I think we cultivate this boorish ugly American pose at our peril. Not that we need the Euros to function successfully, but it sure doesn't hurt to have them on our side. Besides, it is a pretty hypocritical posture to begin with -- we deride the Euros for being unserious in the most unserious manner imaginable, thus underscoring our complete ignorance on the subject. Ambrose Beirce was not exactly talking out his ass when he opined that war is God's way of teaching Americans about geography; enormous oceans have insulated us from learning about the rest of the world at least as much as they have insulated us from homeland defense, the War of 1812 notwithstanding.
So, are the Swiss some sort of elite, effete pussies, as the pampered think-tank doughboys at The Corner seem to think (when they're not waxing each others' backs)? Not according to the CIA World Factbook:
the Swiss Confederation states that "every Swiss male is obligated to do military service"; every Swiss male has to serve for at least 260 days in the armed forces; 19 years of age for compulsory military service; 17 years of age for voluntary military service; conscripts receive 15 weeks of compulsory training, followed by 10 intermittent recalls for training over the next 22 years....
Because they are also considered a militia, every Swiss household keeps a weapon. So despite the official neutrality, they are at least well-armed, if not itching to mobilize just because they let themselves get whipped up by some cheap demagoguery.
Switzerland also has a 99% literacy rate, compared to the US' 97% (which I would very seriously question, even discounting the immigrant population). In fact, the Swiss are famously fluent and literate in several languages, whereas your methinks-he-doth-protest-too-much tough guy American is usually barely functional in his own tongue. It is not because we're dumber, it is because we don't attach the same importance to learning as we do to, say, sports or celebrity or political rhetoric.
They're very nearly as prosperous as we are, and with a lot less stress. This doesn't mean we have to be just like them, but it does mean that maybe we should take a deep breath before just taking a dump on another country, like we're the fucking Middle Kingdom or something. This chronic lack of seriousness, this embrace of sheer ignorance and petulance, is what is undermining this country in the long run. It's what enables our so-called leaders to say "science-schmience" while a major American city literally drowns; it's what enables some punk right out of college to have the fucking balls to lecture NASA on how to discuss astrophysics without offending the "intelligent design" mouthbreathers.
It is eventually going to be our undoing, if we don't stop fucking around. The Islamic world has a responsibility to slap down the fanatics in their midst, the lunatics who firebomb embassies over political cartoons. We have a similar responsibility, to slap down ignorant commentary about our friends overseas, by troglodytes who have never bothered to go to these countries firsthand, and probably would have trouble finding them on a map.
On the money as always, Heywood; but give the Swiss-bashing rednecks the slight benefit of a bit of doubt--sure they don;t know jack shit about Switzerland, but some of them suspect it's gotta be that country that is host to lots of private schools for your damsels to learn their manners. Well, I've met a couple in my life, and I can tell you, they annoy the living hell outta me with their faggoty mannerisms. A blue-collar guy can only take so much.
ReplyDeleteAs to the country of Zwingli and Euler, we all admire its industriousness and literacy rate; but here's what Orson Welles has to say about it, in Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (a pretty darn good movie by all accounts):
"...in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo - Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?...The cuckoo clock."
By the way, I've been reading your musings assiduously. If I didn't reply, it's either because I didn't have anything interesting to add, or because I feared the night shift supervisor at the NSA may be in a bad mood and start keeping tabs on me or something. One has to be careful about these things. Rock on.
--M.
Marius:
ReplyDeleteYeah, there's some truth to that. I have been through the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and I do recall being somewhat put off by the snotty officiousness of some of them. Same with France.
I also remember being in an underground mall in Zurich, and thinking that I'd never seen so goddamned many wrist watches in my entire life. Everywhere, fucking kiosks of watches. I don't know if they have some Teutonic obsession with punctuality, or if that's all they produce.
And the line from The Third Man is so true. Great art is produced more often because of rather than in spite of conflict and strife, as are technological advances.