The Trans-Atlantic Divide
Saturday, April 25, 2009
I post this picture only to emphasize how there is a "chasm of modernity" (Jean Baudrillard) between Europe and America. Modernity is original in America: everything from electricity to the car to the computer came about here. The great deal of European history was taken up by aristocracy and war. America was a break from that history and an acceleration of science and technology.
In America, Europe's utopian dreams, even some of the Marxist ones, have been solidly realized. In Europe, utopia is a never-realizable, eternally frustrated, fantasy - the pursuit of brutal, unsuccessful revolutions.
Now for the cool picture - I hope I don't elicit the hatred of European visitors, but I probably will.