Anti-Europeanism
Anti-Europeanism, or Europhobia, is a term that generally refers to an irrational dislike or outright hatred of European culture and politics. People who generally dislike Europe tend to lump every country and culture in the continent together, ignoring the fact that Europe holds many different countries, cultures, and politics. (Why do you think the EU is fighting like babies?)
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In the U.S.
Europhobia is somewhat common in the United States, especially among various nationalists and wingnuts, many of whom are, ironically, white racists. Neoconservatives, for instance, may resent the fact that European countries didn't join the farce that was the Iraq War as eagerly as they wanted them to, so making out Europe and the French Europeans to be "weak" is a common tactic.
Another right-wing group that despises the European culture is the Religious Right, who often characterize the continent as a Godless, secular hellhole where mobs run wild, promiscuity and drugs run rampant, and people are depressed because they haven't accepted God into their heart. This makes little sense considering that many European countries (particularly in Scandinavia) often top the lists of happiest countries in the world.[1]
Religious right groups and others on the far-right often like to claim Europeans are "lazy" due to having been spoiled by the welfare state or because they lack the "Protestant work ethic." These people tend to be ideologues who oppose social programs on a "moral," not pragmatic, basis, and often lament that America is being "Europeanized," which doesn't actually mean anything. Cherry-picking certain incidents are common for these groups. For instance, when there were riots in France in response to austerity measures some American wingnuts saw it as an opportunity to attack all Europeans while claiming that the welfare state creates lazy, violent individuals, yet when right-wing radicals in France rioted over gay marriage being legalized many of the same wingnuts turned a blind eye to it, ignoring that politics in France tend to be more volatile in general. A more blatantly ridiculous tactic of cherry-picking is using anything to go wrong in a European country as the fault of all of European culture, while ignoring anything that goes well in a European country, or ignoring anything associated with the right-wing that fails. Again, due to the variety of cultures and countries in Europe it makes little sense to characterize the area as a hive mind of secular socialists.
Sometimes entirely unrelated things get lumped into it and are branded as somehow "bad" by wingnuts because "Europe has it" or "Europe does it". This includes but is not limited to: High speed rail, universal health care, public transit, soccer, denser cities (as opposed to urban sprawl), a representative form of government (as opposed to first past the post), low(er) military spending, or even the ability to speak a foreign language. It is tempting to believe that on the American right, the very word "Europe" has reached Godwin-like proportions and its pure mentioning somehow "proves" something to the select few Kool-Aid drinkers.
Weak?
Seriously, you want Europe to return to Social Darwinism? Is half a million dead Americans not enough? To say nothing of colonialism or the Holocaust.
Dumb quotes
“”...Western Europe has already become a secular society with secular values. If you think Western Europe is a better place than America and that it has a robust future, you should be working to remove Judeo-Christian influence from American life. On the other hand, if you look at Europe and see a continent adrift, with no identity and no strong values beyond economic equality and possessing little capacity to identify evil, let alone a will to fight it, then you need to start fighting against the secularization of America. |
| —Dennis Prager[2] |
“”By the time of the 2012 Democratic convention, party delegates had already (following Barack Obama’s lead) embraced everything from unlimited taxpayer-funding of abortion to gay marriage. How does one get to these positions? Answer: by removing God. Fittingly, then, the delegates merely need to take the next evolutionary step: exclude God. It was very … European. |
| —Paul Kengor[3] |
Other uses
Unfortunately racists and white supremacists may characterize their opponents as "Europhobic," because "Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white," therefore "anti-racists" are somehow racist towards Europeans.
See also
- Americentrism
- Ameriphobia
- Eurocentrism
- Euroskepticism
- Tone argument
- Western medicine