Old America v New Europe

A thought

Excerpts from Economist.com's new column Old America v New Europe

Who has been lying about whose age? There are few more enduring assumptions about transatlantic relations than that Europe represents age and America youth.

Despite its youthful population, America is often more wedded to traditional values. American churches are full every Sunday with worshippers dressed in their finery. Public events regularly begin with a performance of the national anthem. American tabloids eschew the naked breasts that bounce all over their European cousins. What is political correctness but Victorian prudery in modern dress?

Americans are also much more inclined than Europeans to solve today's problems with reference to the wisdom of their ancestors. Americans routinely make monumental decisions--such as whether people can carry guns or whether women can have abortions--with reference to the designs of a group of 18th-century gentlemen who wore knee-breeches and powdered wigs.

Rather than being about Europe's old age, the transatlantic divide arguably has more to do with Europe's attempt to become something utterly new--and with America's inability to appreciate this. In his timely book, "Of Paradise and Power: America versus Europe in the New World Order" (Knopf), Robert Kagan argues that Europe is trying to find a "post-historical paradise"--a self-contained world built on transnational rules and negotiations. The United States, by contrast, remains "mired in history"--trapped in a Hobbesian world of power politics in which international laws are unreliable and true security depends on your ability to bash the bad guys.