英语议论文：大西洋到底有多宽_公共英语阅读理解

英语议论文：大西洋到底有多宽

The impressive integrative power of American society seems to generate a kind of obliviousness to the world, a multicultural unilateralism. (18) The result is a paradox: a fantastically tolerant and flexible society that has absorbed the whole world, yet has difficulty comprehending the world beyond its borders.

These differences and irritations add up to a substantial disagreement on the joint origins of American and European civilization. Europeans think that Americans are on their way to betraying some of the elementary tenets of the Enlightenment, establishing a new principle in which they are "first among unequals." (19)

And Washington accuses Europe of shirking its international responsibilities, and thus its own human rights inheritance.

Unfortunately, we cannot expect the news media in the United States or Europe to present a nuanced20 views of this dispute. In (20) years of traveling back and forth between Germany and America I have become convinced that news broadcasts usually confirm their audiences' views: in Europe, about America, the "cowboy nation," and in the United States, about Europe, the "axis of weasels (21)."

These disagreements will be influenced but cannot be resolved by the American presidential election in November. The divisions are too deep, and Europe cannot meet the United States halfway on too many issues? the separation between church and state, the separation of powers, respect for international law, the abolition of the death penalty--without surrendering its version of its Enlightenment inheritance (22).