The thing about Europe

Here's a post that shamelessly borrows title and headline image (credit Peter Schrank) from an article that appeared in my favorite newspaper on my son Elio's 23rd birthday. The piece's tone and content, perhaps bolstered by that special publication date, struck a chord in me. For those who don't like links, below is a screenshot of the first paragraphs. The first lines suggest its author is following in the fashion of Europe bashing ushered in by US Vice President JD Vance's charming address at the Munich Security conference last February. But as you read on, you start to realize that's not where the piece is going.

Twenty years ago, when Elio was barely three and his older sister Tekla five years old, we were living in San Francisco. "These Colors Don't Run!" were the words overlaid on the visual of an American flag on bumper stickers that, to me, betrayed a profound mis-reading of the US's invasion of Iraq, itself justified on what seemed very questionable grounds. Those proud stickers were on a list of "inputs" that led me to make the difficult decision to move our family to Italy. The move was meant to be permanent, and, despite some fits and starts initially and again about six years into our time in Europe, it has turned out to be so. The below photo was made in 2007, returning from a trip to visit friends in San Francisco two years after we'd moved to Tuscany. The look on Elio's face says it all: What the heck were you thinking?

Nearly forty years prior I must have had a similar look on my face when my folks moved me from Italy (my birthplace) to New York City. I was five years old and spoke no English. Bravely and wisely, my parents plopped me straightaway into a local school. The shifts in language and culture were a shock but it eventually became clear that the US had a lot to offer the Subrizi family. I remember visiting that statue of which only the pedestal remains in Schrank's sad drawing, usually on the occasion of an aunt or uncle visiting us from Italy. She was standing very upright and proud back then.

What of the substance The Economist's article quoted above? Having lived more or less equal parts of my adult life in Europe and the US, I have often weighed the benefits and drawbacks of daily life in each. This is an imperfect means to naming the "better" place. Start with the fact that both Europe and the US are each vast and variagated unions of many states. Add that people's needs and perspectives shift as they age, making a town or region that's attractive at age 30 less so at 60 and vice-versa. And time also changes locales: the New York of my teens and the Northern California of my late thirties are not quite the same places today that they were then. All that said, my view is that Europe is kinder to its average inhabitant than the US. As noted in the article, work-life balance is better in Europe, economic inequality is lower (and social mobility higher), and in Europe it's much harder to go broke from getting really sick. Violence, including by armed police, is far less prevalent, especially in southern European countries. People are less indebted and generally better educated and as a result rather less stressed. In Italy specifically, produce and meats are sourced much more locally and taste better, public schools K through 12 offer more rigorous training than their US counterparts and university, with tuition costing around three thousand euros per year, is much more affordable and, as a consequence, accessible to lower-income families (cue the social mobility point). All this figured strongly in our decision to move back in 2005, and the difference to the US is even more marked today.

Given that most of the above has been true for years, I think what led The Economist to publish its Thing about Europe piece now is the sudden lurch we are seeing towards curtailing individual and institutional liberties in the US. This adds insult to the injury of economic inequality, prohibitive medical costs, gun violence, a teetering educational system, paralyzing personal debt and unhealthy foods and diets. The point is, very simply, that whereas before the choice between Europe and the US was a bit of a toss-up for most immigrants and emigrants, with the recent rise of authoritarianism the US is less inviting and appealing than it has been. Neither Tekla nor Elio talk much about returning to the US to work once they've completed their university degrees. And just today I met up with an American couple who, 10 months ago, had moved to Florence with their 9-year-old daughter for a year abroad. With their move-back date on the horizon, I asked them whether they were looking forward to returning home. "No," the answer came back, "we want to stay."

Postscript, April 17: In this extended interview with the German weekly Die Zeit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen impressed me with her poise and intelligence, refusing to be drawn into

any impolitic comments about the current US administration while stating clearly that Europe is, after a prodding, "wide awake". But lest the MAGA camp gloat too much about having issued the wake-up call, she also reminds Die Zeit's readers that "For us Europeans, the awareness and memory of oppression and repression is still very fresh. So, for many of us, our collective consciousness has a much stronger sense of just how precious democracy is and how we have to constantly strive to protect it." And she echoes what I've written above regarding quality of life on the Continent: "Inequalities are less pronounced here, in part because we have a social market economy and because the levers of power are more widely distributed. We have a stronger, broader middle class than, for example, the USA." Later in the interview she adds, "Europe is still a peace project. We don’t have bros or oligarchs making the rules. We don't invade our neighbours, and we don't punish them. In Europe, children can go to good schools however wealthy their parents are. We have lower CO2 emissions, we have higher life expectancy. Controversial debates are allowed at our universities. This and more are all values that must be defended."