Managing Leadership^®

It has long been common to compare various aspects of the US with Europe; just a few of the more common examples: Our government spends less on education (this allegation doesn’t count state and local board of education spending), our average university student scores lower on various tests than European students (university education in the US is far more widespread than in still essentially elitist/class-conscious Europe), various European countries have higher average income/quality of life, etc. statistics than the US (the US has 300 million people; the fact that we rate at or near the top on all such categories is a phenomenal endorsement of our system. Moreover, we have any number of suburban neighborhoods that surpass in all respects such putative (and tiny) European outperformers).

My purpose here is not to belittle Europe’s accomplishments, which are real, and which, hopefully, will become deeper and richer through continuing success with the EU experiment. Such a regional force that is powerful across numerous domains is important for the vitality of Europe, the US, and the world.

Rather, my purpose is to point out that comparisons between us usually miss the point because we are, quite simply, fundamentally different peoples. For all the weight of our mostly European heritage and our Anglo-Saxon institutions, our views of the world, of each other, and of the future are so different that most observers from either side are simply unable to even notice it.

A recent WSJ commentary underlines this point. It addresses the fact that Europeans work less and enjoy more vacation time than Americans. According to the item, some observers (including Americans) attribute this to our being either “emotionally stunted” or suffering under an oppressive thrall to heartless capitalism.

The author effectively addresses these points by providing evidence showing that we are generally happier in both our lives and our work than Europeans. But that answer only hints at the deeper truth.

Centuries of European history, in which the world was divided between lords and peasants, has separated the average person from sovereignty of both the state and even of his or her own life and work. The US is populated by people (whether they arrived 500 years ago or today) who have made a conscious decision to take personal control of both.

As a result, we are more likely to define ourselves by our work, and to take much of our sense of self-worth and enjoyment from it, because it is ours, undertaken by us for our own purposes. Consequently, we tend to be more optimistic about our ability to achieve these ends.

It is not that we are emotionally stunted – we are liberated from systems that tend, even in their modern incarnations, to put others in their place. Neither is it that we are in thrall to work – we celebrate like few others can that it is our tool – not our master; nor do we have any other mortal master.

With all this ambition, hope, and high standards, we are as critical of ourselves as of the systems we have escaped; more so, indeed, than our most ardent foes abroad. We are vigilant in our pursuit of happiness (in the political and economic sense), and will not have it taken from us by the narcotic promises of the past, nor by the always grasping hands for power to wield over us at home.

It is a difference not of ethnicity, religion, or of race. Its roots lie neither in nationalism nor tribalism. It is an attitude, an intellectual and emotional air that we breath – unaware, even we, of its influence on us. But come and breathe it enough, yourselves, as so many do, and you will fall under the same spirit of independence, the continual awakening of which we express every day, not just every Independence Day.

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