Those funny Europeans don't know how to measure, whether it be distance or volume or a response to terrorism.
Slightly more seriously, there are some real differences between the Americans and Europeans who count for something in the world, by which I mean the policy makers, those mighty movers and shakers, all the moles in the ministries, and the pundits and publishers and public intellectuals. You know: the ones who talk to each other while the rest of us are expected to listen.
Obviously any attempt to make general statements about these differences needs to be accompanied by qualifications, caveats, and clarifications. Assume them adequately made, and grant me a clear path to escape out of the corner into which I am about to paint myself. The one crucial thing that I do wish to make clear before continuing around this corner is that in what follows "Europe" stands in for the European Union and its member nations. The rest of Europe should be considered largely (although only provisionally) exempt. Onward!
The Europeans, those at least who have achieved the highest level of intellectual and political life in Europe are, for the most part, not religious. Not at all. They rarely even pay lip service to the idea that religion might be an important part of any life well-lived. Even the ostensible Catholics, who take their religion more seriously than anyone else in Europe takes theirs, are convinced that the social ritual of religion is the point and the purpose.
Perhaps this is because they imbibe their Kant with their mother's milk? Well, there are worse things and I wouldn't wholly object if the US thirsted a bit more for philosophy. Whatever the reason, these Euros don't take religion seriously and they wonder how any intelligent, educated person could.
This leads them to misunderstand the US and its leaders in a fundamental and very wide chasm way. Since they don't get the religious thing, they have a tendency to look askance, down the nose, crosseyed at those who actually seem to be, well, worshipping. No one can really believe all that mumbo jumbo, can they? (What do you imagine they think of a US President who says his favorite philosopher is Jesus?)
This leads these Europeans, men and women of some power in this world, to misunderstand another important and, to their eyes, confusing group now taking a turn on the world's stage. Our European friends also find it quite difficult to take radical Islam seriously. No one can really believe all that mumbo jumbo, can they?
If there sometimes seems to be a sordid whiff of the holy war in statements coming out of the US, it is because we understand what religion and the faith that follows means. We understand what it can lead men and women to do, both in the service of humanity and in the service of twisted and evil dreams. We know that the power to move men's souls is power indeed. We believe in the soul.
I am always struck by this difference in the two sides of the Atlantic after spending some time with European friends who are religious. Right now they do not necessarily support a war, either against Iraq or terror or other enemies real or imagined, but they do understand that the radical Islamists mean what they say.
. . .
I am not particularly religious myself and I doubt that there is a "God" (or "gods" for that matter). But I do believe in the ever upward striving of the human spirit. Without a goal for posterity, life is a bleaker and shallower thing. While I love Europe, I love it for its past--because that is what it shows me, sells me, tells me is important. I dread that Europe's golden and bloody past has left a permanent stain, and bleached the hope out of that continent's future.
What is the better life dreamed of in European dreams?
Is it only "No More War"?