Columns, Opinion

GAGNE-MAYNARD: What We Can Learn from Europe

Since Aug. 25, I have been living, studying and traveling in Europe, mostly around Switzerland if one wanted to get specific. Not being fluent in any of the four languages of my temporary home country and looking very much like an American according to Swiss standards, it’s been both a frustrating and an enlightening experience. I reside here, yet I am a tourist. I will be working in Switzerland, yet will always have that feeling like I never truly “lived” here. Yet the sense of transience, that sense of urgency that I have felt since I have been here, a feeling I’m sure most students and studying abroad could at times relate to, has provided me with what I view as a “free-ticket” of sorts.

I can’t speak the language, I’m leaving in a few months and it is to some extent my duty, definitely not a right — and undoubtedly a consequence of privilege — to try to learn and take away as much as I can while I’m here. This might sound very glib — maybe even cliché to some readers — and it feels a tad uncomfortable to me too to say that I have a “free-ticket” to Europe.

Certainly, my diet of mostly bread, cheese and coffee manifests truly how far from “free,” financially speaking, Europe really is. Yet being away from the country of my birth and origin has made me do a lot of thinking about the so-called “American Way,” just as I’m trying to figure out the “European Way,” or at least the “Swiss” or the “German Way.” It’s eye-opening to tell people you’re from the United States and see what sort of reaction it encourages. If you say that in Berlin, for example, you could get smiles, or nods of recognition. If you said that in Amsterdam, you might get a look that seems to say something close to, “I’ve met five people from your country this morning already.”

But it’s fascinating, at least for me, to think more than I ever have about the United States simply by being away from it. The awkward state of limbo that most students studying abroad must feel, as I too now feel, makes it so that your life in residence abroad and your permanent residence at home never really separate from one another. I wouldn’t liken it to an “Out of American-body” experience, but I wouldn’t shy away from using that analogy from time to time. I am an American, and being in Europe has made that very clear.

Studying and keeping my eyes open in Europe has also given me a few ideas. The chief among these is that, “The American Way,” whatever that truly means, is inorganic. It doesn’t seem to accept change, maybe due to some self-righteousness or pride. Or maybe just due to our isolation from the rest of the world, geographically and culturally. Or maybe it’s just pig-headed obstinacy. I’m guessing it’s a combination of all those factors. But I’ve compiled a list of things that I’ve thought about as a result of my travels so far in Europe that I think we could place at odds with “The American Way” regarding these practices. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even come to change for the better.

  1. Plastic Grocery Bags: They are not a thing in Europe, at least not as a means to carry groceries from a store. Are they necessary? No. Are they wasteful? Entirely. Do we need them? When you think about it, no not at all.

  2. Public Transportation: European trains, trams, buses and anything in between are like riding on smooth tracks of butter, only while encased inside a train, tram, bus or anything in between. Justifications for resistance to moving toward more use of efficient public transport in the United States are frankly, a joke. Will they cost a lot? Yes, of course. Will they reduce our emissions, reduce traffic, increase the beauty of our cities and integrate our entire metropolitan grid? Maybe. This is more of a fantasy, but maybe one day this will change.

  3. Lastly, genetically modified organisms: Even the name sounds like some creepy science experiment. Because that’s what they are. Why do we need strawberries the size of tomatoes? American preoccupation with size is truly an endemic phenomenon.

The list could go on, but these things could easily be changed. Hopefully it’s not part of “The American Way” to resist changing the things that can matter the most.

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