Fallacies of Kagan.
Robert Kagan’s thesis that Americans are from Mars, and Europeans, Venus, is receiving far too much attention. (*) Kagan’s big idea is that Europeans are trying to construct a Kantian world, based on rules, and Americans are acting as if the world is nasty, brutish, and short.
Two quick, decisive criticisms are in order. The first is that this explanation is oversimplifying. If Americans were from Mars, and that explained US foreign policy, then tell me when the invasion of Cuba begins. The second is that Kagan’s notion that neither Americans nor Europeans are acting on the basis of their perceived interests is utter fallacy. Kagan is too much interested in developing a rationale that seems to explain a complex world in a nutshell, and not enough interested in attempting to fully grasp the world’s complexity.