‘Coming Home to Smug America’

Having also lived abroad and experienced many different countries, I had to chuckle to myself as I read Meisler’s criticism of present America because it’s all so true but no one here seems to know it.

In my experience, Europeans consider us either silly for our prudish mores (remember the international giggle over Gary Hart, not over the girl, but that it brought him down?), and for our wacky consumerism, and plastic art and literature. Or we’re looked on sadly for our violent crime and insatiable money thirst. Or we’re feared as a danger for the fact that our huge war arsenal is in the control of thick-headed chauvinists, and for our disrespect for the environment and untainted food.

Meisler failed to note one difference between the U.S. and other countries which I found to be the most profound--our lack of personal freedom. Like most Americans, I carried the American freedom myth to Europe and ran smack into my biggest culture shock. While societal laws and rules are there, of course, the pervading sense of total personal restriction is not. The soul and will felt free. I became so pleasingly used to this that I forgot how men cower here until I visited East Berlin and commented to my girlfriend that “this place is just like the States.” A fellow who works in my office just returned from his first trip to France and observed that, for example, you can “state your case to a cop there,” while we all know what would happen if we talked back to one of our “holier-than-thou” cops.

I plan to make my home in Europe and only hope that the Americanization we keep hearing about hasn’t advanced too far.

MARK ALBERICI

Beverly Hills