Davos Newbies

America bashing

In the aftermath of September 11, several commentators mentioned that vicious anti-Americanism was one of the few prejudices it was okay to air in “polite company” in Europe. There’s another wave of anti-Americanism over here, of the sophisticated, intellectual sort, rather than vicious. But I think it’s motivated my many of the same prejudices as the more irrational sort.

I’ve already referred to Will Hutton’s new book on economics, which plumps for a European-style capitalism versus and American one. In Prospect Magazine, Tim Garton-Ash and Will Hutton have a lively exchange on the US and Europe. Garton-Ash, to my mind, pins Hutton down pretty well. As a historian, Tim gives him too easy a ride, however, on the economic issues.

Interestingly, Ian Buruma reckons there is a coterie of Americans eager to be bashed.

Journalists in danger

Peter Preston provides a powerful riposte to Onora O’Neill’s Reith lecture on trust and the media.

“The difficulty is that there is no such complacent a thing as a settled democracy. Dr O’Neill seems to believe that threats stop at Dover, or maybe Felixstowe. Two weeks ago, perhaps, she’d have said Marseilles and Brest. Yet this sliding scale is infernally slippery.”