Stardate 20021220.1429

(On Screen): The essence of advertising is to try to make what you're selling seem better or more desirable than it really is. Part of that is to figure out the right words to use to describe it, since one way may work better than another.

There's a strange leftist metaconcept that words drive thought. The idea is that the words you use to describe something indicate the underlying attitudes you carry about that thing, and if you can be convinced to use different words then the attitude will change. The evidence is that this is not the case, but we saw an orgy of this kind of thing for about 25 years or so where activists for certain causes spent a great deal of their time trying to get everyone to use new terms for their favored victims instead of the old ones. I think the underlying theory was that if you could get everyone in America to use "Black" instead of "Nigger" then racism would vanish.

The reality is that words follow concepts and not the other way around. If you force someone to use a different term for something, then the meaning of that term will eventually modify in normal use to embody the same concept that the original word meant, which is why certain members of the civil rights movement again searched for a new new term to replace the new term which had failed to eradicate the underlying belief in white racial superiority. When the bigots began to use "Black" without abandoning their bigotry, we got "Afro-American", and when that didn't work we got "African-American". Bigotry in the US is in decline (thankfully) but this did not contribute to the process and may even have impeded it.

Equally, from other leftist advocates you got such terms as "differently-abled" instead of "handicapped", and a whole series of terms of the form xxx-challenged as ways of describing specific handicaps. Eventually this entire fad burned itself out partly because of its utter failure to actually accomplish anything and partly because it was such a ripe target for ridicule. The whole xxx-American business led to truly wicked satirical terms such as canine-American. xxx-challenged was at least as fertile, permitting such terms as "vertically-challenged" (read short) or "melanin-challenged" (read white) or "estrogen-challenged" (read male). Eventually it became clear that none of it could pass the horselaugh test. People trying to use these tactics damaged themselves by advocating ludicrous solutions to serious problems, and by making themselves into easy high profile targets for their opposition.

But it still seems sometimes as if there are those who feel that if they can just somehow find the right words to use to describe a choice, then another who is somehow unsophisticated will suddenly see the light and change their mind about it. It's not so much that the fundamental argument for the position changes, or even that the argument itself will be amplified; it's that a new and different code-word will be used for the old concept and that code-word may, it is hoped, carry connotations which the previous one did not which will somehow con the other guy into giving in, or perhaps fool him into not realizing that it's really the same message.

There's a certain deep contempt implicit in this point of view; it assumes that the other who is to be influenced in this way by words is not very sophisticated. It didn't work in the civil rights movement, and it doesn't work in diplomacy.

Europe has been trying to convince the US for the fifteen months that it was vital for the US to give Europe a veto over any contemplated use of American military power in the prosecution of this war. It's certainly important to Europe that this happen, because what the US does militarily is likely to have secondary consequences which will affect Europe. But it's never been made clear why, exactly, that meant that the US would want to shackle itself in that way given that it was pretty clear that the Europeans wanted to use that veto in ways which would benefit Europe at the expense of the US. The European position is fundamentally hypocritical: they want America to be altruistic so as to give Europe the opportunity to be selfish. The Bush administration has been impervious to such pleas, no matter how they are packaged, because he's a stupid unsophisticated cowboy, or because he's a Jacksonian with a firm suspicion of foreign gift (Trojan) horses, depending on your point of view.

The European message has always been the same: We're smarter and more wise and worldly than you; you're powerful but stupid, and it would be much better if you let us make decisions and then you carry them out. Bush hasn't been buying it.

But the Europeans are nothing if not redundant, and they keep trying to find new words to deliver the same old moldy message, in hopes that somehow or other some magic formulation will cause Bush to come to his senses and acknowledge how much smarter the Europeans actually are and how valuable their advice would be. Each time there's been a keyword.

At first the keyword was "ally". In the aftermath of the invocation of NATO Article V, where NATO declared that the attack on the US was to be treated as an attack on all members of NATO, the perverse reading of that was that since it was an attack on all of us, then all of us should collectively decide what to do about it, and that none of us should do anything about it without the others agreeing. Europe wanted to vote for "do nothing", but Bush insisted on going ahead and actually trying to take out our enemies to relieve the peril we face, and wouldn't listen to reason about how much better it would be if we just disarmed and massively increased foreign aid instead.

So we got a lot of ranting about how this was no way to treat allies, and how in an alliance there should be consultation, and how a consultation should be more than just a briefing, which is to say, that the consultation should actually involve giving the consulted ally the ability to say "no" and make it stick. Missing from all this was the idea that shared responsibility and authority should match shared risk and sacrifice and material commitment.

After a while it became clear that rhetoric about "ally" wasn't working, so they found a new word. This time it was "multilateral". Instead of condemning the US for mistreating allies, they condemned the US for being "unilateral". But though the words were different, the message was the same: don't do anything unless we give you permission, which we won't give.

That was no more successful than the previous approach, and now we see the emergence of yet another keyword. This time it's "partner".

The European Union's foreign policy chief on Tuesday lamented the lack of progress by Middle East mediators and said he longed for an American partner to help work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"On the Middle East, I think that there has not been the necessary momentum. The road map is very clear but we have not been able to move the train out of the station a single inch," Solana said.

"I would very very much like to have somebody with me, working together (from the United States)," he added.

The overt message seems plain enough: partners are good things. But when you look carefully at the subtext, you see something different. The US and Europe disagree now about what should be done and how it should be done, and Solana's desire for a partner implicitly requires the US to abandon its own policy and to adopt the European approach. It's really the same old message: we're smarter than you and you'd do well to do what we tell you to.

That's what he means when he says that "the road map is very clear"; the Europeans know exactly what to do to bring about peace, but they don't have the diplomatic muscle to make it happen because they have no significant influence with Israel. If only the US would apply its diplomatic power in support of the European position, then all the bloodshed and violence would end in a trice and we could end this war.

I don't suppose that it's necessary to point out that the European position to which Solana refers is that Israel is primarily at fault and that the solution to the problem is to force Israel to make major concessions well beyond anything which has been previously considered plausible, to the substantial advantage of the Palestinians, imperiling the very existence of Israel itself. But there's a deeper unspoken current in the European position, at least in some places, that the very existence of Israel ("that shitty little country") is the true source of the problem. Needless to say, this is a position that America is unlikely to support any time soon.

And it's precisely the fact that the US hasn't been willing to sell Israel out that gives us influence there; it's precisely because Europe is in favor of a road map which would substantially damage Israel that Europe has no influence. Israel quite naturally won't respond the same way to external diplomatic efforts which would be substantially to its detriment, and the European idea is so starkly one-sided that it would actually be worse than the status quo.

So Solana wants an American "partner", which is to say that he wants America to turn on Israel and fuck it over by forcing Israel to make damaging concessions to the Palestinians. Solana may well get assigned an American companion, but he won't get a partner in the sense that he's using the term, because even if we assign a diplomat to work with him in the negotiations, that won't mean that we'll do what he really wants us to do. Solana is really asking for a radical change in American foreign policy towards Israel, and it's not going to happen.

Solana's words say none of this, but that's the message he's delivering. Diplomacy has always involved heavy amounts of doubletalk, with the real message not matching a literal interpretation of the words with which they're delivered. There are always subtexts and sometimes they're pernicious.

What's sad is that the European diplomats and government heads have never managed to understand one fundamental aspect of American psychology and culture: we don't respond positively to superciliousness. When someone talks down to us, we tend to give them the finger. If they react to that by lecturing us, we turn our backs on them. I do not think they have ever fully come to understand the degree of antipathy we feel towards that kind of attitude.

We are created as a nation from the dregs of Europe, its huddled masses; we are a nation built from the lowest of Europe's low. We are its slum dwellers who worked long hours in its factories for a pittance, its starving farmers after crop failure, its persecuted religious minorities, its persecuted ethnic minorities, its refugees. Only Australia can proudly claim to be built of even worse scum than America.

We are primarily made of the Europeans whose lives in Europe were so desperate, so miserable, so hopeless, that it was worth any risk and sacrifice for even a chance at something better. And we are the ones who were willing to leave everything they knew to go to a strange land with strange customs and a strange language. We are the ones who were willing to cross an ocean in the hold of a smelly steamship in hopes that when we arrived that America would let us enter. We're the millions who came through Ellis island, not knowing until the last instant if we'd have to turn around and go back to the hell-hole from which we came. We're the ones who were willing to gamble everything on that chance of entry, and the ones who knew what a blessing that chance represented when we got it, and the determination to make as much of that chance as we could.

But there's something else: we are the ones who hated the European class system. We are the ones who chafed at the roles that European low birth forced on us. We are the ones who wanted to escape from that and decide for ourselves what we would become, to make our own decisions, and to become as much as we were able to become even if it meant transcending the class of our birth. The selection process for who left Europe and who stayed favored those who wanted release from European stratification, and that's why we're the huddled masses yearning to be free.

And freed from the tyranny of the European class system, we have built a great and powerful nation, which has eclipsed the nations of Europe and even shamed them with its success. Commoners aren't supposed to be able to do that kind of thing unsupervised.

Members of the lower classes in Europe have a habit of deferring to the elite, whether the aristocracy, or the religious hierarchy, or the educated and privileged. In times past, not doing so could lead to dreadful punishment, but now it's just a cultural tradition. We Americans don't do that; we respect ideas but do not bend knee to people because of titles or positions. Those who came here did so in part to escape from all that. They wanted to stand tall, be self-sufficient, and take pride in their own accomplishments. They wanted a chance to do their best, and to give their children a better life than they themselves had, and to be judged for what they had done and not for who their parents were. That is a powerful cultural influence and it is deep in the foundation of all aspects of American culture. And even today's immigrants, now primarily from Asia and South America, want the same thing: to come to America, to be free, to work hard and keep what they earned, and to make a better life for their kids. The immigration process continues to filter for this attitude, which we call the "American Dream". And thus is it that our immigrants keep us strong, and sustain this belief in the value of the common man.

I have worked in companies, and I have had bosses, and they tell me what to do and I do what they say because they pay me. But when they tell me what to do they do so respectfully; if they treat me contemptuously I'll quit. I work for them but they do not own me. I call no man "Mister" or "Sir", and if I meet the President of the company I will look him square in the eye, hold out my hand to shake his as an equal, and I will call him by his first name. I will give him respect he is due for his knowledge and performance, but I abase myself to no man. If I had the privilege of meeting President Bush, I would look him in the eye and shake his hand the same way. I will not cast my eyes downward for anyone. And neither will my nation.

Europe's diplomats and politicians come from those elite segments and feel that such deference by the lower classes, including us, is theirs by right. It is, in part, precisely the fact that America was built out of Europe's huddled masses, its dregs, that they think gives them the right to tell us what to do, because they've always told the lower classes what to do. Much of their contempt for us and our culture derives from this idea that nothing valuable and profound can come from the lower classes; everything they do must be simplistic and superficial. We belong to them; the dregs of Europe have always been the chattels of the upper classes, and it is sheer impudence for us to think or act otherwise. And the lower classes have always made sacrifices for the good of the ruling elite; the idea that they should work in their own interest is also impudence.

The European diplomats and politicians seem to assume that because they feel superior to us that we must somehow feel inferior to them. They assume that their contempt for us as privileged elite to commoners must be reflected in respect by us for them as commoners to privileged elite. They assume that we share their belief in their superior wisdom and knowledge and position, and that deep down we know that they really do have the right to tell us what to do, because that's how it's always been for the relationship between them and commoners like us. As long as their diplomacy towards us is based on that assumption, it's going to keep failing and will only have the effect of driving us further away from them. The deep current of all of Europe's diplomacy towards the US now is a combination of hope that we will once again assume our proper place in the social hierarchy (i.e. at the bottom) combined with the intense nervousness that ruling elites always have when the commoners become powerful and independent.

The idea that they should make decisions about war even though we would do most of the fighting and make most of the sacrifice is completely consistent, for in Europe it was always the elites who made decisions about war, but the commoners who did most of the fighting and dying. The roles were fundamentally asymmetric; the elite are decision makers and the commoners are carry-outers, and decision makers don't soil their hands with carrying-out and shouldn't be expected to.

We don't want the Europeans to be obsequious to us; we'd just like them to stop trying to make us obsequious to them. It would be rather nice if they stopped thinking of us as their wayward children, for we are not. As long as Europe thinks of America as being European (as opposed to being made out of disaffected European refugees), then their rhetoric and diplomacy towards us will continue to fail.

A good place to start would be for them to try to explain why it would be in our best interests to do what they recommend, instead of trying to explain to us why we should automatically be willing to sacrifice our self interest because it's our lot in life to do so. Any argument which fails to appeal to American self interest, and which demands American sacrifice in the service of European self interest, will be treated with all the contempt that it deserves. Unfortunately, the only approaches that has any chance of working would require the Europeans to actually look us square in the eye and acknowledge us as equals, and the privileged do not do that to common scum like us.