Cover Osteuropa 1/2011

In Osteuropa 1/2011

The Paradoxical Icon of the New
America as Real Virtuality

Petr Fischer


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

America and Europe are two sides of the same coin. America stands for the faith of western civilisation in the individual and for the possibility of the new start, Europe for the collective and the preservation of its history. Europe sees in the United States only the prototype of the throw-away and junk-food society. Americanisation is to blame for the erosion of social cohesion. However, American society has in fact more social bonding elements of the kind Europe urgently needs.

(Osteuropa 1/2011, pp. 5–12)