Back From Europe

December 15, 2004
      Paris was normal, which is to say the streets were thronged with live human beings (hardly any of them overweight), the cafes and restaurants were bustling, even the parks were well-populated on a brisk December day and we were reminded emphatically of the stark contrast with the impoverished public life of America. In fact, one morning as we puttered in the hotel room with CNN-Europe playing in the background, a story came on about retail sales back in the States, and there was a shot of our supersized fellow countrymen waddling around in a WalMart dressed in the usual slob apparel by which they fail to make a distinction between being at home and being out in public.

      Amsterdam, Holland, was pretty much the same story as Paris, though it is physically quite different from Paris -- the scale is smaller, the intimate streets are deployed along a network of beautiful canals, and the car is barely tolerated (or even much in evidence). There, we would duck into a "brown bar" (so-called because of the dark wooden wainscotting) at five p.m. and it would be full of well-dressed, gainfully employed adults in animated conversation. Public life in Europe is only minimally about shopping and maximally about spending time with your fellow human beings.

     American public life by comparison is pathetic-to-nonexistent. Americans venture out only to roam the warehouse depots, and only by car. In most American places bars are strictly for lowlifes, and the public realm for the employed classes is pretty much restricted to television, with its predictable cast of manufactured characters and situations. The alienation and isolation of American life is so pervasive and pathological, compared to life lived elsewhere in this world, that all the Prozac ever made will never avail to make things better for us.

     The process of making America an alienated land of solitary, obese driver-shoppers has been very profitable for predatory corporations. They have systematically disassembled the public social infrastructure and repackaged pieces of it for sale -- starting with the single-family house isolated on its lot from all the normal amenities of culture and society. Everybody now has their 'home theater' so the cinema is only a place to park children for two hours so you can drive elsewhere to buy the cheez doodles, frozen pizza, Pepsi, and other staples of the American diet. You equip your kitchen with an espresso machine and there is no reason to "waste your time" in a cafe. Everybody has to have their own pool, so the kids can go swimming by themselves. Family values. The rest of the human race is unimportant.

      American adults are said to work far more hours than their European counterparts. Clearly, that is because they have no place to "be" with other people besides the WalMart, and no way to get anyplace except the car. On top of this fantastic alienation, there is the inescapable din of manufactured Christmas festivity, which must only reinforce the deep,chronic loneliness of most average Americans, the utter lack of connection with other people. In Paris there was hardly a Santa to be seen, or a carol to be heard, though the busy and beautiful streets were saturated with cheer and conviviality.

     What is also striking in contrast is the stupendous and immersive ugliness of all "normal" American daily environments. Public beauty in buildings and streets is not merely absent, it seems to have been rigorously banished. Americans now move continually through a machine terrain unmediated by any reminders of what it means to be human.  Our most celebrated architects are high priests of the machine ethos. America has become a country of sad, lonely, and frightened people. We say that we like our way of life, but I suspect that many Red staters have never known anything else besides the six-lane highway, the box store, and the life of cable TV. The widespread demoralization is too great to be calculated.

Comments

[win]

A country not worth coming home to... so, why did you?

[Stephen]

For fuck's sake man, where do you live? I live in New Orleans, LA and have lived in a variety of places including Northern New Mexico and yes, Paris, France. While I agree that Paris is wonderful, the places I've lived in the US, including where I live now, is not the way you describe it. Perhaps because New Orleans and Northern New Mexico have such a strong connection to their European past that the architecture is generally unique, old and beautiful. Of course there are Wal-Marts, but generally not in the city limits and bars are certainly not just for low lifes and cafes are thriving. I can only assume you live somewhere like Ohio. Perhaps you should move, maybe come down here, hell I'll buy you a drink at a bar. It could serve to improve your "the world's gonna end tomorrow" life view. So what if it does.

[Jarrett]

Stephen: We who live in enclaves such as New Orleans or (in my case) San Francisco are obviously not part of the America that Jim is describing, but then, we're not part of the America that the president cares about, either.

Jim's hometown is actually a pretty good vantage point for assessing both Red and Blue Americas, since both are present nearby in pure forms, adjacent but not really mixing.

[little philosophe]

I was so glad to read this post and agree with many of its statements. What makes me miss Europe, and especially France, is the ability to have really engaging conversations with others, even perfect strangers, on topics that extend beyond the primary average American conversational interests of t.v. and sports. I've lived and studied in France several times before and I miss being able to walk everywhere and to have almost constant exposure to culture both past and modern. However, I've noticed that in the states when I try to replicate the same quality of living, it's a big challenge.

[William]

The characteristic petulant mewling gets tiresome after a while Jim. Why, the bloody fuck don't you move to Paris, or Amsterdam if you are so unhappy at home? You'd find something to gripe about where ever you are.

[tom matrullo]

Commentors who can't come up with anything better than repeating the same tired "Murka Love it or Leave It," late of Bumpersticker Mind, prove the accuracy of the shoe measurement.

[RW]

A very insightful post. To assert "love it or leave it and stop complaining" is ridiculous. Compared to other world cultures we Americans don't have much of a connect with each other, and prefer our personal worlds rather than interactive ones. At least in over a million square miles. And that's sad. But then, we've been broken down into market segments where they can sell us which bars are hip, which stores are hip, and so forth. Europe has thousands of years of history (for good and bad) while collectively we've got the memory and social skills of a teenager. From one who loves America and has a sense of perspective....

[Richard Ames]

You write like the most perfect ass.

[David]

I liked the post, although perhaps it's not quite fair to compare the whole of the US to Paris. As some of the comments have mentioned, the US does have some extremely cosmopolitan cities, and there are large parts of France that sap the soul as much as any strip mall (the vast northern agribusiness plains, or the housing projects around Marseilles, for example.) A lot of the new stuff going up in Europe is just as bad as in America. Parts of Britain are becoming very like those empty societally-deprived spaces you describe in The Geography of Nowhere. The problem is not a national one, though many of its origins were in the US. Rather it is one of economics - it's just the way things are done, everywhere, and it's that we need to address.

[Nancy]

I enjoyed the piece though you are neglecting to point out that cities, whether large or small, in the USA have developed cafe societies, interesting architectural enclaves and artistic culture. It is suburbia that is starved for these things and this condition is not unique to the USA.
I have lived in six countries and the highest standard of living was in Sydney, Australia--Paris is a near second, but Sydney's incredible natural beauty and yes, strong cultural life, gives it the edge with me.
But suburban Australia looks exactly like suburban America and Australians shop at Wal Marts and have an obesity problem just as the Americans do. These problems are not country specific. Rather, they result from the prepackaging of life that suburbia represents.

[joy]

i live in britain & it is fast becoming a miniature version of the america james describes. this used to be a green & pleasant land, now it is covered with ticky-tack houses, the public transport is disappearing & mcdonalds rules. help.

[Laurynas]

I live in a post-soviet republic of Lithuania. During the soviet reign houses were built in completely different manner - we have comunal 12-9-5 flour houses. Actually, till recent times there have been only few american suburbia style towns built, but even those are for upper class. But even the comunal houses have similar problems - relations betweem people actually are colder, but you can also find european relations between people. All cultural life is still in the city centre and lithuanians have a common habit of going out every weekend to pub, and having a pint of beer witrh their friends.
Sad thing is that last month they built a giant shopping centre in my block. I think this consumerist way of life that is developing in the world will have terrible affect on our every day life, because this is a silent way of isolating people.

[orionoir]

wonderful post except for the gratuitous slap at the lard-asses of america: i mean, is bodyweight some kind of moral shorthand now, does being fat automatically reveal some kind of moral turpitude, i just don't buy it. those skinny frogs can kiss my lilywhite fat american butt...

[RonaldMcRegan]

americans: better, bigger, fatter, lonelier...

[MikeB]

Nothing gratuitous about pointing out how fat Americans are relative to the rest of the world. It's very striking and you can't help noticing it (unless you're blind or fat-apologetic). We are fat asses. We go from sitting on our fat asses in our cars, to sitting on our fat asses at our desks, to sitting on our fat asses on our couches. It's laziness, stupidity, and, yes, moral turpitude. No question about it.

[revere]

I have good friends who moved to rural south of France, and when visiting them, I am always stunned by the graciousness and conviviality of the French people, even in rural settings. They are well-educated, aware of world politics, and willing to engage strangers in open discussions of nearly any topic, except money, of course. Witnessing their society, with its strong social fabric, I am reminded of how much we here in the states have lost. And yet when you present the topic for discussion, there is the inevitable backlash from the thuggish mentality that rules a certain large element of our country, the ones who suggest immediately that you leave. They are not open to reflection, and they goose-step in support of the corporate hegemony that runs this country now. This isolation and consumeration of our country did not just "happen"; it is the calculated result of American capitalism, the end goal of which is fascist rule by the very few of extreme wealth. American people need to have this discussion and decide how best to reverse this ugly trend.

[Matt Lyons]

Oh my.. Judging by all the negative responses I've read it would seem Jim's post really struck a nerve.

Where do you live Nancy? I'm guessing in one of the blue states on the west coast or the northeast.

I've lived in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia all my life and I must say that 'cafe culture' in the South is extremely rare or non-existent. Not to mention elitist in nature because only the upper middle-class and above can afford to live in the few really charming places that do exist. Most of the South, easily 95% of it, is a rural ghetto, or what Jim calls an 'automobile slum' with the exception of a few, old charming pre-war cities such as New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, or the recently revitalized Asheville, NC.

What Jim is saying isn't new. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg back in the 80's wrote about 'third places', the informal public gathering spaces that bind a society together such as cafes, pubs, beer gardens, etc and how the U.S. pays a huge economic and social price for not having these types of institutions.

That other countries are slowly showing signs of our dysfunctionality doesn't make me feel any better. Really it only confirms the creeping, cancerous nature of a destructive way of life that we so casually market to the rest of the world as being the end all, be all when it comes to "freedom"(tm).

[Kalle]

Hello. Comments from the opressed socialistic Sweden:
Thanks for a good article.
I see a big cultural difference in the view of freedom between Sweden and USA. In sweden we have something called "all mens rights" (roughly translated). This means you have the liberty to walk, camp, pick berries and so forth everywhere in the country. It thus means that you cant seal of land or beaches since it is everybodies right to utilise it for free as long as you dont misuse it. In america freedom means (I could be wrong?) that you are free to buy land and put up a "No trespassing" sign. Sure, thats freedom in a sense I guess, but where does that end?
Im sure that America, in its vastness, contains both "good and bad" ways of life. Spent a year as an exchange student in Montana 20 years ago and it was one of the best years of my life, so I have experinced the good things about this nation. The "americanisation" that we suffer from now is something else and its no good. I have an example: We have a traditional christmas soda called "Julmust". Coca-cola has tried to break this tradition by heavy marketing of coke, without success. Now they have launched their own Julmust to compete that way. Seems like companies like this allways have to "win". Why dont they just stay home? Besides this, I couldnt believe that Bush got re-elected. What a bummer for the whole world. Four more years for you guys to make enemies :-(

Best regards
Kalle.

[Kate]

This post was excellent. Unlike others have suggested, I do not feel that you are complaining for the sake of complaining. You've actually asserted something about the American population that I've never thought much about: our isolation. You've given me a new perspective and I appreciate it.

That said, I do take offense at being referred to as "waddling," junk food-scarfing fatty. No, I won't make some dumb claim about a thyroid problem or our obsession with being too thin--I know I'm fat. Yes, that would make me a fat American. However, this doesn't make me ignorant or ethnocentric or even a WalMart customer.

I too long for the sort of European-styled community that you describe and have found it somewhat here in Berkeley. This doesn't make me forget my Midwestern upbringing, and I know that most of America is starved for what we have here.

Still, I feel it's too easy to insult us for being fat. We put treadmills in our homes so that we can forgo community and still be thin. You've really hit the nail on the head with this claim about isolation. You don't need to lower yourself to petty insults to make your point. I think you know that.

[John]

To get us back to Jim's posting, here's his last graf:

"Americans now move continually through a machine terrain unmediated by any reminders of what it means to be human...We say that we like our way of life, but I suspect that many Red staters have never known anything else besides the six-lane highway, the box store, and the life of cable TV. The widespread demoralization is too great to be calculated."

Forgetting the Parisian mindset and the references about weight, he's right. Most Americans go from the kitchen to the car in the garage to the garage at work to the office to the garage to the garage to the kitchen. And somehow avoid interaction with anyone.

It's absurd when you think about it. Thank goodness I live in a village - specifically one that's not oriented around the automobile.

/john/

[Rick]

Jim, you say Americans do not have the ability to have really engaging
conversations with others, even perfect strangers, on topics that extend beyond the primary average American conversational interests of t.v. and sports. And America has become a country of sad, lonely, and frightened people. OK, I'm in aggreement, so now what do we do to get out of this hell? And please don't tell me to move, I want my Country back! Living in the "Hart Land"

[Gerardo Braham]

Greetings from Mexico.
I loved the article. I lived for a year on Louisville Kentucky and would like to share some thoughts about the americanization the author mentions.
1) When I commented to a friend I walked to the mall (1 km far) he was shocked. "Only homeless and blacks walk" were his words.

2) Downtown culture is almost lost or never existed. In Mexico, historical downtown is what people travel from other cities to know. A place where you can stroll and see the sights. In Louisville it consisted on 6 square blocks and was warned to do not cross certain streets under risk of being mugged. And this was a city which had a place called historical downtown!

3) Malls are the rule, you want to go there if you go anywhere at all. Small markets are vanishing. There is no friendly owner who knows you and your family for years.

I enjoyed my stay, but really missed some things and those are just some of them.
Gerardo

[Scott]

What you complain about is the unintended consequence of zoning and planning. Our demand for ever increasing property values and protecting the investments in homes from a business setting up next door keeps those lovely little shops europe is infested with from poping up and giving us that atmosphere.

Making it illegal to build homes above the shop forces business owners to live in cookie cutter subdivisions. Shopping areas are designated in places where a short walk to the gorcery store is almost imposible, one has to drive. When a commercial area is planned to serve several hundred homes the mom and pop cant compeate with the Wal Mart and Best Buy. Roads are planned in such a way that pedestrian trafic is hazardous to ones health.

Or you can blame corporate america... They are always the prefered goat upon which to scape instead of looking to the problems we caused for ourselves by crying for more rules and regualtions to stop our neighbors from bothering us.

[Paul]

As a European I'd like to give an answer to all the "..why don't you just move there?" questions.

Because you can't.

You can have a 3-month holiday visa or you can jump through hoops if you have an accredited degree and get a work visa. But for the most part...you can't. And thank fuck for that.

[Crane]

As an American who grew up overseas (my father is in the Foreign Service), I had the opportunity to experience a variety of cultures, all of them being in the Third World, and have recently moved back to the USA for college. In my travels, I have found the isolationistic culture of the United States to be overwhelming. As a kid who moved every four years or so, I have had to learn to make close friends quickly, and I find it by far the hardest to create friendships with Americans. In all the other cultures I've lived in, I make close friends almost instantly after arriving, but in the USA, there is a lack of trust and social ability. I think James is right on.