Seeing ‘La Dolce Vita’ Across the Pond

In a well-known stream of consciousness on the series premiere of The Newsroom, fictitious news anchor Will McAvoy expounds on everything he thinks is wrong with modern America, including its younger citizens. Being a charter member of what McAvoy referred to as the “worst period generation period ever period” of juvenile Americans, I’ve started to wonder if we’re all destined to die the death of a salesman– or if we might find a more fulfilling life somewhere abroad.

Consciously or not, these sentiments seem to be echoed across Facebook whenever a friend leaves to study in a foreign country. I, too, was tempted to chime into the chorus, whose statuses range from the ironically snarky “goodbye ’murica” to sincere anticipations of small pleasures–like better food–abroad. Altogether, some feeling of discontentment appears to have descended upon a subset of young Americans, and such a feeling may not be unwarranted.

I say this as my own family narrative starts to fade into distant memory. I am a fifth-generation American on my most distantly-immigrant side, third on my nearest. Each line bears a similar story: Ashkenazi Jews in an increasingly hostile continent, fleeing from Eastern Europe in order to escape religious persecution. “You don’t realize how good you have it here—the privileges you can enjoy,” my grandfather used to say to me as I nodded in agreement, since I certainly knew no different. Even the other day, recalling (in Seinfeld-like droll) his role in mending a political schism at his synagogue, his not-so-subtle patriotism resurfaced. “That’s what makes America so great. People have their opinions, and then they can vote on them.” But is greatness relative? Must we remain starry-eyed patriots when others seem to have caught up?

That was the question I kept in mind throughout my summer in Europe. Of course, it’s difficult to be objective when so much ink has already been spilled over the differences between the so-called European Social Model and the American Way of Life. People say all sorts of daft things comparing life across continents when it appears impossible to keep the variables constant enough for comparison. Even so, beyond typical teenage angst, there seemed to be a few factors tipping the balance towards the Continental lifestyle for my demographic. Europeans, on average, tend be more politically liberal. Great! Climate change is no longer taboo at dinnertime. Workers are also afforded more leisure time. Perhaps Willy Loman would have fared better in France.

An objective measure of quality of living is not always the stuff of fiction. Considering factors such as life expectancy, political stability, job security, climate (Ireland, this year’s number 1, lost a few points there) and gender equality, researchers try to piece together the statistics that underlie both happiness and fulfillment. European countries dominate the quality of life indices year after year. I spent a significant amount of time in France, England, and Italy, and in each I asked myself: barring the distance from home and the logistics of being an expat, could I really see myself living here?

Shortly after landing in Charles de Gaulle, the answer seemed to be a resounding non. Are you open for lunch let? Non. Can we sit down in one of the 20 empty tables? Non. Did a nuke wipe out half of Paris and is that why I can’t find food at 11am on a Sunday? Peut-être. Though it seemed that I could only make the French frown in disagreement, certain (if not clichéd) facets of French life kept me smiling. The food, for one, lived up to expectation. My own cooking experience suggests that food’s quality is inversely proportioned to the speed at which it is prepared. In countries with deep culinary traditions, meals appeared to be less hurried, more serious affairs. In Italy too, I found that though it was patience-trying to eat-out with an empty stomach, the options I stumbled upon were almost always better than what I’d get at home.

Priorities, on the whole, just seemed to be different across the Atlantic. I am aware that I am venturing into cultural stereotypes here, but I am only reporting what I experienced. People say that the pace of life is slower in Europe, and I found it to be true in most cases. In Italy, you can’t get a cup of coffee to go. If you’re in a hurry, you drink standing up. I almost fell over the first time I heard my professor tell me this. Apparently there was a missing (and still-binding) Thirteenth Table of ancient Roman Law: drink not from a paper cup. Even in the high-speed railway station, Italians drink espresso from ceramic cups and saucers only. This alone, I thought, spoke volumes about their culture.

Often, profound truths can be learned about a culture simply from riding its public transportation. New York’s subway system does not paint a flattering portrait of us. Passengers, for the most part, look miserable. Business people seem to carry the stress of work into the subway car. Younger riders always keep themselves distracted—as if it would be a serious faux pas to make eye contact with a stranger. Quite contrastingly, there is an unsettling calm about the Parisian Métro, and the nonchalance of its riders is, at first glance, intimidating. People appeared to be relaxed—and worse, even content. Personal appearance was also paramount—I felt rather underdressed every time a Parisian looking about my age walked by. But demeanor was a close second. There was nobody shouting for attention on the train. No bankers cursing out their smartphones. People seemed content to be, which to me seemed strangely foreign.

A word I found myself using far too often when relaying my experience abroad was civilized. London is civilized. Paris is pretty civilized. New York is not. Italy is anarchic. (In Bologna, most people pay for the equivalent of a Metro Card and only swipe it when police inspectors come on board.) The London Tube was a monument to civility. It’s clean, it’s quiet, the people onboard are polite, and it runs on time. Like any public project, it is reflective of the people who built it. Americans like to picture English people as being “proper,” and there is certainly some truth to that.

There is more, however, to the perceived civility of English society than politeness. When describing life in England, Mitsuko Uchida, the famous Japanese-British pianist, paraphrased philosopher Isaiah Berlin, saying: “I feel deeply attached to the tolerance of British culture. London is the true cosmopolitan city. You can be yourself.” When in London, I found that her observations rang resoundingly true. One of the saddest realities of American society is that the label of “intellectual” is thrown around disparagingly. In a speech to donors in Aspen, Colorado, Chris Christie was quick to belittle the public discourse of drone policy, calling it an “esoteric, intellectual debate.” Conversely, while taking the Tube home one night, I witnessed two high-schoolers debating Obama’s arming of the Syrian rebels and the merits of labeling chemical weapons usage a war crime. I’ve never witnessed any intellectual debate of that caliber anywhere in public in America, and certainly never before in a subway car.

I will readily concede that a summer in Europe is hardly enough to draw any definitive conclusions about anything—let alone the enduring questions of whether the American dream is worth chasing or if to the discontented life will always appear better abroad. What is certain, however, is that almost all of us have ancestors who sacrificed a familiar and foreseeable future for an opportunity both unknown and unsure. Compared to the famine and oppression that drove them across the Atlantic, expense is now the greatest obstacle inhibiting many of us from moving somewhere else. Even so, our risk is surely less than theirs. If ‘la dolce vita’ exists only elsewhere, there should be no shame in searching for it.