In face of these internal difficulties,nmany Europeans find the United Statesnto be a convenient scapegoat. Reflectingnweak economic education, a pitiful levelnof economic reporting, and the perceptionsnof American political life projectednby the International Herald Tribune,npopular opinion in France and Italyntends to blame the Reagan Administrationnfor virtually all woes. Reaganomicsnis regarded as a policy aimed at crushingnthe poor. Frenchmen commonly refernto a perverse American conspiracy tonwreck Europe’s economy through Presidentialnmanipulation of interest and inflationnrates to the advantage of the U.S.n”Milton Friedman is the murderer ofncivilization,”—opines one politician; thisncomment suggests the prevailing levelnof French mainstream economic insight.nThe inertia of domestic Europeannpolitics further erodes the foundationsnof the Alliance. In Italy, the ChristiannDemocrats have ruled almost continuouslynsince World War II. But they are anparty without substantial principles.nBom at the turn of the century out ofnpapal-inspired opposition to the unified,nsecular Italian state, the Christian Democratsnhave served primarily as a brake onnthe policies of other parties, be theynthose of the Communists or the socalledn”lay parties”—the Republicans,nthe Liberals, and the Socialists—whichnare rich in ideas but minuscule in size.nConsequently, Italians do not usuallynvote for a party, platform, or person;nthey vote against someone or something.nThe result is stagnation and drift:.nFor different reasons, France also evidencesnpolitical petrification. In thenthree centuries since the accession ofnLouis XIV, the French social order has alwaysnpresumed the all-present state.nThe civU service remains popularlynviewed as the foundation of society.nEven in the aftermath of conservativenvictory in March’s municipal elections,nGaullist leader Raymond Barre, in a televisionninterview, attributed the right’sntriumph to widespread fear that respectnfor the state was declining under thenSocialists. While conservative ParisiannMayor Francois Chirac has latelynsounded a few tentative “Austrian”nnotes, the concept of an open, marketorientednsociety simply does not generatenmuch emotion below the Channelnand west of the Rhine.nJournalists in each country also describednan accelerating loss of confidencenin the U.S. The European gener­nation shaped by World War II acceptednAmerican leadership because its postwarnsecurity depended on it and becausenthe Americans showed confidencenand sense of purpose. However,none conservative British editornsuggested that most Europeans nonlonger share the essentially Americannimpression that the Soviet Union is ann”evil” force in the world. The gaspipelinenissue and the resulting Americannimposition of economic sanctionsnon its Allies, he added, had badly sourednrelations. Recent years have also evidencednrebirth of the old attitude thatnAmerica is too immature to be an effectivenworld power. The shift from America’sn”messiatiic” anticommunism in thenearly 1960’s to realpolitik in the earlyn1970’s to vague moral earnestnessnunder Jimmy Carter and back to anticommunismnunder Reagan make longtermnAmerican ambitions unclear.nNearly absent in these conversationsnnnwas a sense of common civilization; thendisease of cultural relativism has spreadndeep. Those who created the institutionsnof the Atiantic Alliance in the 1940’s andn50’s—^among them Adetiauer, de Gaulle,nSchumann, and de Gasperi-^intellectually,nemotionally, and personally sharednin the triumph and tragedy of modernnEuropean man. Compared to the selfstylednleaders of the current decade,nthey were giants. Talk in the late 1940’snof a rebirth of Euro-American civilizationnand reference to the fledgling CommonnMarket as a democratic heir to thenHoly Roman Empire was something morenthan a public-relations ploy. Today, thosenimages are the province of old men.nAnemic attempts by well-connected,ngray-haired, fretful groups such as thenAdantic Council to rekindle the civilizationalnflame stumble over liberal guiltnand self-doubt “There must be a set ofnbeliefs and principles that can serve asnbulwarks against which the claims ofnconflicting value systems can be assessed,”nthe Atlantic Council of the U.S.ncharacteristically declared in its agonizednlitde volume. The Successor Generationn(1981). But the Council proceedednto deplore attempts at propagatingn”any particular set of religious ornmoral beUefe” which might infringe onnthe absolute right of youth to examinenall belief systems without prejudice. Asnthe panel’s peripatetic “student member”nexplained to undoubtedly noddingnheads, “We must be careful . . . thatnteachers don’t start pouring ideology,neven one we accept, down students’nthroats.” Such is the state of culturalnidentity and moral courage in the Westntoday.nIf hope is to be found within thenAlliance, it is among trends in ideas andnfashion. For the first time in more than angeneration, Marxism appears to be onnthe intellectual defensive. In Italy it hasnbecome fashionable for professors toncrack anticommunist jokes in universitynclassrooms. France’s “new philosophers,”nwho shook the intelligentsia a decadenago with books such as Jean-Francoisn^^i43nJuly 1983n