From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jun 30 2001 - 21:29:05 MDT
I had asked,
> > So can anyone explain why is it that Americans (and the
> > English) get extreme about silly and unimportant things,
> > while Europeans save their going nuts for profound and
> > serious matters?
> >
> > Lee Corbin
>
> Bzzzt, "facts not in evidence". Do you consider the recent
> hooliganism in Sweden emblematic? How about what happened at
> Kent State in 1970? Was the American War for Independence
> extremism about silliness, or profound?
>
> I've heard it said that a King of France once ordered that
> the tips of all edged tools (knives, swords, etc.) be bated.
> This is reputed to be the reason behind the modern butter
> knife. Didn't last as a general law.
I am speculating; and I thank you for your interesting
observations. But historically there has been a pattern
of political extremism in Europe that American has been
thankfully spared. I don't think that you can deny that.
Yet certain campaigns---in World War II it was total
mobilization, and now it's anti-cigarette smoking---
animate the American public in ways that don't seem to
happen in Europe. (Not even Germany converted their economy
to full mobilization, according to what I've read, in World
War II.) So there is something going on.
Lee
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