A Decade and Counting Away from America
The America I knew doesn't exist anymore. The Europe I sought doesn't either.
The fact remains that I’ve never lived in post-9/11 America. When I left, Bill Clinton was president and the media were preoccupied with the Starr Report. Paradoxically, then, though I’m infinitely more plugged into America than I was when I lived there — with instant access to a zillion newspapers and websites that allow me to follow developments, big and small, in every part of the U.S. — I’m intensely aware that I’m not a part of it all, that I’m watching it from afar, as if watching a movie.
The passage of time has made a difference, of course. When I’d been away for just a year or two, I still felt as if the America I’d left behind still existed. But over the years — week by week, day by day — the changes mount up, the Zeitgeist shifts. Every few days, reading a fresh obituary in the New York Times, I find myself feeling that another part of the American landscape I knew has evaporated.
My first visit back to America was in April 2000, when my father died. After we’d passed through customs and collected our luggage, we headed straight for an ATM — where I was taken aback by the twenties that it coughed up into my hand. They looked … tacky. That big, inelegant “20″ on the back was just too clunky to be believed. As I later learned, the redesigned bills had been issued just days after my move. The classy old twenties I’d known all my life were no more. It was as if somebody was trying to tell me America wasn’t home anymore.
Yes, yes, I’m still an American, and proud of it. But the longer I’m away, the less firmly that label clings to me — for I’m increasingly aware that the America I lived in is an America that’s no longer there. It’s an America where the Twin Towers are still standing, an America where my father is still alive. For millions of Americans, including my eight-year-old niece in New York, that America, my America, is not even memory, but history.
When I first lived in Europe, I saw it through American eyes. All these years later, I realize that I increasingly see America through Norwegian eyes. This doesn’t mean I’ve drunk the Scandinavian socialist Kool-Aid — though, admittedly, watching a 2007 episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition the other day, I found that for me, the usual heartstring-tugging was mingled with a degree of rancor at the thought that it took Disney-ABC (and a blizzard of product placements) to rescue a decent, law-abiding Camden, NJ, family from a hovel in which no American child should have to live.
Living in Norway has even affected me on what is, for me anyway, the most elemental of levels — that of language. When I first lived here, I noticed that American friends who’d lived here for decades spoke English that sometimes sounded a bit “off.” Why? Because they were (unconsciously) translating Norwegian phrases literally into English rather than using the proper English equivalent. Or (sometimes) translating the right Norwegian words into the wrong English counterparts (”using a coat,” for example, instead of “wearing a coat”). In the last couple of years — horrors! — I’ve increasingly noticed myself doing exactly the same thing when speaking English. Worse, when I’m writing English, the mot juste that pops into my head at a given juncture is increasingly likely to be Norwegian. For a writer — someone whose very stock in trade is his native language — this is, to say the least, a bit disconcerting.
To be sure, I have my share of grievances against the country I live in. I labored long and hard to find my place in it — spent three to five hours every weekday for months in a language course, and applied for hundreds of jobs without success. Professionally I’m a non-person here — which is OK by me, given that (with a couple of exceptions) the only times the mainstream Norwegian media have mentioned me it’s been to flail me for criticizing Norway in the American press. Not to mention that I hate the high prices and high taxes and can’t bear the climate. And yet I choke up when I hear the Norwegian national anthem, and every time I fly back here from abroad and catch my first glimpse of the Norwegian coastline, tears come to my eyes and I find myself thinking: “I’m home.”
For home is, after all, where the heart is. And on the other side of the ledger from all the things about Norway that drive me absolutely nuts is the plain and simple fact that I’ve been allowed to live here at all. The sole basis for my legal residency here is that Norway acknowledges my partner’s and my relationship. People (especially Americans) often ask me why, if I’m so critical of Norway and so concerned about developments in Europe, I don’t just move back to America. The Americans who ask me this question are invariably surprised when I explain to them that not only does our homeland refuse to grant residency to the foreign partners of gay Americans; it routinely denies entry to foreign partners who have legitimate tourist or student visas. You’d think that the Twin Towers had been taken down by a nefarious cabal of international same-sex couples.
When my partner and I flew back to New York for my father’s funeral, I couldn’t bring myself to write “0″ on the customs declaration form next to “Number of family members traveling with you.” Instead I wrote “1.” At Newark Airport, the immigration official to whom I handed my card asked me where that other family member was. I indicated that he was in the non-citizens’ line. She asked what our relationship was. I explained. Her face colored with contempt, and with an angry slash of her pen she turned my “1″ into a “0″ as she spit into my face the words: “That’s not family!” It was a succinct summary of the U.S. government’s official position on my life.
Well, maybe it was all meant to be. If I hadn’t come here, and stayed here, I wouldn’t have written While Europe Slept — my own modest contribution to the effort by many people on both sides of the Atlantic to save the West from itself. When I left America, I never imagined myself writing such a book: in fact my immediate plans were to write a book about how wonderful Amsterdam was. Alas, the Amsterdam I was so eager to celebrate ten years ago is also gone with the wind. But that’s another story.
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Bruce Bawer is the author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom. His website is at www.brucebawer.com.
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69 Comments
1. AlamedaMike:Great read, Bruce. I find all of your writings about Europe fascinating. More, please. Thanks.
Sep 16, 2008 - 1:25 am 2. jw:Why expect your roommate to be treated as family? I have had many roommates, of the same sex, and they have never been regarded as family, by myself or anyone else. Or does the fact that you have sexual relations with your roommate make him “family”? Whatever else your life in Norway has taught, it has not taught you the basic facts of biology.
Sep 16, 2008 - 1:27 am 3. Biggy:@ jw
Ignorant comment sir.
Sep 16, 2008 - 3:41 am 4. Ed Wallis:“Biggy”,
I disagree. “jw’s” comment is no more ignorant than Bruce’s attitude is decadent.
Bruce has seemingly chosen his priorities, but now moans and laments here. Otherwise, not much of any other point to this “article.”
He’s free to do so here or in Norway, with cultural “limitations” in both countries.
In Iran, those “limitations” would have him hung. Not quite the moral equivalency such lamenting writers seek.
Boo hoo, Bruce, take your pick. Norway or the US; now grow up and deal with it.
Sep 16, 2008 - 3:58 am 5. ParisParamus:Bruce, quite seriously, I am sorry you are hurt by America’s current take on non-traditional love; I don’t agree with you, but that must hurt.
However, I know from my own experiences in Europe, France, mostly, that Europe, socialist-y Western Europe is a culturally dead place. Or, perhaps I mean “societally” dead. And you know it too, as your most famous book evidences.
I know that sounds cruel, and I don’t mean it to. But when the place that recognizes gay rights is the same place that thinks having a decent military is passé, indeed, that having a culture of men that will allow for a serious military is passé, you need to confront reality better. Yes, I know Norway has a military; they’ll just never use it in any meaningful way; it’s a show military…
Still, I wish you well, and I do like While Europe Slept. And I do wish you would move back here. Try brownstone Brooklyn.
Sep 16, 2008 - 4:40 am 6. Don:Norway has a great tradition of independence, it’s people have been known as “hard headed” and stone reliable under the worst of situations (heroes of Telemark). The decline of the “Nation-State” in europe has put every belief and tradition from Norway to Garmisch under the microscope of political/cultural “inclusion”. Pride in ones people, culture or traditions is considered biased/racist/culturally inappropriate. So everything becomes “vanilla ice cream” with the subtle condescension from the Euro-elite (the new Nomenclatura). One of the best times of my life was spent on two wooden ski’s, pulling a pulk through the Dovrafjell and hiding from the Norwegian Army (Snow caves are comfortable!). Which brings me to my final point . . .Socialized Medicine (in Norway) as practiced. We had one of ours hurt (popped his knee), we took him to a Norwegian clinic, and were told “6 month wait to see an orthropedist . . . S medicine is great, long as you don’t get sick . . .
Sep 16, 2008 - 5:03 am 7. TomJW:Bruce, Norwegian media is worse than ours at portraying Americans? Does that mean that they show us eating babies? Actually, you have probably watched our MSM recently more than I have. I will be happy when they are dead.
Sorry about the entry problems. It’s one of the tougher things to do, enter this country legally. As far as the relationship being accepted, it varies from state to state, as expected from soveriegn entities.
Good luck wherever you go.
Sep 16, 2008 - 5:31 am 8. Mike:If you feel the “label” of American doesn’t fit, you were never an American to begin with. You can switch the label of a bottle of Budweiser beer, but inside the bottle, it’s still Bud, no matter what the outside label reads. I suspect there are greater issues here about lifestyle choices, and realizations that opportunities and birthrights were squandered. Your book may have been an awakening to some coastal libs, but it’s subject matter has been a topic of common discussion in coffee shops in middle America for literally decades. You recognize your choices are coming home to roost, and yes, you sound as if you regret them. I don’t envy your position in life, but it was your choice. If you tear up at a forgein anthem, you’re not American, pal. Sorry.
Sep 16, 2008 - 5:55 am 9. Paul from Florida:Guard dogs are not puppies, nor welcome wagons. Further, the people that work those jobs, aren’t the most cosmopolitan. Nor would I expect a person pay the mortgage doing that job to happy, skippy and gay all the time. It seems to me like it would suck. Further, I find it wimpy, even for a gay guy to have to look for affirmation from others unknown. A surly clerk? Gee, as if Europe isn’t filled with them.
Too bad your class education is so thin. But, I find that common amongst my educated into stupidity friends that wonder every more why I take aimless cross country drives through this very weird, great and undiscovered nation.
I agree, the equal opportunity, designed by government committee, money sucks. The Euro is creepy in a Bauhaus way.
Sep 16, 2008 - 6:12 am 10. Sean Kinsell:“It was a succinct summary of the U.S. government’s official position on my life.”
And since she was representing the U.S. government, and you were using a definition of family that wasn’t standard, I’m not sure what kind of reaction you were expecting. It’s hard to tell from what you write whether she was contemptuous of your homosexuality or of your holding up the line in what must have looked like an attempt to make a political point.
Sep 16, 2008 - 6:18 am 11. Scott:Keep it up on the writing. I love it.
Excuse the people that don’t understand the term of a FREE country. You have the right to be free. I am a Christian strong and true, but I believe that since you live in a Country like America who preaches freedom. You should have the right to be free and do as you please AS long as it doesn’t harm another person.
As a christian and a man that lives in America, you have the right to live here with your partner to be FREE.
Sep 16, 2008 - 6:29 am 12. palintropos:Paul from Florida, you have an attitude problem in more ways than one. I lived in Paris for 2.5 years, couldn’t speak French at first, and didn’t meet any surly clerks. At least not nearly as many as I find in the US. The typical indigenous Frenchman couldn’t have been nicer. Maybe its because I didn’t dress like a twelve year old with a hearing disorder. I also tried to live up to the old adage “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
I would like to commend Mr. Bawer on an interesting syllogism: Norwegians recognize certain law and customs. I am an American living in Norway. Therefore, Americans should accept Norwegian law and custom. I admire Mr. Bawer for his awareness of the threat of Islam and his common sense and honesty. But circumstances in Norway are far from being played out concerning Islam. Therefore, Americans, take care to subscribe to Norwegian law and customs.
Sep 16, 2008 - 6:55 am 13. Morton Doodslag:“Yes, yes, I’m still an American, and proud of it.”
Written with all the perfunctory conviction that a Citizen Of The World might be expected to muster. Sorry to burst your bubble, Bruce, but you’re not a very convincing American any longer. It comes through in nearly every line you write. You’re a Citizen Of The World now, and that’s a choice you made.
Mr. Bawer rues the loss of some mystical America that he says no longer exists. Did it ever really exist? Such Citizens Of The World have no faith in the promise of America, no psychological real estate for the notion that America’s ability to change quickly is one of our nation’s greatest characteristics. We do this while remaining America and Americans. We do this (and have always done this) while also retaining those best characteristics which have always been ours.
Bruce Bawer didn’t choose to remain in America to fight for his rights. Those rights aren’t something paid out like funds disbursed from a trust fund.
In any event, I thank Bruce for his insights in “While Europe Slept”. It’s an important contribution. But when he asserts “I increasingly see America through Norwegian eyes. This doesn’t mean I’ve drunk the Scandinavian socialist Kool-Aid” — I am quite dubious. It’s utterly impossible to simmer in the poisonous stew of Europe’s ubiquitous rabid anti-Americanism and not absorb some of that poison.
As a severe critic of America, and a near complete naif, Mr. Bawer traipsed off to the European post-modern wonderland where he found things were not quite what they seemed. He clearly left America before he truly knew what it was to be an American. It’s never too late to change. I think that’s the thing he has the most difficulty with. It’s not America which has changed so much as his understanding of that great nation which he left for supposedly greener pastures.
Sep 16, 2008 - 7:30 am 14. radical_moderate:” But when the place that recognizes gay rights is the same place that thinks having a decent military is passé”
===========
On the other hand why should these countries have a decent military when they have had the USA to wipe their arses, militarily speaking, for over 60 years. NATO is a joke.
Our country would do a great favor to Europe by stepping back from being America “World Policeman.” BTW, the lack of having to spend huge bucks on a combat ready Miltitary has allowed these countries the luxury, whether for good or ill depends on your ideology, for increased social spending. You could say that America de facto has paid for the “socialized medicine” enjoyed by most Europeans.
Sep 16, 2008 - 7:35 am 15. John:Gee,,, I was with you right up to that sentence where you tried to make a point with your sexual mis-orientation. Go back to Norway.
Sep 16, 2008 - 7:55 am 16. Rick:Bruce,
I enjoy your writing. Loved “While Europe Slept”. Just wanted to drop a note to tell you that before you get too weepy about the Extreme Home Makeover show and the family’s prior living situation, check out the story on the family outside Atlanta, Georgia who were also living in dire conditions. Good,law abiding people? Probably. They too recieved the Extreme Makeover treatment; $450,000 home (Paid for along with 20 years of taxes), scholarships for the kids and other gifts. Within three years they had taken out a full new mortgage on the home and spent it all. The last word was that the house about to be foreclosed on. Haven’t seen a follow-up story on their situation yet. Take from this what you will.
Sep 16, 2008 - 7:58 am 17. submandave:I cannot speak to either the immigrations official’s attitude or you perception of her action as reflecting an attitude, but like all beurocratic processes, entry into any country is data driven, and one of her jobs is to make sure the data presented and entered matches the expected. To enter your data as “1″ family member when no other data in the system supports it only creates a confusing record.
Personally, I see no reason why, in a state that recognizes gay union, I shouldn’t be able to marry my brother or sister as well. As jw rather inelegantly put it, despite all the willful blindness to the contrary I have heard, there is a basic biological difference between a heterosexual and a homosexual pairing: the liklihood of progeny. It is my libertarial perspective that if two people choose to live together out of love (sexual or platonic) or convenience (sexual or platonic), it should be of no concern to the government. However, measures that help ensure children are brought into and raised in an environment that helps them develop and become quality members of society are of concern to the government. As such, and considering that the vast majority of children result from a heterosexual pairing, it seems proper to me that the government act to encourage the creation of these children into positive, stable families.
Basically, I have no beef with anyone living with whomever they want, but in my thinking “gay marriage” is just a phrase with no distinct meaning.
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:05 am 18. Kevin:One has to remember, that in the US you also have the right to fail. There is no guarantee of outcome. And until the New Deal and the Great Society, this country was the better for the idea that you can dail as easily as succeed. For it is the fear of failure that prompts people to work their butts off to try and succeed. But at no time are we ever guaranteed success. Now with the New Deal and it’s ultimate successor, the Great Society, we have thoroughly screwed up that fine balancing act. The moment government steps in and “fixes” the problem, more problems arise and it becomes apparent that like a good schister mechanic, the original problem wasn’t truly fixed, just made to look and sound better until it becomes the next mechanic’s problem.
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:36 am 19. Huan:I like your prose and i feel for the disassociation you underwrite. Have you rejected America because you feel America has rejected you? And then was sad to learn Europe doesn’t accept you as well?
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:38 am 20. Michael W. Perry:Perhaps your ship can find harbor after being adrift for a decade if you commit to the US or Norway. There is no perfect place but there is much to be said for a commitment to making a place more perfect.
This article fails to mention the telling fact that Norway as a culture and a people is triple-doomed.
1. Like the rest of Europe, Norwegians (never too numerous to begin with) aren’t having enough children to support their economy, maintain their welfare state, or pass on their Norwegian culture and attitudes. Norwegian attitudes toward sex have played a major role in that decline.
2. Like much of Europe, Norway’s immigrants see little in the nation’s culture that attracts them but its generous welfare benefits. These immigrants are now populating the nation, providing the children that Norwegians refuse to have, but the resulting culture won’t be remotely Norwegian.
3. Unlike much of Europe, Norway’s North Sea oil has heavily subsidized its economy, bankrolled its welfare state, and reduced its dependence on foreign energy sources. But that oil will eventually run out, condemning aging, childless Norwegians to watch their culture quietly die in the cold and in the dark.
In short, in half-a-century Norway will little resemble today’s country. In a century, if “being Norwegian” is preserved at all, it will be as quaint tourist attractions, much as in the US we have places where people dress and act as if they were living in a bygone age. What Norway is like now matters little other than as a clear warning to others, “Don’t start down this path.”
Interestingly this sort of thinking is hardly new and hardly modern. You might even say that it is “Victorian.” As far back as the mid-nineteenth century there were people in the US (radical utopians such as the Oneida community) trying to get us to go down that same path, a path in which sexual promiscuity was the norm and one in which the state took over most of the roles of child-rearing, even deciding who would be permitted to have children (eugenics).
Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President (1872), advocated those ideas in the 1870s. She later abandoned what she had said about free love to marry into a wealthy English banking family. But she never abandoned her eugenics. Just before she died in 1927, she praised Buck v. Bell, a Supreme Court decision declaring forced sterilization constitutional.
Championing sexual promiscuity and social programs that take over the roll of families, ideas that Europeans sneer at us for not adopting in imitation of them, are ideas we heard and rejected some 140 years ago. There’s nothing particularly new about them and certainly nothing impressive about their results. The nineteenth century utopian communities that adopted them died out long ago. The Western Europe that has adopted them is also a dying culture. That should be taken as a warning.
Whatever else you think about countries such as Norway, keep in mind that there’s no hope in death, and there’s no future in extinction. Western Europe, including Norway, is dying and its culture is headed for extinction. It’s difficult to imagine anything that might happen to reverse that process.
–Michael W. Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
Editor of:
Free Lover: Sex, Marriage and Eugenics in the Early Writings of Victoria Woodhull
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:52 am 21. sonoffar:Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull
A great piece that had my attention all the way to the phrase, “the plain and simple fact that I’ve been allowed to live here at all.” What is it in your life that you would need to go to Norway because, they would let you live there?
Sep 16, 2008 - 9:07 am 22. Kirk:Then of course I read on.
Decadent American twink demands that all recognize his.’right’, to exist as a source of irritation and in your face self absorption.
Sonoffar wrote…
“”"Decadent American twink demands that all recognize his.’right’, to exist as a source of irritation and in your face self absorption.”"”
Self absorption pretty much describes the whole article. Why did the author tear out a page of his Norway unicorn diary and post them for us?
Sep 16, 2008 - 10:03 am 23. W::Liked your book; write another; the US needs articulate spokemen, esp since Moynihan left us. PS: you’d do us all a favor if this column were offered to zillions of college newspapers. Seriously.
Sep 16, 2008 - 10:07 am 24. New European:Well, have fun in the dar al islam. They are introducing sharia law in britain now. Norway can not be far behind.
Correct me if I am wrong, but sharia law is not exactly known for its tolerance towards homosexuals…
When the situation deteriorates, you can always use your american passport to get out of europe.
I wish I could say the same!
Sep 16, 2008 - 10:35 am 25. CR:Where will you run when Norway is no longer to your liking? You ran from the USA instead of trying to make things better for yourself and you will do it again. Please don’t call yourself an American – that label does not apply to you.
Sep 16, 2008 - 11:51 am 26. Paul from Florida:palintropos:
Well, mom’s a German, I go to Bochum for business (metals), and was born in Spain. My hair is long and my cloths professor(ish), and am often approached and spoken to in German. I tip, drink and smile like an American. So, yes I do have an attitude, and hold many customs in the world in contempt, if not violent opposition. You are free to bend your knees.
I have nothing against goofy 12 year olds anywhere, nor do I use their peculiarities for cultural insight.
By and large, amongst educated people, I find Europeans more erroneous about the US, then Americans are Europe. Usually Americans just don’t know and Europeans know much that is wrong. It is easier to inform than correct. Much of what exists in Europe can be found in the US, especially Red State cities. Not much of the US can be found in Europe. For instance, gun rights and other buoyant individualism to the near point of recklessness.
By the way, most every American collage has degrees in some sort of European aspect, such that lowly, mono-brow knuckle dragging Americans graduate hundreds of European study PhD’s, and, I am guessing, thousands of bachelor’s degrees. I doubt Europe has ten programs, but what the heck.
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:03 pm 27. John:Bruce, good article. I really appreciated it, because I have lived a similar life and have had similar thoughts and feelings. Except in my case, a Bush was President when I left the US and another Bush was President when I returned.
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:24 pm 28. Max:How do your difficulties entering the US with your partner compare to those faced by your ancestors who immigrated to America?
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:26 pm 29. Cletus:I was unaware of the U.S refusing entry solely on the basis of sexuality. That is f***ed up.
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:27 pm 30. paulr:So to sum up this schlock – I am gay, and I don’t like the new US 20 dollar bills. Damn, life is tough!
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:28 pm 31. GW:Just from a reader’s perspective, the political argument at the end didn’t seem to fit the rest of the piece. I was quite interested in the experiences of adapting to a new European country. I’m sure most readers are aware of America’s homosexual-marriage policy, and we can find plenty of arguments for and against it elsewhere.
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:36 pm 32. Heather:I was unaware of the U.S refusing entry solely on the basis of sexuality.
That only happens in your mind. Bruce and his partner were able to enter just fine, even though Bruce filled out his customs card wrong.
The good news is when Sharia law comes to Norway and the rest of Europe as it already has to the UK, Bruce and his partner will still be able to escape here. The partner will have to come on a refugee or work visa, but we’ll let him in nonetheless.
Sep 16, 2008 - 12:56 pm 33. KansasGirl:Hey Cletus, he never wrote that the U.S. refused entry on the basis of sexuality. Sounds to me like his other half entered the country. When will people accept that not everyone thinks homosexuality is GREAT!
Sep 16, 2008 - 1:01 pm 34. ic:US MSM: their extreme bias infects virtually everything they touch, dictating which stories they cover and don’t cover and which details they include and omit; and on no subject is this bias more pronounced than in their presidential campaigns coverage.
Now, there, doesn’t that make you feel more at home?
Sep 16, 2008 - 2:03 pm 35. agolmar:Unfortunately, some people in the West seem to believe that in order to fight islamo-fascists we should become a bit like them. On one side, the progressive appeasers, on the other, the christians in burka. Neither realises that they are falling into the same trap.
Sep 16, 2008 - 2:29 pm 36. Chicken farmer:I’ve read both “Stealing Jesus” and “While Europe Slept”. The former completely changed how I think of homosexuality. The later opened my eyes to the myopic view the general population of Europe has on America. Both excellent books in that they achieved a change in the perception of how I look at homosexuality, the history of Christianity in America, and the unquestionable danger that Islam poses to the West. I commend you for them and look forward to anything that you publish. That being said I believe that because you have experienced only the Eastern Seaboard, your view of what it is to be an American is limited. I’ve lived in every corner of this country and lived in small towns and large metropolitan areas. What I have found from this is that the true live and let live attitude is found in the most red-neck places, while the most intolerant tend to cloister themselves with the like minded. I believe an openly gay man is much more likely to be assaulted in Portland, Oregon than in central Wyoming. I’ve seen the so-called liberals make fun at people that have had sex changes while the roughest toughest blue-collar worker not even bat an eye at the thought and go on their merry way. To be an American does not just mean a home for me. It means being self assured and able to defend a point of view while staying open to new ones. I believe western Europe has no self assurance in their values and have become rudderless. Until they can jettison their culture of self loathing they will be doomed to whatever wind blows their way, whether it’s Islamofascism or nihilism. You really ought to get in a car and drive west of the Mississippi sometime. Get off the Interstate and be a tourist. You would be pleasantly surprised in what you find here. Then perhaps, you can get all teary eyed over “America the Beautiful.”
Sep 16, 2008 - 2:55 pm 37. Harvey:Michael Perry, you are spot on. I lived in Europe, I have European relatives; there is little hope that the trend of European cultural suicide can be reversed because most Europeans don’t accept that fact that their culture is being replaced with an alien one. And many of those who are aware of the danger muddle about in fantasies around Zionist conspiracy and other idiocies.
Bruce is a thoughtful guy but his self-absorption is palpable. I liked many of the European anthems and still do, but only the Star Spangled Banner has the emotional power to bring tears to the eyes of real Americans.
Sep 16, 2008 - 3:08 pm 38. Anonymous Patriot:Mr. Bawer,
Every aging generation that looks back through the prism of time is acutely aware that the America they grew up with no longer exists. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Progress can be attained without being progressive, socially speaking.
So, you gave up all of your US constitutional rights, which by the way does recognize gay couples, to live in a socialist foreign country primarily because that foreign country recognizes gay marriages instead?
Choosing the path of least resistance is a poor excuse for fighting for what you believe in.
Goodbye Mr. Bawer, America doesn’t need you.
Sep 16, 2008 - 4:03 pm 39. mikielikes:Chicken Farmer
So what happens when chickens are all the same sex? A change of perception will not change the dismal fact they’d be doomed – maybe there’s a lesson in this notion, huh. In my estimation, all Europeans are chickens!
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:40 pm 40. L:It’s frequently said that in 50-years Europe will have ceased to be, becoming a Muslim rather than a Western continent. Often, there’s some schadenfreude accompanying the observation.
Sep 16, 2008 - 9:10 pm 41. Wemedge:In fewer than 50-years, the U.S. will cease to be. There will almost certainly still be a territory on maps labeled “United States of America”, but, on the ground, it will be indistinguishable from Mexico.
It is America’s Anglo-Saxon heritage that has made it a land of liberty and of respect for private property. There’s a reason the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in English. There is a reason there are no comparable documents written in Spanish.
Much as when Europe is Muslim, it will no longer be Western; when America is Hispanic, it will be just another Third World toilet.
I don’t feel much joy about that, shameful or otherwise.
I am the same age as Bruce, have lived in Europe twice as long, am married to a European, and miss my native country about a hundred times more than he does. The longer I’m here the more I appreciate the land of my birth, her generous, transparent people, her wildly inventive culture, and the way everything pretty much works without stifling the individual. I’ve identified with the culture of the country I live in, i.e., don’t hang around with Americans, and am immersed in the language but have never remotely thought that I was looking at the US through European eyes. A lot of Bruce’s ambivalence toward the US clearly springs out of identity as a homosexual. I suspect that, given that identity, he would have difficulty feeling at home anywhere, in any era. He’s a good guy who has made an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the cloud that is hanging over this continent and will, before many decades, subsume it.
Sep 17, 2008 - 8:43 am 42. Jarhead:Bruce,
When us Americans see your “decent, law-abiding Camden, NJ, family from a hovel in which no American child should have to live,” we think “poor decisions, irresponsibility, and laziness” regardless of race or gender.
Yes, the socialists have infected you.
Sep 17, 2008 - 11:58 am 43. notutopia:Oh Dear Bruce, NOthing is static for 10 years. Unless you are frozen. I hope you catch up to the past soon, so you can move forward in your precious life. You are grieving, I hear it in your chosen words. Grieving the loss of the good ole days past and the world as it can only be done here in the USA, and that which you shared and connect with your father.
Sep 17, 2008 - 1:42 pm 44. Jensen:Please do come HOME for a few months. It’s time to thaw out and test your own opinion of this post 9/11 nation.
Some issues have improved, some worsened, some have hung in limbo, but, it’s all for YOU to opine when you come and stay for awhile and catch back up to yourself. Norway will be also waiting for you to see her through different eyes when you return back to her. If you go back to her.Interpretations on societal issues via the Web or Cable feeds is NOT real it is of a plastic spun America. Come see her and yourself for real!
I’ve lived in 5 US states (both ‘red’ and ‘blue’ so I am familiar with the levels of excess that both cultures exhibit), large cities and small towns, 2 European countries and a short stint in Asia. I understand the ambivalence represented in this article.
Sep 17, 2008 - 2:04 pm 45. Europe is still asleep. « Because No One Asked:Americans who are offended by that sentiment either do not travel or need to pull their heads out of the sand and stop thinking that we already do everything in the world 100% right, 100% of the time. There is room for improvement. Sometimes living abroad makes that clear.
I enjoy your blog posts and look forward to reading your comments on Amsterdam at another time.
[...] Pajamas Media, Bawer has provided an update after his decade spent living in Norway. [...]
Sep 17, 2008 - 3:28 pm 46. NumberNine:With all due respect, a unmarried heterosexual couple wouldn’t be recognized as “family” any more than a homosexual couple.
Sep 17, 2008 - 5:37 pm 47. NumberNine:As for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, my heart aches for people who have nothing. However, I do believe the makeovers can be too “extreme” – many amenities most people don’t have. The houses should meet their needs. Also, several recipients of the makeovers 1.) could not afford the maintenance/utilities for the homes 2.) others have squandered the gift that was given to them.
Sep 17, 2008 - 5:42 pm 48. N C:I like Bruce’s work and recommend that one read his book. My only question is why does he always have to remind us that he is gay? I could care less and am more interested in his thoughts v-a-v the rise of Islam in Europe. Cheers.
Sep 17, 2008 - 8:42 pm 49. Jim Baker:Stay in Norway, Bruce. I could care less that you are gay, as I’m sure you could care less about whatever my preferences are. Further, I don’t want to know about anyone else’s tribulations because of a mis-understood personality. We ALL got that, bozo!
Sep 17, 2008 - 9:25 pm 50. Ed Wallis:FROM the thread, “Britain’s Jihad Industry Exposed” :
“It’s one thing listening to male preachers spouting hatred — those raving madmen with their Rasputin beards, missing eyes, and hook hands have become as synonymous with Britain as warm beer and cricket matches. It’s something else to hear soft-spoken teenage girls with London accents debating whether a homosexual should simply be stoned to death, or be thrown off a cliff and then stoned to death. And, while I wouldn’t for one moment want to suggest that women aren’t every bit as capable of waging jihad as their male counterparts — seeing as how big the Islamists are on women’s lib and all — if this is what’s going on in the ladies’ wing, you have to wonder what the men are getting up to.”
Considering a trip to London, Bruce?
I thought not.
You seek indifference, not tolerance.
Regarding “NC’s” comment/query, “…why does he always have to remind us that he is gay?” – I noted the writer’s dishonesty in bringing out the genuine intent of his manipulative piece about 80% into the short work, well into the emotional pity-me-therefore-condone-my-sexuality groundwork. Yawn. Poor literary technique, worse for its conscious manipulation of the reader.
Sep 18, 2008 - 1:48 am 51. Dave:YOu are where you are because it is the best place to be what you are. Do NOT hold this against America. That woman in your customs booth was angry not because you’re gay but because you were trying to flimflam her and she has a job to do. The law is the law, and that’s what she works with. She’s a bureaucrat, not a moral judge.
Bruce, you come perilously close to whining sometimes.
As someone else mentioned, be glad you were born in America where you have been making free choices from the beginning. How’d you like to be gay in Iran? Your choices are, die or die.
America is still beautiful, but you are older and more tired and more cynical.
Sep 18, 2008 - 5:57 am 52. PK:So let me get this straight: The writer chooses to live in Norway because they allow him to live with his partner. Is this along the same lines of a man living in Thailand so he can live with his 14 year old bride? Or of a man living in Colorado City as a member of the FLDS so he can live with all his 14 year old brides?
Not sure that tolerance is always the best reason to live somewhere else. Especially if it is tolerance of sexual desires that one is seeking.
Sep 18, 2008 - 7:12 am 53. Chicken farmer:N C,
I agree with you about the big deal people make over their sexuality. I wish Bruce would let it go and do what he does best: Write well documented non-fiction. When Bruce gets into the gayness issue my eyes start to roll and I just go on to something else. There is no place in the world where people will accept an individual’s ideas 100%. When I tell Liberals I am a Libertarian with conservative social morals they look at me like I just dumped a load of horse crap on their dining room table. I just let it roll off and go my merry way.
We have to be willing to live with what we tolerate. Tolerance and acceptance are not synonimous.
P.S., When we kill an aggressive rooster and make soup out of him, it’s still “chicken soup.”
Sep 18, 2008 - 12:36 pm 54. KDawg:Hasn’t this guy ever heard that life isn’t fair. Maybe if Mr. Bawer complains a little bit more the Norwegian Gov’t can wipe his whiny-ass.
Sep 18, 2008 - 1:42 pm 55. brad G:After reading this, I realized quickly that nothing about it stuck with me, even mere seconds afterward. And looking back on it now, I’m not sure what the point was; I tried to re-read it, but fell asleep…
Sep 18, 2008 - 3:14 pm 56. BMoon:Bruce Bawer will be one of many millions who will have to learn history’s lessons the hard way – you cannot tear down the foundatiopn without the building eventually collapsing. Or, to paraphrase the architect of modern European thinking -Nietzsche – you cannot “erase the horizon” without getting lost in the eternal vortex of relativism.
Good luck, Bruce, with your mulitcultural relativistic mush-minded society in Norway. Let me know how that little dealie with the Norwegian Ismalicists wanting to kill all homosexuals works out, and remember those wise little clichés like trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Sep 19, 2008 - 7:50 am 57. Anthony:Radical moderate — I agree with you regarding teh fact that NATO allows the US to subsidize Europe’s welfare state. Watching the opera buffa earlier this year over first the Kosovo independence matter and second the Georgia crisis, I came away thinking — it is time to get out of NATO. NATO is the poster child for government programs, it is still around even though the reason for its existence (the USSR) no longer exists. Russia is not the USSR, Russian nationalism is not Bolshevism.
As for the rest of the comments, Mr. Bawer has made it clear in I think most of his writings that his move to Europe was primarily due to his sexual preference. Personally, if I were gay, I would prefer New York to Norway, but so be it. He has never stuck me as a “citizen of the world” type. I actually will be moving to Europe next summer for an extended work assignment — I will still consider myself American
As for lamenting the pasisng of an old America, that is a normal aspect of getting older. I used to laugh at my parents complaining about the old America being gone, and they grew up in poor, immigrant households during the Depression and WWII. Yet, entering my forties, I too find myself lamenting the passing of what I think of as America. It is natural. I think in Mr. Bawer’s case, living abroad, it is just more pointed a feeling, given that he feels the shock of the unfamiliar whenever he returns home.
Sep 19, 2008 - 1:11 pm 58. UglyCuss:Mr. Brewer:
Since you been away, we’ve been inundated with millions of illegals trying to start a better life here. Anyone of them would love to take your place. We could make good use of your “place” in the line. Please step aside and stop calling your self an American.
regards,
Sep 19, 2008 - 2:41 pm 59. Eric R.:Mr. Bawer,
I’ve read you book. I have frequently been to your website. I’ve e-mailed you with criticisms and you’ve even written back.
I knew why you didn’t come back to America. But the way you have been writing, you would think that your death and the death of your partner and that of other gays is just around the corner, as in “First They Came for the Gays.”
Well, the actuarial tables tell me that you will be on this planet another 25-30 years. Regardless of whether or not we recognize gay marriage here, you will probably have to return here someday before you die to save your neck from the Islamofascists.
And I think you know that.
Sep 22, 2008 - 6:40 pm 60. AGA:I sure hope that in the next 10 years your heart will be able to be here in the US as family with the rest of your family. Fascinating comments, as they brought into focus a reading of your article that I would not otherwise have seen.
Sep 25, 2008 - 1:32 pm 61. tdotTim:jw:
“Or does the fact that you have sexual relations with your roommate make him “family”? Whatever else your life in Norway has taught, it has not taught you the basic facts of biology.”
Well I live in Canada and if you live with a “roommate” that you have sexual relations with for more than a year you are legally considered to be a “common law couple”. I assume being Canada that this also applies to same sex couples, but being a breeder (with no intention of actually breeding), I’m not 100% sure of that. It’s also a categorization I try not to recognize because it brings the state into the bedroom. If I live with a girl for more than a year just as actual roommates, do I have to provide proof to Canadian beauracrats that we are not involved in sexual relations or be considered all but married legally if I don’t? If I want to enter into the institution of marriage I will do so…I don’t need the state telling me I’m, in effect, married.
Either way it has little or nothing to do with “biology”. How does intercourse plus a marriage certificate affect biology? I think jw, you are confusing marriage with biology. If 2 people get legally married then they are now “family”. Biology has nothing to do with it until they reproduce.
Sep 27, 2008 - 9:01 am 62. tdotTim:NumberNine:
“With all due respect, a unmarried heterosexual couple wouldn’t be recognized as “family” any more than a homosexual couple.”
Again, it depends where you live…see my post above.
Sep 27, 2008 - 9:15 am 63. LL:I so relate to your writing; I live in France as an American and sometimes I get so frustrated at how impossible it is, here, for many people to ever admit that any American is thoughtful or intelligent or any part of, American culture is valuable. (and the converse, that every French idea and person is not brilliant and superior;)) I came here because I love teaching and I wanted to have the opportunity to live in Europe and I have lived in 4 other countries with the same enthusiasm but that curiosity is not always returned… I have some wonderful great french friends but what sticks is the intolerance that one gets..I could go on about the impolite unasked for rants I have encountered in bars, ski-rental shops ( where after asking me what my accent was in my spoken French, and I said “American” with a big friendly smile, the man replied with scorn “Why would anyone go there,,,all America is just McDonalds. I have no interest”.). Its really just so redneck sometimes this supposed “european enlightenment” and it is not better than some American intolerance it is the same…But what has been helpful for me is just to say to people like that”wow, its unfortunate you are so close-minded and angry and incurious, despite that, as a European you are supposed to be so open-minded, why is that?” It just stuns them. They just hate being called on their small-mindedness, it is the WORST;) Good luck and don’t listen to these ignorant people just hang out with the cool Europeans that actually have interest in the world. They are out there, just less vocal unfortunately.
Oct 10, 2008 - 11:16 pm 64. trained entomologist:You obviously haven’t succeeded in adapting to your life overseas there in Norway.
You would be better off coming home to the one and only country in the whole world to which you are adapted, your own United States. Let a friendlier, more adaptable person take your place in the expat circle.
May 25, 2009 - 8:27 pm 65. fnord:Fascinating.
So you live in my country, use my countrys healthsystem paid for by my tax-money, travel by the subsidized communal traffic and in short enjoy all the benefits of the welfare state my parents built and I have worked to maintain, and you repay it with throwing shit about our system? Get out of St. Hanshaugen mr. Bawer, if thats how you feel. Im sure youll be welcome in the Netherlands, where you dont have to worry about the weather either. “Im staying in socialist hell, but I have to because its the only place where I can live with my love”. Word up: Spain has legitimized gay marriage. Get ye the fck there.
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