Perhaps Europeans don’t have the most courageous of instincts. Not anymore. They still live in the shadow of two unthinkable wars, and have learnt that patriotism and courageous instincts have too often resulted in corruption, destruction and death.

To digress for a moment, I agree with the writer who said that Crossman is less convincing when he claims to speak for Europeans writ large.

That’s why I’m focusing on the U.S. versus British aspects of his thinking rather than broadening the topic.

Now back to Chris H., British pundit, who has gained a following in the U.S. recently.

Personally, I find CH rather smug and consistently condescending in his TV appearances (rather like Norman Mailer used to be) although he is excruciatingly erudite.

And this is the reason why I believe it would be inspiring to have a recent vintage “Nice Brit” on the scene-someone who is not so academic as… say… Paul Kennedy or Jeremy Rifkin-someone who has a dash of class, an Alastair Cooke like figure with a whisper of a South Carolina plantation accent to give us de Tocquevillesque commentary (if you pardon the mixed meta??nation).

It appears that Crossman may also be an artist although I haven’t been able to confirm this.
Where can we find his bio?
It would be deflating to learn that he grew up in a duplex in Liverpool.

As to pedagogy, would someone let me know what language arts teaching encompasses today?
Is Crossman preparing college students for careers in journalism?
Does the British approach to training journalists differ from the U.S…..say Walter Annenberg School of Journalism in some meaningful way e.g. by emphasizing classical exposition and/or rhetoric studies?

This, of course was the exact message that their forefathers of the 1930s put forward when they refused to resist Hitler. In one notable event, twelve million “peace activists” in London signed a petition “for peace”, which was duly sent to… Adolf Hitler.

Perish the thought, they scoffed, that anybody should be so naive to think that, with their empire and colonies, Britain and France (the “false” democracies) were any better than Nazi Germany. No, they were just as bad, said the peace activists at the time, before crowing that they knew better than to take sides and risk war.

I know I must sound extremely naive to those wise Europeans, but I think there are other lessons to be learned from World War II. And one may be that there are situations that, yes, are worse than having armed warriors sounding off against each other (no matter how destructive their weapons), for instance a system which allows a state-wide political police force to violate the homes of innocent, unarmed, and defenseless citizens with impunity, haul fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, and wives and daughters off to jail, and torture, rape, and murder them, be it in the basements of the city prisons or inside death camps.

Unfortunately, as Raymond Aron has said, “there is no History of those tragedies that have been averted.” The main lesson that Europeans have taken from history is, more correctly, simply the self-serving one that they are ever and always more humanistic, more generous, more peace-loving, and more wise to the ways of the world than Americans are. In other words, they are superior to everybody else. Just like their forefathers were.

—Erik Svane, founder of Americans Anonymous
an organization for expatriates who are stumped when submitted to a barrage of irony-laden questions, asinine comments, and demented accusations concerning the U.S. by a group of smug, self-righteous foreigners