Diminishing Phobia

Anti-Americanism has been a respected British attitude ever since the American Revolution, which, says Historian D. W. Brogan, was "the great defeat of the English ruling class." In recent years, the feeling has been aggravated by a condition that Anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer calls megaloxenophobia -- the fear or envy of The Big Stranger, i.e., the world's dominant power. But there is strong evidence that anti-Americanism is now on the wane.

During a recent BBC symposium. Author Kingsley (Lucky Jim) Amis reported that it is declining particularly among younger people "who enjoy American products without a sense of guilt and without a sense of superiority." Emphatic agreement came from Historian Marcus Cunliffe of Manchester University, who reported that the younger intellectuals "if anything, are almost too pro-American: many younger English people have a sort of Americanophilia because they have established in their own minds the contrast between our allegedly soporific, boring, class-ridden culture and this crackling culture across the Atlantic." American jazz, painting, architecture, and highbrow paperbacks all suggest to young British intellectuals that the U.S. is "the country one must go to in order to see what is novel and important," and that "Americans have been into the dark places, and the lighter places too, of the human imagination and have found some answers for us all." Added Daily Telegraph Pundit Peregrine Worsthorne: "The ambitious, young, lower-middle-class Tory sees America as an attractive kind of society because there is no doubt that in America, if you have what it takes to be successful, when you get to the top you are in the full sense accepted."

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