By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 30th, 2012 
 
To skip this introduction and go directly to the In-Depth Analysis “How to be an Intelligent Anti-American,” click here.
I saw Lincoln yesterday. I intend to write a post on its significance over the weekend. I have fundamentally two responses to the film, aesthetic and political. On aesthetic grounds, I don’t think it is his best, but, on the other hand, I am blown away by the film’s political power. The debate it has opened is impressive. Fundamental questions about the nature of politics, the connection of past and future, and the human capacity to change the world are now being raised in the discussion of Spielberg’s latest, and a broad audience is taking part and listening in. I will explain more fully on Monday.
Today, I have decided to post an essay I published ten years ago, inspired by my ambivalent response to Schindler’s List, which of course Lincoln resembles, for better and for worse, in many ways. My essay, as I explain in its opening, was inspired by two occasions which led to its composition as lectures. My theme on the two occasions was anti-Americanism, and Spielberg came to mind. I am posting the piece today both because I think an American film genius has does it again, revealed all the strength and weaknesses of American popular, democratic, culture, and because the main theme of my lectures, anti-Americanism, continues to be a pressing topic, both in its comic and tragic dimensions.
So today: an in-depth post, a lecture on how to be an intelligent anti-American.
To read the In-Depth Analysis, “How to be an Intelligent Anti-American,” click here.
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 30th, 2012 The original idea for this paper dates back to 1996. At that time, I was teaching in Cracow, Poland, in a summer institute on democracy and diversity. Since 1992, I had been teaching a course at that institute on democratic culture, utilizing both the political theory of major western thinkers, particularly Hannah Arendt, and major thinkers and political actors from around the old bloc, particularly Adam Michnik and Vaclav Havel. Since the early seventies, I had studied and worked with the developing democratic movement in Central Europe, particularly Poland. The course was a continuation of these activities. But something new and different presented itself in ’96. In a region where (outside official circles) Ronald Reagan could do no wrong, students started presenting fairly standard, but from this part of the world, very exciting, critical judgments of America.
The students came from East and Central Europe, Western Europe, North and South America. In the first years of the institute, the young Westerners automatic critical approach to liberal capitalism and their insufficient appreciation of the force of totalitarianism led to strong disagreements across the old political divide. Suddenly, in 1996, there was an informed and not so well informed anti-American consensus articulated around our seminar table, with some forceful dissenters. I found myself caught in between the consensus and the dissenters, between automatic condemnation and automatic celebration. With that in mind, for the last class, rather than proceeding with the seminar discussion and ending it on an informal note, as is my custom, I presented a formal lecture. It was my first anti-American advisory.
My second advisory was presented just a few months ago (but before 9/11/2001). One of the students in the original class, Jacek Kucharczyk, is now the vice-director of Poland’s major social science think tank. He had an idea for a conference on European Integration. There were sessions on political, economic and cultural integration. My paper framed a discussion about the cultural relationships between Poland, Western Europe and the United States. The paper was received well, meaning that it stimulated a spirited discussion. Particularly pleasing to me was my friendly public debate with the Polish film director, Krzystof Zannusi, over the films of Steven Spielberg. I was appreciative. He . . .
Read more: How to be an Intelligent Anti-American
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 8th, 2011 
Next week I am off to the New School’s Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland. The Institute opens today, but I will be arriving a few days late. As I review the events of this week at Deliberately Considered, I am anticipating my work at the Institute, which will be reflected in upcoming posts. The last two posts, on Iran and on American identity, in fact, were informed by Democracy and Diversity experience.
In the most mundane way, the Institute is like many other international summer schools. Students from many different countries, this year Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Italy, Poland, and the USA, among others, come together to study a set of problems from a number of different academic perspectives. As usual, in my judgment, the topics are particularly interesting, this year, each addressing the theme of the year The World in Crisis: “Gender in Crisis? Strengths and Weaknesses in the Strategy of Emergency” (Prof. Ann Snitow), “Media and News in a Time of Crisis” (Prof. Jeffrey Goldfarb and Prof. Daniel Dayan), “Romancing Violence: Theories and Practices of Political Violence” (Prof. Elzbieta Matynia), and “‘We the People’: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Belonging” (Prof. Sharika Thiranagama). Still there are many summer schools that offer interesting programs with talented students such as we have. Yet, there is something special about this Institute that makes it different than most summer programs, linked to its history.
In terms of my student’s observations and reflection on Iran this week, our institute is in a sense, paraphrasing Hannah Arendt, a not so lost treasure of  the revolutionary tradition. He observed how freedom was experienced in the days before and after the 2009 elections in his country, and noted how even in the face of extreme repression, the ability of independent people to speak and act in each other’s presence is still consequential, apparently preventing the execution of Habibollah Latifi. But the real significance of the free politics, before the elections of 2009 and through the Facebook . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Democracy and Diversity and Free Public Action
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