Those of you who have read the previous article on cultural relativism --- what it is, what culture itself means, what's sound in it and what's not --- might have noticed that we referred frequently to social constructivism as a post-modernist theoretical approach that has two branches: 1) a way to study social life, almost always with an intent to push for major changes, and 2) a theory of epistemology that denies there are objective facts about the world above and beyond our own changing concepts and theories for classifying the world's objects and making sense of them.

1) Identity Politics. The first branch is an ideology, little else. Emphasizing the overwhelmingly decisive impact of ideas and linguistic influences in shaping our societies and political and economic worlds, social constructivism in this sense tries to explain everything about them --- especially everything any group of advocates dislikes about the status quo and wants to change --- and to rally and prod the activists and others into energetic social and political action. Call it what it usually is: identity politics: activist groups often exaggerating existing discrimination --- exploiting the highly desired gains in civil rights over the last two generations --- in order to push for more social acceptance for their specific causes. For a good up-dated take on this by two civil rights leaders, critical of this exploitation and deliberate confusion, see L.A. Times.

A query prompts itself here. Has any good come out of these pedant-manufactured works, swarms of cultural studies on gender, race, and class, each and every one, it seems, full of a bold unmasking of this or that bourgeois hypocrisy or crime by academics living high on the hog themselves? All of them full of references to Heidegger, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault or whoever else figures in the Post-Modernist Hero-Parthenon in the year or month the swarms reach the press, not to forget the tangled, semi-literate styles in which profundity is demonstrated by obscurity? Even one of the most famous of literary critic-imitators of the French and German pioneers, Terrence Eagleton, has lately said that most of this cultural and literary-theory output is brain-numbing:

'It's ''shamefaced about morality and metaphysics, embarrassed about love, biology, religion, and revolution, largely silent about evil, reticent about death and suffering. . ..'' And the next generation isn't making things any better. Pointedly, he writes, ''those who can, think up feminism and structuralism; those who can't, apply such insights to `Moby-Dick' or `The Cat in the Hat'. . .. On the wilder shores of academia, an interest in French philosophy has given way to a fascination with French kissing. In some cultural circles, the politics of masturbation exert far more fascination than the politics of the Middle East.'''

2) Sound But Platitudinous. As for the theoretical claims in the epistemological branch, the theory seems sound when it comes to social life . . . as far as it goes. If anything, it's a platitude to say that humans construct their social realities --- politics, culture, economics, social roles, and the like --- and that these realities change when, over time and for a variety of reasons, our understandings and concepts about these themselves change.

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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

A qualification quickly rears up. Tersely put, that theoretical platitude and its related claims would be true in a more meaningful way if enough powerful people in a complex modern society like ours --- say, politicians, bureaucrats, jurists, and corporate and media heads --- come to operate on these new understandings and implement noticeable changes in existing policies and laws. Note this qualification carefully. Re-stated this way, social constructivism's basic claims are anything but a platitude.

Simultaneously, though, the re-statement points up some noticeable shortcomings in social constructivist theory that we'll return to in a few moments: in particular, the neglect of competing forces that shape social and political change --- or restrain it --- that can't be reduced to mental and linguistic influences: evolutionary forces, self-interest and nepotism, the unintended and unwelcome consequences of purposeful action, and material influences like technologies and shifting market forces that no one person, group, or country can full control. On this latter count, if it helps, think globalizing forces. If it also helps, think something else: the opposite of social isn't material, it's nature. What's more, as you'll see, material forces of the sorts just mentioned are no less socially grounded --- produced by humans interacting with one another --- than ideas, beliefs, and linguistic practices.

The following commentary was not what the buggy prof started out to talk about today, not by a long chalk. His intent was to resume the long, far-ranging series on American exceptionalism --- specifically, to set out some statistical stuff that showed how low American public spending turns out to be compared to other democracies. The exceptions here, which we'll amply document, are expenditures on education and defense; both absolutely and as a percentage of GDP, the US actually outspends all others. In turn, those statistical comparisons were going to be bolstered by some survey data that shows why, for good or bad, Americans are generally happy with the relatively low levels of such expenditure. That satisfaction, as you'll eventually see, reflects the ingrained suspicion of big concentrated government --- a sentiment, politically charged, that distinguishes the US as we've seen in earlier articles in this series from even the other English-speaking countries . . . themselves lacking the powerful statist traditions that flourish everywhere among the EU Continental countries and in Japan.

The sentiment reflects something else too: a more general satisfaction with the workings of free markets, even when they are subject to a variety of regulations. No escape from those regulations. They humanize contemporary capitalism and make it work better for the general good, even in their watered-down American mode --- not that all the regulations are perfect or don't entail some trade-offs. Japan and the EU Continental countries stand at the other end of the spectrum here. Historically, from both the left and right, capitalism and free markets were ideologically contested there and usually violently; whatever else can be said about it, the giant welfare state now in place has helped make capitalism acceptable to most Europeans and Japanese and underpins their social peace. Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand turn out to be in between. And Canada? After almost four decades of unbroken Liberal Party rule, dominated first by Pierre Trudeau and later Jean Chretien, its economy looks more like a Continental EU country's than an English-speaking one. [Whether Canadians are content with the outcome is another matter. One survey last year, its surprising results set out in an earlier buggy article, found that 86% of the population was unhappy with their political system and thought politicians lied to get elected; almost as many criticized their leaders for not consulting them more in policymaking. For the survey itself, click here.]

All this, then, is what the buggy prof intended to do. Scout's honor.

Alas, almost the very second the buggy prof was fishing out some of his tables and charts, ding! . . . an email came hurtling in through cyberspace from another professor who raised a set of points --- some stimulating and thought-provoking, mind you: even when critical --- about a handful of earlier buggy writings on the absurdities of cultural relativism, and especially in its post-modernist politically correct forms. These points set the buggy mind to thinking again, the endeavor mercifully not bogged down in mental sludge; then, still largely sludge-free, I wrote back to Herr Professor and clarified some of my original ideas, only to decide that they might be worth elaborating on here. That elaboration unfolds pretty swiftly, despite its length. It ends with a freshly brisk assault on these absurdities by a British writer, which appeared a little more a year ago in the Times Literary Supplement in London. Let's hope the buggy remarks --- and those of the British writer, Raymond Tallis --- set some of you to thinking and a willingness to argue back. Note that some of these remarks overlap those in earlier buggy articles: for instance, back in March and later again that month.

In the meantime, the series on American Exceptionalism has to wait its turn: most likely until tomorrow . . . the buggy mind a little weary after this lengthy unintended diversion into cultural matters. Or, come to think about it, maybe not so much a diversion. Maybe not even a diversion at all. Instead, like an unconscious surge out of murky mental depths that inspires writers in mysterious ways --- yes, even a bugged-out writer now and then ---- maybe it does say something significant about our comparative endeavor in this ambitious far-ranging series on US exceptionalism . . . and how, for good or bad, our country differs from other democracies.



PART ONE: CULTURE RELATIVISM AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY



Keep in mind that over the last year --- the buggy site coming into existence late last January --- we've talked a fair amount about cultural relativism in our commentaries, especially in its pc-versions that draw on various epistemological theories and claim that there is no such thing as objective truth. In the end, so these theories go, there is really nothing beyond the consensus of a particular group about what is true or not; and hence nothing beyond that group's shared beliefs and values and normative standards. Those shared beliefs, values and other normative standards, plus surrounding symbols and the practices that they encourage, are what is meant by a distinctive culture and way of life --- either on the macro level, say, of whole societies like nation-state or on the sub-cultural levels for ethnic and religious and other minorities. For that matter, specific professions and professional associations have their own distinctive practices and ways of validating the truths and values of their work: think of the medical, legal, or scientific professions here. We can even talk about shared views, values, and practices among political elites like Congressmen that distinguish their behavior, whether Republican or Democratic, from their rank-and-file party members or the wider public. Generally, for instance, survey data have long shown that elected national and state political officials --- including Congressmen --- have a firmer commitment to maintaining Constitutional rights to freedom of expression and civility than the average public does, though for a couple of decades there have been changes on the public level here, and mainly for the good.

Those of you who have read the first two installments in this mini-series on European anti-Semitism will have, it's hoped, no trouble following the analysis here. The overall argument that spans all three installments is divided into 8 major parts, PART I, PART II, and so on. Parts I - III were set out in the initial installment; the lengthy Part IV took up all of the second installment; and what follows are Parts V - VIII. It will have helped if you've read those first two installments. If you haven't, you're urged to at least run your eye over both before tackling the argument here.

Another thing worth noting. This mini-series on EU anti-Semitism is something of an interlude in a much larger, wide-ranging project that began a few weeks ago: specifically, systematic comparisons between the US and other democracies, mainly in West Europe, and what --- for good or bad --- explains certain unusual American traits, cultural and institutional, that add up to what the admirable British weekly The Economist calls "American exceptionalism." The first buggy article in that larger series appeared in November, and the various constituent parts that comprise American exceptionalism were set out schematically there. With this interlude on European anti-Semitism now done, we will return to that more ambitious project starting with next article, taking up where we left off: the nature and evidence for the first American exceptionalism, a built-in suspicion --- again, for good or bad --- of big government. This suspicion, as the series showed in an exchange with a British visitor, stands out even when the comparative focus is narrowed to just the English-speaking democracies --- the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

So far, remember, the widely held suspicion in American politics was documented by concentrating on political institutions: a separation of powers at the center, an unique role for the courts in American politics, and a powerful federalism that has no rival even in Canada or Australia --- though tiny Switzerland's is comparable. When that larger, much more ambitious project resumes in the next article, you'll find several systematic comparisons of governmental spending --- all sorts as a percentage of GDP, including social expenditures --- in the US and EU democracies. Survey evidence will also be set out that documents why Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with the relatively low levels of expenditures, again for good or bad . . . education and defense the two big exceptions, both policy-areas where the US outspends all other democratic countries, percentage wise or absolutely.

In the meantime, shift your attention to the rippling outbreak of anti-Semitic racism in the EU once more.

PART V. THE CAUSES OF THE NEW EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM

More significantly, for all its virtues, the San Francisco Chronicle article on the incendiary anti-Semitism in the EU never gets around to pinning down and illuminating the root causes of its new outbreak and rapid spread there. Their analysis stays largely on the surface.

To get down to cases, the Chronicle journalists rightly note that anti-Semitism has been embedded in European life for over a thousand years or more --- actually, it's much older than the start of the Middle Ages to which the article makes reference, but no matter. That's not the problem. The problem is that the journalists are more or less content to observe that the new anti-Semitism, besides having ancient roots in European life, is rationalized in the media and elsewhere these days as anti-Israeli criticisms and then stop there. The root causes run much deeper. They're not just an outward sign of recurring historical influences, much as there are links to traditional European anti-Semitism; nor are the they confined to hostility toward alleged Israeli menaces to world-peace (huh?). Instead, they fester in the turbulence and social conflicts that surround the belated and externally imposed changes that the EU countries are being forced to implement . . . reluctantly, at a snail's pace in some countries like France, Italy, and Germany, more vigorously in Holland and Scandinavia, and with full-tilt tendencies in Ireland and Britain.

Most Europeans recoil from these changes and manifest worry and pessimism about them. This isn't just speculation. As PART IV in the previous buggy installment showed, the growing "gloom and pessimism" among the EU populations are captured faithfully by Eurobarometer, an official EU pollster group that probes public opinion in the 15 member-states twice yearly. [For that earlier buggy summary of its latest findings, published in November 2003 click here.]

Specifically, the gloom and pessimism that Eurobarometer found pertain to national and EU institutions alike as well as to each country's economic prospects . . . especially as the comfy welfare-state almost everywhere comes under forced changes, highly unwelcome. Less than half of the EU population even believes now that the EU itself is a good thing --- sentiments that reflect growing alienation among the national publics on display for years now and that the new EU constitution, drawn up over the last two years, was supposed to dispel. Not so. In early December 2003, the splits across the 15 member-countries --- as well as among the 10 new ones set to join next year --- were sufficiently sharp and far-reaching that the summit-conference of the heads of government, which was supposed to cap the two-year work by signing the final document, broke down in stalemated acrimony. As for overcoming the alienation of the publics, they weren't consulted once during the two-years of closed-door bureaucratic work on the proposed constitution. Come to that, few of the 15 existing member-states even intend to hold referenda on the momentous changes at stake. That is not the way the EU operates. Essentially a club of governments and technocrats --- the latter under the supervision of the EU executive commission --- it operates with largely tête-à-tête secrecy and at best very limited democratic supervision by the EU Parliament.

For the national publics, it's worse. Kept at bay by EU policymaking --- which entails intricate, astonishingly detailed regulations that intrude deep into the daily lives of individuals, business firms, employees, and national governments --- they have little say, if any, over those intrusions. Come to that, as survey evidence repeatedly shows, most Europeans don't understand how policies are shaped and administered by the tangle of EU institutions.

This is the second installment of a mini-series on European anti-Semitism, which was initially prompted by a recent article from The San Francisco Chronicle that Professor X --- an American of British origins --- sent to us. As things have shaped up, there are now 3 installments. Why the change to 3? Easy enough to say: the original buggy article that X's gesture prodded into existence turned out to be unusually long, what with all the analysis and supporting evidence . . . not to forget the three tag-on pieces from the International Herald Tribune and The Observer in London.

Come to that, not to forget either the lengthy sidebar observations about Red-Ken, the Mayor of London and his souped-up hyperbole about President Bush being the greatest threat to humankind in all of history, and how such raw extravagant assaults --- delivered with ex cathedra certainty --- pulsate with zeal throughout Big Green activist circles in the EU and much of the media there. On their shared view, the world's going to the dogs, the sky's about to fall in, and only desperate changes --- plus, of course, regulations galore EU-style, administered by guess who? --- will stave off disaster. Guess something else. This zeal, essentially a religious surrogate for people hungering after radically new meaning and a mission in life, usually leads to Inquisition-like pillorying of anyone who dares to tackle the taken-for-granted dogmas that constitute the hard-core ideology of Extra-Potent Environmentalism in Europe . . . such as Bjorn Lomborg, the noted Danish statistician who was bold enough to publish a justifiably renown book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, full of general optimism about the dominant trends in environmental, resource, energy, demographic, and developmental matters. Such boldness rankles pious clerics and their true-believing flock. Condemned by a witch-hunting committee within the Danish Ministry of Science earlier in 2003, Lomborg --- given no chance of rebuttal (why bother to let heretics full of devilish sorcery challenge Church-like pieties?) --- was only reversed this last week by the Danish government itself.

The original solo-version of the buggy article sliced up the argument into 8 major parts, PART I, PART II etc. The argument that follows takes up where the first installment left off: at the start of PART IV. ATTENTION: For those of you who have already read the solo-version, you might note an important addition today: an excerpt of a study put out twice yearly by Eurobarometer, an official EU agency that probes European attitudes and sentiments on a recurring basis. It appeared in November 2003, and it documents the growing pessimism and gloom that mark the dominant trends in EU public opinion --- especially about national and EU developments. As you'll see, the survey results --- including comparisons with the contrary trends in the US --- help illuminate the deeper festering causes of the recent surge in European racism and anti-Semitic views. Click on continue below, then click again here to jump to these lengthy added sections.

As you'll see, PART IV is itself a lengthy stand-alone argument, divided into 6 sub-sections --- each clearly demarcated and further sub-divided. Hence the reason for moving PARTS V-VIII to a third and final installment.

PART IV. THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE ARTICLE'S WEAKNESSES

So much for the Chronicle article's virtues. Its main defects were hinted at in the earlier buggy tag-on observations, a few paragraph back --- in the first installment --- to the effect that it's intelligent and generally accurate as far as it goes. Why the italics here? To signal, essentially, that the Chronicle journalists didn't dig deep enough --- either in the use of documented anti-Semitism in the EU or in their analysis of the various causes behind its resurgence. Nor did they apply any comparative perspective: in particular, with the US, where survey evidence going back over a half century is available about anti-Semitism in this country. It too is on the upswing --- though still far below its strength in the EU, where we also have some revealing survey evidence now . . . thanks to the US Anti-Defamation League.

And so, for more depth, we need . . .

 

(i) For a start, To Use Survey Evidence Gathered by ADL-sponsored Surveys

Its analysis would have been strengthened had it referred to the two ADL-sponsored surveys of anti-Semitism in Europe in 2002 that were carried out by well-known EU pollsters, and as you'll see, the ADL's surveys there and over the decades in the US rely on continued academic expertise for tapping racism. [For the ADL summary, go A Potent and Dangerous Mix.] Needless to say, survey data aren't Gospel Truth. Unless carried out in similar ways over years and decades (longitudinal analysis), they usually capture shifting attitudes and sentiments held by respondents at the time of polling, rather than firmly anchored beliefs . . . not that the gap is necessarily great. It all depends. Then, too, the wording of questions can count, and possibly even the personality of the pollster, particularly in face-to-face surveys. There may also be a gap between how someone responds to a set of questions and how he or she actually feels, particularly if the probing questions deal with politically sensitive issues such as racism. (That, by the way, makes the self-reported anti-Semitism all the more convincing; the sentiments on such inflammatory issues usually are more widespread.)

Our thanks to X, a political science professor in California who sent us a link to an article on the dangers of fast growing anti-Semitism in West Europe. Written by a team of San Francisco Chronicle journalists stationed in West Europe, it appeared in that influential newspaper on December 14.

A few words about X that are relevant to the article seem in order. Born and reared in Liverpool, England, he came to this country at age 19, entered university, then went on to obtain a Ph.D. --- after 6 years of graduate work --- and is currently a happy fellow, a professor in California and a US citizen. He is himself, please note, not Jewish. Like the buggy professor, though, he deplores this renewed surge of Jew-hating racism in Britain and even more so on the Continent --- a scourge in European life for over 1500 years now --- and as a once proud Briton, he's left with sadness as he witnesses the evidence of anti-Semitism's spreading venom pile up in Europe again. More concretely, all of us of good-will --- whether American or European --- are bound to worry that the thick barrier of taboos surrounding anti-Semitism in Europe since WWII has experienced a recent bursting-the-bounds collapse. Our worry here is all the greater because of a related complex of extra-potent causes behind the surging anti-Semitism, a host of unsettling, pressure-cooker changes in European life --- economic, social, demographic, and political --- that entail both growing social-conflicts and charged mental stress. There's no secret of the driving forces behind these resented, disorienting changes: remorseless globalizing and regional trends, a heady compound as we'll see that has little to do with Israel or the Middle-East conflict --- which serves as the rationale-excuse invoked by most West European officials and media-types whenever the incendiary anti-Semitism active there is discussed --- and everything to do with a tangle of emotionally charged resentments and backlashes that seeks out and blames flesh-and-blood scapegoats for the upsurge of social conflicts and dislocations in European life.

PART I. SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON X'S ARTICLE: HOW ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-GLOBALIZATION, AND ANTI-AMERICANISM GO TOGETHER IN TANGLED IF INCOHERENT WAYS

Needless to say, we'll document these resentments and dislocations in a few moments. At the outset here, the key point to keep in mind is this: the more this complex of unsettling economic, social, and political changes picks up in momentum, the more likely there will be increased psychic backlashes in both halves of the Continent --- west and east --- that single out and seek to scapegoat Jews as instrumental for their troubles, whether directly or indirectly. In particular,

• Directly so . . . by conjuring up age-old boilerplate views about hidden, all-powerful Jewish conspiracies to dominate the world;

• And indirectly --- in a more sophisticated, updated way, purveyed by some of the EU media and among certain intellectual and political circles --- by invoking the alleged Jewish control of these feared globalizing and regional forces: whether of American foreign policy (the neo-con conspiracy), or by means of Jew-dominated big finance and Wall Street (and hence the relentless spread of "casino capitalism" a l'americain), or thanks to the alleged Jewish control of Hollywood and the even more relentless diffusion of American films, TV, music, and what have you.

Francis, a British visitor , has left us a set of stimulating comments --- some supportive, others critical --- that deal with the argument set out in the previous buggy article published here . . . the 6th in the mini-series on US exceptionalism. Francis' comments are all the more thought-provoking because he has been a long-time resident of Italy, where he has held a number of jobs as he continues his writing career, and so he enjoys a built-in comparative perspective on both politics and general life in Britain and Italy. His comments uncoil here first, followed by a lengthy buggy set of replies. Both should help round out your perspective on the question of institutionalized mistrust of big government, only one of a wider series of limits on it and bureaucratic rule that exist in the American system ---- always, remember, for good or bad.

Francis' Comments

Prof Bug:

(i.) I think you are confusing "Anglo-saxon" exceptionalism with US exceptionalism in this article. In all Anglo-Saxon democracies the parliament is intended to monitor the executive. In the UK that is precisely what the Hutton enquiry into the recent WMD/Suicide claims has been doing. Likewise politicians in the UK are repeatedly hauled over the coals for failing to declare "interests" in individuals, companies, industries and foreign countries. Some have had their careers blighted temporarily or permanently as a result.

(ii.) Federal countries such as Australia or Canada also show similar tensions between the different levels of government, which helps keep the federal executive reasonably honest, however even in the highly centralized UK distrust of the government for one reason or another is extremely widespread. You may recall Mrs Thatcher's Poll Tax problems and indeed Tony Blair's problems with the various countryside groups and there is persistent distrust of the Eurocrats.

(iii.) Likewise any member of the House of Commons may introduce a bill and while it is true that bills introduced without government support rarely proceed that is not the same as never. Indeed it is quite common that a bill introduced by an MP whihc turns out to be popular is swiftly endorsed by the government of the day. And of course government support does not guarantee that a bill will be passed, even the Blair government, which has the largest majority for a considerably time has failed to get bills passed without major modification and some issues, such as the desire of numerous home secretaries to give us all ID cards, have never been introduced to the house because the government whips are positive that such a bill will be defeated.

(iv.) The difference, it seems to me, is that in the US there is much less of the belief that the government should be a "nanny state". That as you mentioned earlier truly is exceptional but British 17th century history resulted in numerous checks and balances within the parliamentary system. The USA may have codified them in a single constitution (and amendments) but they also exist in the hodgepodge of case law, precedent and legislation that is the British Constitution and all executives, including the current one, chafe under them.

THE BUGGY REPLY

Francis:

Thank you for your stimulating comments. They're well worth replying to, and in detail . . . the replies set out in a fairly strict comparative manner.

(i.) The English-Speaking Democracies: Yes and No Regarding Common Features

Yes, you're right in a general sense: specifically, as the earlier buggy articles in this mini-series mentioned, there is a gap between the EU Continental countries on one side and all the major English-speaking countries on the other --- particularly, the absence of a long-standing statist tradition that goes back over the centuries; the lack of monarchical absolutism (save briefly in the early and middle of the 17th century in Britain);the impact of bottom-up common law as opposed to Roman law on the Continent; and the ability of the British to further limit executive power, often entailing large-scale violence in the Middle Ages and through much of the 17th century, thanks to parliamentary traditions and the decentralized power of the barons and free-towns and cities. Similarly, like Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were all able to forgo the need for a large standing army throughout most of their history --- including conscription after 1800 except in the US civil war, WWI, WWII, and part of the cold war --- that would otherwise have led to a more greater set of monarchical and later Cabinet-government powers.

The reason for a lesser military and security role for the state in these English-speaking countries? They have not faced any major security threats directly on their borders from neighboring powerful countries.we could all rely on sea-power for major protection until the world wars of the last century, including the cold war that lasted until 1991, and a standing army and large tax powers for supporting it were unnecessary.

Still unfolding, a few articles left to publish, the current mini-series on US exceptionalism among the democratic countries --- for good or bad --- started the 6th article in that series last Sunday, December 7, 2003. It wasn't concluded, and then a buggy prof trip to Los Angeles followed and delayed its finish. When I got back, I found a stimulating commentary left by a legal specialist, John, on the differences between American and EU Continental legal systems. Replying to John took part of Thursday. Then, on Friday and Saturday as it happened, prof bug's mind was diverted by the need to learn some new computer programs --- specifically, Dreamwever MX for web design, Acrobat 6 for .pdf files, and Photocopy . . . the latter for futzing around with charts and other images: a crop here, a new splash of red or blue there, a fine-tuned enlargement opposite, on and on. Plus, come to think of it, some donkey-work reviewing HTML and XHTML coding. Even tried my hand at XML coding: ouch, who has time for it all?

The upshot?

The concluding section of the 6th article didn't materialize until . . . well, about a minute ago, give or take a few seconds. Actually, that's wrong --- the reference to "concluding" anyway. The key topic of the 6th installment --- American mistrust of big government and bureaucratic rule --- will require at least another article-installment. So what follows here?

Well, it's the concluding section of the argument that was left hanging fire since last Sunday's start of the 6th article --- and that, scout's honor, prof bug did just finish. Long enough in its own right, and sufficiently crammed with comparative analysis to boot, that section, it seems, deserves to be republished here as a stand-alone article. Will visitors share this bugged-out view? Let us hope so. And remember, the buggy comments that follow are all intended to underscore one of the key exceptions that define American political life compared to the EU democracies --- and not only them, but the Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders: an institutionalized mistrust of big government and bureaucratic rule, reinforced as we'll see by strong currents in American culture . . . again, remember, always for good or bad. The latter exists. It entails some defects of our separation of powers, viewed comparatively, that are set out here and then analyzed. How serious these defects are is debatable. In prof bug's mind, the virtues of hemming in full-tilt, free-wheeling executive power --- which is what the Constitution expects Congress and the courts to do --- seem to overshadow them.

Another thing to remember. We're still left with the need to supply other evidence for this ingrained American mistrust: among it --- bulking large as we'll see in the next article (a continuation of the 6th installment, almost a mini-series of its own) --- is how limited government spending is in this country compared to the EU and Japan. Who knows? On current trends, this series on American exceptionalism might go on uncoiling for a couple of more weeks and into the new year.



(iv.) Imposing Powers Enjoyed by Congress To Monitor The Executive Branch

No other legislature anywhere comes close to these powers. Remember here, the strength of a legislature in a political system hinges on four powers generally:

• the ability to initiate all legislation

• the ability to control the legislative agenda

• the ability to approve, amend, or overturn all policies and laws involving taxes

• the ability to monitor and criticize the executive branch, including the president . . . if need be with the power of impeachment

On all four counts, for good or bad, the US Congress stands out as a remarkably strong legislature, and that's true of both houses. By contrast, in parliamentary systems, the fusion of the PM and the Cabinet with a majority in the legislature means that the executive determines:

The following comment, left by John --- a prominent legal specialist who prefers to keep his name abridged this way --- was appended to the previous article on American exceptionalism, itself not yet in its final version [no, not indolence at work in the delay; rather, because the buggy prof took off three days and went to Los Angeles . . . a very nice trip, thank you very much L.A]. John, who has lived, studied, and worked in the EU --- including a stint in one of its member-countries' legislatures --- sets out some important differences between American and EU Continental legal traditions, including the role of state authority and powers and some contrasting philosophical views as to the origins of citizens' rights: whether toward one another or vis-a-vis the state itself. John has some stimulating remarks, too, to underscore about judicial activism in this country, a topic treated in the previous buggy article . . . and for that matter, one of the most controversial, high-coiled constitutional questions of the last few decades.

What follows first is John's commentary, then the lengthy buggy reply.

In that reply, as you'll see, some explicit comparisons are laid out and clarified between the Anglo-American legal traditions of the common law, on one side, and on the other those on the Continent in West Europe that are inspired by Roman (and Roman-Dutch) laws. The common law grew up in medieval and early modern England as a set of property laws, reinforced by the sustained efforts of the barons and free towns and parliaments over the centuries to limit arbitrary state power over them. In shorthand terms, consider it a bottom-up law. It is what the English colonists brought to this country, which was then reinforced and extended by our Constitution and the greater institutionalized suspicion of state power that followed here. With some variations across Continental countries, Roman law is different; generally, it stresses state security and law and order, and the rights of citizens are set out in a noticeably different way. Over decades and longer, it has been used not only to underpin a powerful regulatory state with strong paternalistic policies --- a fair term, I think --- but to shift the meaning of rights from a negative liberal sense of defense against government encroachments toward what a former professor of mine, the noted Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin, called positive freedom: the efforts by governments to create conditions of self-fulfillment that Berlin himself warned against as potentially totalitarian. Berlin, it's fair to add, may have exaggerated. Writing back in the 1950s, he had in mind Nazism, Fascism, and Communism.

More recently, since the early 1960s, a different set of drawbacks of this intrusive, high-spending regulatory state has been emphasized.

According to the pioneer work of Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the rest of the Chicago school in economics --- whose scholars have won more Nobel prizes than any other university in the world --- an expanding welfare-state and its regulating bureaucracies would entail an endless list of positive entitlements, pushed and demanded by powerful organized groups and responded to by politicians seeking re-election, that not only are full of paternalism and entail constantly expanding state regulatory powers to enforce, but can, it appears, soon undermine economic vitality and competitiveness. In the 1980s, this theoretical assault by economists and other social scientists like James Wilson and Irving Kristol was transformed into energetic practice --- and in all the major English-speaking countries, note, except Canada--- by the efforts of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the US, followed by a gradual shift in that direction by Tony Blair's Labour Party and Bill Clinton's Democratic Party when they came to power in the 1990s. Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland have followed a similar set of policies to prune severely entitlements and regulations.

Dealing with these legal and philosophical matters is one buggy task in our reply.

That done, a second task will rear up here. Specifically, the reply will set out some lengthy analysis of the biggest challenge to American liberties these days: where and how to draw the balance between terrorist threats and our concerns for security on one side, and the protection of our liberties against encroaching government surveillance and other new powers on the other. Knowledgeable citizens of good will can differ here. Jurists do too. So for that matter do politicians. Can we throw some light on this hot-wire debate? Indirectly, yes. In particular, some explicit comparisons will be uncoiled between American anti-terrorist laws and the new legal and executive powers enacted here since September 2001, and those in the EU that, it happens, are much more far-reaching . . . even, surprisingly, in Britain.

Our main source here will be Jeffrey Rosen, a George Washington University law professor --- and the noted legal editor and writer for the liberal New Republic --- who argues that though we are right to be concerned about the threats to our traditional liberties here, our checks and balances are working: both the judiciary and Congress have severely hemmed in what the Bush administration has wanted to do. More to the point, the Bush administration wanted, Rosen says, to emulate the EU countries' far-reaching legislation, and failed on every count . . . thanks precisely to our checks and balances.

The reply ends with some useful links for those of you who want to pursue the subject: including a stimulating long review of a book on terrorism and our legal and political responses that appeared in The New Republic back in August of 2002. The book is by Alan Dershowitz, probably the best known defense lawyer and constitutional specialist in the country ---- at least on the level of popular opinion; and the review is by Judge Richard A. Posner, not only the most cited constitutional and legal theorist of our times in the legal profession, but a former University of Chicago professor who is deliberately the most provocative legal commentator of our era . . . or maybe, come to that, any era in human history back to the cavemen.

FROM JOHN

I was on a trip to Canada explaining to a Dutch fellow traveler the distinction between, and relative value Americans place on, natural rights guaranteed by our Consitution and political rights (statutory entitlements) created by the legislative branch. He couldn't conceive of the difference, saying "you Americans always go on about your natural rights." Having lived many years in Europe, the failure to make that distinction is to me the fundamental cultural difference between Americans and Europeans: Europeans view all of their rights-- their very freedom-- as emanating from the state vs. Americans who are born with certain inalienable rights (emanating from God) that must be safeguarded-- our Constitution preserves freedoms, it doesn't create them. For most Americans, statutory entitlements and obligations are additive, political benefits that we democratically agree to provide for ourselves to the extent they don't encroach on our Constitutional rights. We can agree to certain entitlements and obligations one day and change our minds the next. Our fundamental natural rights, we cannot touch.

In the last article --- the 5th in this lengthy mini-series on US exceptionalism among industrial democracies --- a catalogue of specific American traits, political, economic, and cultural, was quickly set out in a fairly schematic, top-skimming way, along with a promise to do three things later on: flesh out the list, document each of the traits, and provide a convincing explanation as to why they exist and make the US differ, for good or bad, from other democratic countries. Time now to honor that promise. As things now stand, another four or five articles look like being needed before the series reaches the home-stretch and can gallop past the finish-line.

Our mental tasks in the series, remember, are strictly comparative; the American idiosyncrasies highlighted here make sense only when the standard of comparison is with other rich industrial democracies. Shift the standard --- compare, say, Communist-ruled China or the despotic Arab tyrannies with the US --- and this country and all other democratic industrial ones would turn out to share far more in common as a group than they diverge. That's true of the US and the EU and the other English-speaking democracies outside Europe; for that matter, it applies to Israel and Japan as well, both countries where a rule of law prevails --- in the former more than the latter probably --- as does an advanced high-tech industrial base.



And this article's current task?

Easy enough to say. As buggy connoisseurs might recall, the catalogue of distinctive American traits boasted some six in all . . . not counting a seventh item, a set of misconceptions widespread in the EU and elsewhere about the US. Forget those misconceptions for the moment; dealing with them is a future chore. Come to that, elbow two-thirds of these specific US traits to the sidelines for a while too --- until tomorrow or the day after --- and focus your attention on the first two traits only: a rooted mistrust of big government and a much narrower ideological spectrum compared to other industrial democracies. The two, as it happens, go hand-in-glove. Each reinforces the other. Documenting both, then explaining them in a snappy, convincing manner is where the beams of hot-lit buggy duty now bounce and glitter with taut focalized intensity. . . the opposite, oh joy of joys, of all the grindwork that has been diverting prof bug's mind the last few days. [Tag-on remark, /2003: What with the way the argument is spinning itself out in this current article, it now looks like the second trait --- a narrow ideological spectrum in American politics, whether past or present --- will have to await the next article before it can elbow and clapper-claw its way to hog center-stage attraction.]

 

AMERICAN IDIOSYNCRACY NUMBER ONE: A MISTRUST OF BIG GOVERNMENT

The Claim

Compared to other democratic countries --- even the remaining English-speaking countries --- Americans, by and large, dislike and mistrust big government . . . especially on the federal level, but to an extent locally and on the state-level as well. They always have, as Tocqueville noticed almost two centuries ago, and they probably always will.