community-oriented V/S individual-oriented
Russell Wardlow writing at
Mean Mr. Mustard has an interesting observation of lifestyles in Europe and the United States and how people perceive the difference.
bq. Heard Jeremy Rifkin talking about
his book on the Medved show yesterday.
bq. The thesis of "The European Dream" is essentially the same as the recieved wisdom of the enlightened: sure, Americans get paid more and produce more and in general are therefore better off than most of Europe, but Europeans have a better quality of life because they work fewer hours, get more vacation time, etc.
bq. I think that's all bunk, frankly, but the man seemed reasonable enough. Or at least, he did until he got about 5 straight calls of people showing a marked aversion to the European model. The general tenor: we like the priorities we set for ourselves in America, thank you very much.
bq. At that point, Rifkin became defensive and a little testy, claiming that, "Hey, all I'm saying is that maybe the European model has something to offer. Why are people being so close-minded about it? Can't they admit even the possibility that aspects of the European way would be good for us as well?" The last sentence had a clear whine in it.
bq. I was a little amused by the fact that he seemed to equate disagreement with his arguments as being close-minded, since most of the people who called in obviously knew something about both systems and weren't just fulminating against whatever it is them damn foreigners do over there.
bq. But more than that, I couldn't suppress a groan when he tried to distinguish America and Europe by saying the former was "individual-oriented" and the latter "community-oriented."
Russell then disagrees with Rifkin's thesis that Europe is community-oriented and proceeds to mop the floor with it:
bq. Europe is not community-oriented, it's state-oriented, and that is a big damn difference. Most of the things that set Europe apart from America in terms of economics (and in many ways, in the realm of general culture as well) can be traced to our differing conception of the individual to the government. Francis Porretto
wrote about this and drew the line as being either "subject" under a government or a "citizen" under one.
bq. That distinction by itself is a useful shorthand, but even it fails to capture at least one very relevant point regarding Rifkin's "quality of life" argument: Europeans want to be taken care of by the government. That's not the attitude I think of when I hear the term "community-oriented."
bq. Churches are community oriented. PTA groups are community oriented. The Shriners are community oriented. Wanting to be guaranteed a mandatory 5 weeks of vacation a year and the inability to be fired actually sounds a lot more like an "individual-oriented" worldview to me. And it's also precisely that kind of "suckling-teat" conception of the state that causes European communities (in the real sense, not Rifkin's misuse of the word) to atrophy into irrelevance. When you've got all your hopes of sustenance and protection coming from a centralized government, you don't have much concern for what's going on immediately around you.
Posted by DaveH at December 8, 2004 10:24 AM