The idea that a culture can preserve its originality by barricading itself against foreign influences is an old illusion that has always produced the… - Jean-François Revel

America is the object of their loathing because, for a half-century or more, she has been the most prosperous and creative capitalist society on earth. Ultimately it is liberal democracy - or quite simply liberty itself - that they are eager to destroy, even though they are among its foremost beneficiaries, being free to travel anywhere, anytime in order to hatch their plots. If their diktats were carried out, if frontier barriers were reestablished everywhere, with passports and visas even for tourists, there could have been no Seattle and no Goteborg.

Anti-Americanism thus defined is less a popular prejudice than a parti pris of the political, cultural and religious elites.

Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.