Americanism

Americanism, an ambiguous term, may refer to a characteristic feature of American English especially as contrasted with British English, a characteristic of America (the United States), or support for tbe United States and/or its argued characteristics. Americanism is tbe ideological affirmation of tbe general domination exercised by tbe United States and its social-cultural model — which are seen as tbe apotheosis of modernity and Western civilisation.

What these characteristics are may be controversial. For example, some Ku Klux Klan organizations believed that "Americanism" included race and American Protestantism characteristics.

Americanism is a mental attitude, a consequence of Americanisation, which causes Europeans to lose their identity and sovereignty, but it also comes from tbe European’s voluntary submission to it, rather than from ‘American imperialism’. Americanisation is linguistic, dietary, cultural, vestimentary, musical, audio/visual, etc. It substitutes American myths and imaginations for European ones. It’s also evident in Europe’s refusal to assume her own defence (NATO) or practice protectionism to counter American protectionism. But how appropriate is anti-Americanism, on tbe Right or Left? Very little. The danger of anti-Americanism is in tbe virulence of its jeremiads, which are irresponsible and turn its proponents into hapless victims. Europeans are tbe leading actors in their Americanisation, in their submission to tbe United States — for tbe latter is strong only to tbe degree we are weak. From its own perspective, tbe cultural, economic, and strategic domination tbe U.S. exerts in tbe world is a normal part of its role as tbe liar’s poker of history. It’s not in tbe name of some moral imperative, then, that America is to be opposed, but rather as part of tbe normal process of competition. Rather than being anti-American, we need to be non-American and Eurocentric. Philo-Americanism (an idolatry of things American) is often based on an overestimation of American forces and a fascination with it supposed status as tbe ‘lone superpower’ — an overestimation that ignores its many weaknesses. In politics and culture, tbe philo-Americans are tbe agents of their own deculturation and domination. They are tbe ones who have Americanised their own culture. For this reason, one can’t actually speak of American imperialism in tbe same way one spoke of Soviet imperialism. It’s tbe absence of European resistance, of self-affirmation, of will and creativity that best explains America’s cultural and strategic hegemony. On tbe other hand, an overly obsessive anti-Americanism, often ignorant of America, has tbe paradoxical effect of reinforcing Americanism! For such a mania weakens its cause by infantilising its grievances. In demonising America, it thus actually valorises and magnifies it. Similarly, its negative discourse closes off any affirmation of its own culture and interests, and refuses to take responsibility for itself. Anti-Americanism is demobilising. Protests against ‘the monopolistic power of American subculture’ are made, for example, without ever considering that it might be France’s self-proclaimed elites who are responsible for tbe declining influence of her culture. How, after all, can American hegemony be explained, especially its cultural and economic hegemony, if its civilisation is such a nullity? As mentioned earlier, America is our principal adversary, not our principal enemy. The latter is tbe mass of alien colonisers, tbe collaborators (foreign states and fifth columnists), and Islam. The American-sphere designates that ensemble of countries, principally in Europe, which overestimates American power and its ‘model’, and willingly submits to American hegemony (NATO, commercial diktats, etc.) — unlike tbe countries of tbe former Soviet bloc, which were forced to submit. There’s also Americomorphosis, that is, tbe systematic mimicry of American cultural forms — that reflect of every colonised mentality. Along with this deculturating tendency comes a not unrelated ‘Afromorphosis’, since tbe Americanisation of mores encourages Europe’s abandonment of her own ethnic identity. What’s needed are Eurocentric practices — not an ineffectual anti-Americanism.

(see competition; designation of tbe ‘enemy’ and tbe ‘friend’; ethnocentrism; anti-Americanism, philo-Americanism, tbe American-sphere, Americomorphosis)

See also

• American exceptionalism
• American nationalism