Hi Rog, thanks for your response.
ROG:
> Let me argue a seemingly insignificant point you made. Please bear with me,
> as I think it is relevant to the discussion. New York isn't by any means the
> center of the US. I would almost offer that we have no center. Certainly it
> is the center for some things (theater, finance, immigration and Broadcast
> News Shows come to mind), but I could make similar but different claims for
> California, Washington D.C., Chicago, or the "Heartland" (including
> Nebraska). Going forward to your article, the lack of synthesis and
> diversity in America are more of our center than is a particularly large, old
> city.
M:
I agree completely with you that from your inner viewpoint USA have no center.
And this is true also for many European nations, and even more for Europe,
globally. I was having in my mind that it's a nonsense to discuss finance
without naming Wall Street, cinema without Hollywood, politics without the White
House. That is, seen from outside, that USA is the center of many things. Being
out of the frame, there's not the same evident difference between L.A., NYC and
WDC.
Naming NYC I made just an example, maybe not appropriate. Obviously I could also
write L.A. or Chicago or Washington DC. My point was, and is, that there are
centers and peripheries. Seen from outside, USA is the capital, and it is an
obvious consequence that America is always at our attention. Maybe you are not
aware of that, but everyday all newspapers here have several articles commenting
and discussing USA. More than the contrary, I think. That's why we feel normal
to judge America's actions, and you seem surprised we do. Actually, as you
write,
you are Americanizing the rest of the world without a thought.
> MARCO:
> It is sad for us, but Europe is not anymore the center of
> the world, so I think there's also a bit of envy. Anyway, we deserve it, after
> centuries of stupid wars between us.
> ROG:
> But I suspect it isn't just the wars that have caused this transition.
M:
Not that wars have caused a supposed European decline. Actually we are misusing
in this context a term, Europe, that really is an abstraction. Europe has always
been a geographical expression, nothing more. Along the centuries, the political
and economic primacy has been in the hand of Athens, Rome, France, Germany,
Austria, UK.... just very lately we are trying to build an entity that is more
than geographical, as answer to the USA. USA showed to European nations that it
is possible to put more peoples within the same boundaries. And that a nation
can have many centers.
About the rest of your post, nothing to argue, I'm in general agreement.
Just a thing. The article I offered ends with: "The Left could learn from
America many things; but, for that, it should rethink itself
radically". This is the conclusion the (rightist) journalist comes to, but I'm
not in complete agreement. Actually, saying that the left has to rethink itself
in order to learn something, seems to be the same mistake the journalist
blames:
the dialectical synthesis of two diverging positions. IMHO the left should
search for newer innovative solutions, without losing its nature. In order to
give the individual "a possibly infinite horizon of chances", America has chosen
the market as paradigm. It works, evidently, but it bears also a lot of
mistakes... the "recipe for resentment" you talk about. I'm well convinced that
without a kicking left, this market-God America is offering risks to fall in
another dangerous fundamentalism.
thanks again,
Marco
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