envy

I've been thinking a lot recently about why the United States is so universally disliked. It's hard to meet a Canadian or a European who has a good word to say about the U.S. The disease is wide-spread in Canada but not as virulent as it is in Europe - after all, Canadians have an easier access to their southern neighbours and usually can verify that the devil is not quite as scary as their imagination (and politicians and media) would have led them to believe.

I have travelled fairly extensively in the States, though not for very long periods. I've visited California a few times, as well as some of the old industrial northern states. I've been to New York and Washington on numerous occasions and Boston is a frequent stopover. From my own very limited personal experience, I have found the following:

1) In most places, service is the best in the world - far superior to Europe and somewhat better than in Canada
2) The assortment of consumer products is bewildering, as is the convenience of most anything and everything you wish to purchase/lease/rent
3) In the mid-West, the people I've had dealings with have been unfailingly polite and courteous, as well as open and honest
4) Generally speaking, you will never see more overweight people anywhere on the planet with the exception of Sumo wrestlers. The pervasivness of obesity is truly scary
5) Most Americans you'll meet will have no clue about the existence of a world outside the United States: unlike many I know, this does not worry or bother me
6) With the exception of New York back in the early 1980's throught the early 1990's, I have never felt unsafe in the U.S. I have felt far more insecure and jittery on the Paris metro. Admittedly, New york back in the old days was very scary
7) I think California is paradise. Especially Santa Barbara and San Diego.
8) Many Americans are wide-eyed naifs, which I tolerate but it does grate on me sometimes. Still far preferable to the European decadent, know-it-all cynics in my book
9) Tap water is horrible in many places; outside of the big cities food is greasy, salty and the portions too big. Midnight shopping is the norm in even small towns and villages, though, so you can get half-decent - and safer! - supermarket food
10) There is simply everything in the U.S., the best and the worst, the ugliest and the most beautiful, the loudest and the most serene. It is a very unique continental republic - impossible to dismiss with a wave of a hand.

I think that the antipathy towards the U.S. is rooted in envy. I would divide this envy into three pricnicpal categories:

1) Envy of the level of material well-being of most U.S. citizens. They earn more, keep more of their money and can buy more stuff with their money than any other citizenry on the planet
2) Envy of the variety of natural beauty and resources: The fact that you can ski, snowboard and snorkel all in the same week (or the same day), that you can choose to live in a dozen different cosmopolitan and exciting cities or in the mountainous wilderness, that you can select and change your lifestyle many times during your lifetime - that's amazing
3) This one is the most important - envy of hope! Americans are the most optimistic, most hopeful people you could ever wish to meet. Not everything may be possible but it is possible to dream that everything is possible. That is a fundamental American characteristic, bred in the bone of most Americans. And that is the source of the deepest envy in people whose lives seem much less hopeful, much smaller, much less POSSIBLE. It's all about the dream - a dream that Hollywood has captured in many cloying and annoying movies but nevertheless a dream which the nation believes in. And all it takes is belief.