THE EUROPEAN ANTI-AMERICAN

“But what is clear is that [he] is keenly sensitive to anything that touches his pride or self-esteem … he has a high opinion of himself and a great contempt for others. He is quite aware of his superiority to them in certain respects; and he either disbelives in or despises the qualities in which they are superior to him. Whatever disturbs or wounds his sense of superiority irritates him at once; and in that sense he is highly competitive … he has a spite against goodness in men … he has a spite against it, not from any love of evil for evil’s sake, but partly because it annoys his intellect as a stupidity; partly (though he hardly knows this) because it weakens his satisfaction with himself, and disturbs his faith that egoism is the right and proper thing; partly because, the world being such a fool, goodness is popular and prospers. But he, a man ten times as able … does not greatly prosper. Somehow, for all the stupidity of these open and generous people, they get on better than [he does] … Goodness therefore annoys him. He is always ready to scoff at it, and would like to strike at it.” – From A.C. Bradley’s analysis of Shakespeare’s Iago.