US and Europe - different planets (thankfully)

BBC From Our Own Correspondent: Transatlantic divisions run deep

President Bush is about to launch himself into the most ambitious piece of diplomacy he has ever attempted. He will become the first American President in history to visit the core institutions of the European Union, in an effort to patch up relations with the Europeans

........America is strait-laced and earnest, and is getting more so with every passing day.

A recent example which caught my eye, I thought at first it was a joke, that several television stations refused to allow the screening of Steven Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan.

Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks, is not pornographic, nor is it grotesquely violent. It is a war film with some shooting and some swearing.

Although it would be shown on any television station anywhere in Europe, with no comment and no censorship, the swearing is too much for America.

At least they say it is the swearing, but I wonder if there is a more profound difficulty here.

My memory of the film is that it is occasionally grittily realistic. In the battle scenes, soldiers are scared and their deaths are not always terribly glorious.It is in other words true to life, and that is another area where Europe and America increasingly diverge.

America is fast becoming a nation of faith not fact. A nation where the unpleasant aspects of human existence are simply airbrushed away. Link