root of much of the anti-Americanism that has surfaced in nearly all parts of the globe over the last half decade.” They also propose that “some of the many criticisms of Americans arise from simple misunderstanding,” among them the belief that Americans are more nationalistic than Western Europeans.

They further argue that “Americans do not want to rule the world. . . . Americans are tolerant of religious diversity and most have no interest in converting the world to their faith. Americans are strongly individualistic . . . but they are not against working with others.”

The main objective and accomplishment of this volume is the presentation of data that show in detail the differences between how Americans see themselves and how the world (and especially Europeans) see them and their social, political, and economic system. It is these differences, in the authors’ view, which hold the key to understanding anti-Americanism. These differences are referred to as the famous American “exceptionalism” first noted by Alexis de Tocqueville. At the core of it is American individualism, the belief “that individuals themselves, not the larger forces of society, determine whether a person will be successful in life.”

The premise, however, is questionable. Differences per se are not necessarily a source of animosity, either between individuals or countries. They can also be a matter of indifference, or a source of admiration, even veneration. Different attitudes toward personal autonomy, or the length of the workday, church attendance, or belief in an afterlife, are unlikely to inspire the kind of visceral hostility we associate with anti-Americanism. Moreover, the authors don’t seem to be able to make up their mind about the nature and impact of American exceptionalism. They vacillate between documenting it and dwelling on it, and diminishing or dismissing its importance. They define it as:

They also write: “Americans not only differ with Europeans about how the free-enterprise system should operate; they also view work itself in a different light.” But on the next page we learn that “Americans and Europeans value their work in almost equal measure.” As for globalization (another source of anti-Americanism): “Even Americans–whom others see as standard bearers of globalization–are far from exceptional when it comes to the global forces shaping today’s world.

“In fact when it comes to globalization, what makes Americans exceptional is how unexceptional they are.”

It is further proposed that “many of the differences between Americans and Europeans reflect the internally inconsistent attitudes people everywhere hold about . . . globalization and modernization. In this regard Americans are hardly exceptional.” Even regarding religiosity and its influence on U.S. foreign policy–another supposed source of anti-Americanism, at any rate in Western Europe–we learn that “for all of [George W.] Bush’s religious imagery, its impact on American views on foreign policy . . . has been unclear.”

The qualifications and vacillations seem to be a (paradoxical) result of the praiseworthy effort to be nuanced and avoid sweeping generalizations unsupported by data. They may also result from the sheer mass of the data collected, and the absence of a theoretical focus or framework.

These data also raise the old question as to just how dependable opinion polling is, or to what degree the opinions people express accord with their behavior.

For instance, we are told that “when presented with a choice people around the world say they no longer see America as the prime land of opportunity.” Are these the same people who are pouring into, or seeking to enter, this country, the millions of legal, illegal, and would-be immigrants? For reasons not explained, the question about “where is the land of opportunity?” was not addressed to Latin Americans and Africans; or if it was, the result was not reported.

And what are we to make of the professed belief of three in five Americans that “Hispanics . . . have a good influence on the country, according to the 2005 Pew survey” at a time when there are many indications of widespread anti-immigrant sentiment, most of them directed at Hispanics? Americans are well aware that it is politically and morally incorrect to show animosity toward ethnic groups (such as Hispanics) and this may find expression in their responses to polling.

It is also somewhat peculiar to refer to Nicaragua “in the 1980s” as “a country where socialism thrived.” Is that why, at the end of the decade, the government was overwhelmingly voted out of power, and hundreds of thousands had left for Florida and elsewhere while the Sandinistas were in power?

So what can we learn from this impressive accumulation of data that we did not know before? Many things we knew in broad outline are here confirmed: that Muslim populations are far more anti-American than others, that anti-Americanism greatly increased after 2001 around the globe, and that the U.S. occupation of Iraq antagonized publics almost everywhere.

It is an interesting and unexpected finding that, in some ways, Americans are more critical of their society than foreigners: “Fully 70 percent of Americans described their fellow countrymen as greedy, a harsher criticism than that leveled by any non-Americans in the survey.” Many Americans would also be surprised to learn that “they are closer to Muslims than Europeans with respect to [religious] observance and commitment, as well as attitudes of personal morality such as homosexuality.” It is also of interest that “Americans of all political and cultural stripes are more alike to one another than they are like Western Europeans”–a finding that confirms the sometimes disputed concept of national character.

Yet the final conclusions, too, are contradictory. On the one hand the authors propose that “as to anti-Americanism in the 21st century, the American public’s exceptional values and basic attitudes have undoubtedly contributed to discontent with the United States,” and that “in the end, American exceptionalism, all that it is and all that it isn’t, is what shapes attitudes toward the United States around the world. Much of what fuels current anti-American sentiment around the world–perceptions of American nationalism and religiosity–is misinformed.”

But if these perceptions are misinformed, wouldn’t that cast doubt on the notion of exceptionalism? In the end, major questions about the recent growth of anti-Americanism remain unanswered. Has it originated in the mistakes and unattractive attributes of the United States? In its “exceptionalism,” real or exaggerated? In the disposition to blame it for grievances and frustrations that it is not responsible for, including the ambiguous benefits of modernity, avidly pursued around the world? The huge amounts of data notwithstanding, the reader is left unenlightened about these essential matters.

Paul Hollander is the author of Anti-Americanism and editor of Understanding Anti-Americanism.