Here's the article.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=5cm8m89n8bpb099csz9qn8p6z7nzj8xp
And here's my counter-analysis.
What this guy misses is a very simple thing about human beings.
Humans hate. Humans really love to hate. With it becoming "uncouth" to hate real enemies, much less the standard tropes of the "different", the Europeans have seized on the one remaining group it's okay to hate: Americans.
And by "Americans" they have a very specific image. The "Americans" they are permitted and encouraged to hate are: White, male, middle-class and reasonably comfortable with their place in life.
It's easy to see in movies as foreign revenues have become more and more important. It's impossible to have a villain who is any racial/social type but white, male and preferably "conservative."
With blacks (Kaffirs, niggers, Sens) removed from consideration, with Jews (Kikes, Shylocks) questionable, with women being "equal" (far less so, demonstrably, in Europe than in the US) with even a real enemy, violent fundamentalist Islamics, removed from allowance for hate, they have to turn it somewhere.
It is exacerabated by the fact that, so-called "superpower" or no, Europe is demonstrably inferior to the US in every provable metric. Fewer Nobel Prizes in scientific (vs purely subjective "literary" or "peace" prizes) awards, fewer research papers, tiny and increasingly incompetent militaries, fewer patents, economically on either a per capita or personal productivity level...
Say what they will about their "superior" culture. Give me a metric on that. They cannot and thus when they drift to sleep they fume against McDonalds, cheaper and yet more dependable cars (ever owned a Renault?) and all the rest of the "tawdry" that, inconceivably, is supplanting their "superior" culture.
They hate us because we're workaholics and it's embarassing to them. We always have been, comparatively. It was the hard workers and those willing to dig in and hoe who came to the US . It was the lazy and the uncaring, or the powerful and privileged, who remained. As the lazy and uncaring have gained political power, they've taken over the reins and now decide just how much work they want to do, rather than how much needs to be done to remain competitive. How many paid holidays do Europeans get? How much paid vacation? The French are down to a 35 hour work-week.
Despite fewer hours to work, thus presumably needing more workers, we still have statistically zero unemployment (there's a level that's darned hard to crack simply for reporting reasons) vs their comparatively huge levels. But it gets worse. It used to be that that German worker would get out as much work as an American in less time. No longer. American per-hour productivity is the highest in the world. Our work-force is the most integrated to the information age thus the most efficient. We work more hours and get more done in less time.
We're kicking their asses. It has to be embarassing.
Then there's the fact that they're dying off. Aging so fast that the concept of a "German", an "Italian" and even a "Frenchman" is something that is approaching "the buggy-whip."
They're old and they're crotchety and everything they hate translates to "those damned kids."
They hate our energy, they hate our efficiency, they hate the "mongrel" culture that produces it, a culture that's willing to grab a burger (or a wrap or a salad) on the run so that they can do more, more, More, MORE! WORK HARD, PLAY HARD. This is not a European motto. "Work less then sip coffee or beer while bitching about Americans" pretty much covers it.
Who invented extreme sports?
They are the geriatrics raging against the future. They are walker-bound nontegenarians wheezing curses at the kid on the skate-board.
They know it, deep in their "cultured" bones, and they hate us all the more.
We are the future, they are the past. As Lazarus Long said: "You know you're dying when all you have is memories and no goals."
Rage all you want against the dying of the light. If all you have left is rage, you have nothing.
Let them rage.