Key Takeaways:
The contrast between American earnestness and European irony has widened into a defining cultural gap, visible during this year's World Cup and the 250th anniversary of US independence.
The 250th anniversary of American independence has exposed a cultural divide between the US and Europe that runs deeper than air conditioning or stadium size — a gap in earnestness that traces directly to the founding ideals of 1776.
"Americans have preserved their ability to hold tenaciously to an idea, while Europe's self-belief wilted under similar challenges," Joseph C. Sternberg, a member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, wrote in a July 3 column.
European fans attending the World Cup in US cities from Atlanta to New York have broadcast their astonishment at American abundance in real time on social media. But the more profound discovery, Sternberg argued, is that Americans outside first-tier cities also inhabit places an order of magnitude more prosperous than their European equivalents. Americans unabashedly fly the American flag from their homes and adorn everything from T-shirts to trucks with red, white and blue — a display of patriotism that in most European countries would be viewed as gauche. Germans display national flags only during international sporting contests, while displaying the St. George's standard in England has become an act of political protest.
The achievement of July 1776 was to articulate an idea — that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights endowed by the Creator — capable of justifying and sustaining that earnestness across 250 years. That idea triggered America's deepest national crisis in the 1860s and fueled the redemptive civil rights movement a century later. Europe's self-belief wilted under similar challenges; America's grew stronger.
Europe's Irony Deficit
European irony manifests as a corrosive cynicism about patriotism, Sternberg wrote. The French come closest to a grand national idea — liberte, egalite, fraternite — though this is refracted through repeated failures to convert those principles into stable governance. Germans for good reasons are squeamish about articulating a strong idea of "Germanness." The British have become startlingly careless about their national identity, with a citizenship test as likely to pose questions about soap operas as about Magna Carta.
Europe once had a grand idea of itself rooted in Christianity, the social bonds of feudalism and the long afterglow of the Roman Empire. That framework did not survive two centuries of bloody revolution, lapsing religious faith and the catastrophic first half of the 20th century. Many Europeans now interpret their history as a warning against the dangers of any sort of ideology, retreating into an affected insouciance.
The 250-Year Bet on an Idea
Americans can be as cynical as their European friends when warranted — as it often is concerning daily politics, Sternberg acknowledged. But the US has preserved its ability to hold tenaciously to an idea. The most bruising national arguments in America are not about ethno-nationalism per se, but about what the national idea is or ought to be. The controversy over the 1619 Project, which sought to undercut the established history of the country's origins, illustrates this: critics of America's revolutionary ideals understand they must somehow dislodge Americans' core understanding of themselves. That so many Americans refuse to surrender those ideals is what causes the pushback.
The economic gap between the two sides of the Atlantic has rarely been so obvious to ordinary Europeans as it is now, with the World Cup bringing tens of thousands of European fans to American soil. Yet to think of the contrast only in terms of material prosperity is to underestimate the achievement commemorated this weekend, Sternberg wrote. The US has sustained its founding idea for 250 years despite periodic failures to live up to it — an achievement that, in its earnestness, may be even cooler than air conditioning.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
