NRO Weekend, July 29-30, 2000
Love on the Arno
Thinking about Florence and patriotism.

By Jay Nordlinger, NR managing editor

I've just returned from a visit to Florence (Italy, not South Carolina), where I was once a student; and, while there, I read Norman Podhoretz's beautiful and muscular new memoir about his “love affair with America.” The memoir — I should blush to say — reminded me a lot of myself; of my own experiences, my own growth.

Norman P. sailed off to Cambridge University in 1950. He was always a patriotic kid, but he came back more patriotic — more America-appreciating — than ever. A dose of European anti-Americanism will do that to you. Some of those he encountered were even “more horrified by the prospect of being drowned by Coca-Cola and poisoned by hamburgers” than they were by Washington's foreign and defense policies.

My own school was not exactly Cambridge: It was the humble (but lovable) Istituto Michelangelo, an Italian-language school for foreigners. The year was 1984, a dark year for Orwell but a bright and pivotal one for me. I set off from Detroit on Icelandair, then the cheapest way to get to Europe. You stopped briefly in Reykjavik (where you were supposed to buy one of those grayish sweaters), then proceeded to either Luxembourg or Frankfurt. I chose Luxembourg.

On the train down to Florence, I had one of those encounters — small-seeming — that stay with you forever. I sat across from a young American woman who was a fellow student. (I believe she was from Berkeley, but that would be almost too perfect.) She had a broad face, sandy hair, and a splash of freckles. And she was deeply ashamed of her country. Reagan was president, you see, and he had planted missiles in Western Europe, and everything was grim. She confided to me that she could hardly bear to be associated with America. Then she uttered the (to me) immortal words, "I'm hoping I can pass for German."

Please pause a second to consider that statement. Here we were in Europe — in France, actually, traveling through — only 39 years after V-E Day; only 39 years (less than two generations) after the ovens at Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen had stopped belching. And this creepy, but, sadly, typical, girl — from the United States — was saying, “I'm hoping I can pass for German.”

I was not yet fully formed, politically. I was certainly no flag-waver. But I wasn't like that, not like her. That I knew.

And so this process continued once I was ensconced at the Istituto Michelangelo. It wasn't so much the anti-Americanism of the Europeans that had an effect on me; that was par for the course. It was the self-hating Americanism of many of my compatriots around me. It is hard to recount now — in this happily different age — how they despised their country; how they hung their heads in shame about it. They bitterly mocked the American tourists on the Florentine streets: See how crude they were! So loud, so monolingual, so fat — the type that would ask for ketchup or piss in the bidet.

Also that year — this was a summer semester — were the Los Angeles Olympics. An American housemate of mine was beside herself about these — all that red, white, and blue, and, worst, Reagan, smiling that idiot smile of his, as if he didn't know how contemptible he and his “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” were. She was especially appalled by Mary Lou Retton, the little ball of fire and joy from West Virginia (perhaps the self-hating American's least favorite state). The ebullient gymnast was becoming America's sweetheart, but she was a demon in that house at 20 Giovanni Bovio Street. My housemate recoiled at the girl's country twang and her equally country first name: “Mary Lou!” the housemate would sing out in mockery, trying to sound like a demented Minnie Pearl. “Mary Lou!”

All the while, I was becoming more and more repulsed by this attitude, and more and more . . . patriotic (though this was considered a horribly anti-intellectual thing to be — the disorder of boobs and know-nothings and losers). I went out of my way to be friendly and helpful to American tourists, whom I found easy to like. Did they want to know where the Ponte Vecchio or Vivoli's was? Did they need help with the menu? It would be my pleasure. To irk my irksome American classmates, I would have donned a pair of Bermuda shorts and a garish floral-print shirt, and thrown a camera around my neck — even chomped on a cigar.

I simply refused to cringe at my countrymen. I sort of willed it. I didn't want to be that kind of traveler, age-old, who fancies himself superior and admirably sophisticated. Listen to Miss Lavish, in Florence, at the beginning of E. M. Forster's Room with a View: “Stop a minute [she says to her companion, Lucy]. Let these two people go on, or I shall have to speak to them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! They are going into the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad! . . . Look at their figures! They walk through my [my!] Italy like a pair of cows. It's very naughty of me, but I would like to set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who couldn't pass it.”

One day, a teacher at the Istituto decided to conduct a little political session. After the usual denunciations of the U.S. and its cowboy president, the teacher turned to me (I must by now have acquired a reputation) and said, “And now, Jay will defend America.” I stood up and said, “America, given all that it has done for the world, particularly on this continent, has no need of a defense.” Then I sat down. Everyone went “ooh.”

I had discovered something wonderful: the World War II card (which can — and should, I believe — double as a World War I card; for that matter, it should triple as a Cold War card). To play it may be a little underhanded, but it can be hard to resist. Don't get me wrong: I didn't expect, or want, anyone in the Old World to throw flowers at my feet, the way they did Woodrow Wilson. (For one thing, I had had nothing whatsoever to do with the achievements of the American army.) But, you know: un po' di rispetto, eh? When I need cheering up, I like to think of that glorious moment when Charles de Gaulle told Dean Rusk that he wanted all American troops out of France, pronto. Replied Rusk, "Would that include the ones buried in the military cemeteries, General?" This must be the greatest riposte in American history.

In the fall of '84, after I had gotten home, Vice President Bush debated Geraldine Ferraro — and he said something that sounded strange to many ears, but that was sweet music to mine. He said (speaking of Reagan, of course), “It's a joy to serve with a president who does not apologize for the United States of America.” I knew just what he meant. Exactly.

Travel, they say, is broadening. So it is. You are apt to learn as much about your home country, or yourself, as you are about the places of your journey. When I got back from Florence, I was hopelessly in love with that city, and with Italy, longing to return. But, like Norman Pod., I also had a new (or renewed) feeling about America. Burke said that a country, to be loved, ought to be lovely. Okay. There is plenty to love about America and Americans. Even — no, especially — the Mary Lous.