Here's some anti-American silliness from the European press I just came across yesterday.

One is never sure which of two characteristics is more prominent in the American national character and therefore of the greater significance: naivete or a superiority complex. When for example they say things about our region, our surprise at their ignorance is surpassed only by annoyance at their stupid insolence. The less they know about a matter, the more confidently they speak. They really believe that Europeans are eagerly waiting to hear from them and follow their advice...They cannot believe that there are cultural values that are the result of centuries of historical development, which cannot simply be bought.

So the Yanks are ignorant and lack culture and history, and to make it even worse they're arrogant. And there's no hope for them, either, since they will need centuries of historical development to reach the European level.

The U.S.A. has no poets, no painters, no architects or composers of world stature. Whatever culture it has is borrowed from Europe. The land lacks its own language, culture, and civilization. It has borrowed everything, generally debasing it by Americanizing it, never improving it. Americanization is a kind of kitschification that gives every cultural value an American stamp,

The Americans defile everything they touch.

If the Americans lacked money, they would probably be the most despised people in the world.

That is, money is the only thing the Americans don't lack.

We would not say anything if the U.S.A. were aware of its intellectual and moral defects and was trying to grow up. But it is too much when it behaves in an impudent manner toward a part of the earth with a few thousand years of glorious history behind it, attempting to teach it moral and intellectual lessons, whether out of innocence or a complete lack of genuine culture and learning. We can forgive the mistakes of youth, but this degree of arrogance gets on one's nerves.

Not only are the Americans uncultured and unlearned, but they behave arrogantly before those who are their superiors.

We have a level of culture and civilization that is denied to most Americans. One who understands this can hardly have much sympathy for what they understand as culture and civilization.

And the Americans have absolutely no chance of ever being as good as Europeans.

As far as "God's country" goes, Europeans discovered it and give it life even today. Were it left to its own resources, it would soon return once more to desert and prairie, as wide and as empty as the souls of its people.

Well, you heard it here, and not for the first time: Americans have empty souls, since they have no culture and care only about money.