See, Dad? I've got my digital camera. What do you think about that, Mr. You'll-Lose-That-Thing-In-A-Week?" I gestured to my father as I stepped off the airport shuttle, brandishing my digital camera. What a kill-joy he'd been, bending my ear about camera thieves while I packed for Europe. He believed that you couldn't bring a digital camera through four countries, 12 train rides, four airplane flights and up an 8,700-foot mountain without it getting stolen. He didn't count on me keeping the damn thing attached to my body on more or less a permanent basis for 18 days. Having brought only a week's worth of clothes, most of what I wore became unpleasantly familiar but nothing quite as much as that nylon camera case.
The 250 pictures I brought home were worth the paranoia, though. In the future I'll be looking at these pictures and remembering the glory of Vienna's Schonbrunn Palace without the unpleasant memories of loud Italian tourists, carbonated water masquerading as still and hostel guests luxuriating in the freedom from personal hygiene. I'll be returning to Switzerland's majestic Jungfraujoch without gasping for oxygen, stepping in cow detritus or ruining my knees. I can look into the bright light of an Irish summer without recoiling from an immense hangover. These pictures are a perfectly edited volume chronicling my journey.
Like most good books, the photo album I've made up only suggests more questions. There are obvious ones -- for example, why Europeans bother putting sleeves on their coats when they're not going to use them anyway. A coat artfully draped around the shoulders does nothing to shield you from the cold or rain if thieves have lifted it right off. Another obvious example is the absence of a clear scheme for street signs.
But the biggest question of all wasn't captured in photography: why do Europeans accept insane intrusion into their lives by their governments? For example, people in Europe don't worry if the price of gasoline goes up by 10 cents a gallon since in most places it's already above $4.00 due to taxation. In most indoor museums in England no photography is allowed. Such a rule is not to protect the artwork from flash but to protect the Crown's copyright. While this rule may increase sales of souvenir books, it neglects the fact that the Crown could make more money selling photo permits and firing all of the people they keep around to prevent people from taking photos. Austrians blissfully accept laws that keep most retail opening hours so short that the only way people can shop is to have work hours even shorter. Encountering perpetually shut stores made me wonder why the government requires a month's vacation for all workers. American tourists in their country work harder at enjoying themselves than the Viennese work at making money.
The answer, I think, lies in European history -- a long bloody history of monarchy, periodic revolution and perpetual war. To a much greater extent, Europeans have lived with government imposed upon them by monarchies, then authoritarian dictators, then the Americans or Russians after World War II. The various forces of discord led most Europeans to accept tiredly a benign social contract brought on by fear of anarchy. Freedom isn't a good in itself on the other side of the Atlantic -- it's something to be tolerated by the government. Firearms in the hands of all citizens -- not just criminals -- are a danger to the common good and must be eliminated. As such, Europeans must deal with levels of crime (excluding gun-related offenses and murder) that far exceed American levels. The government enjoys power to ban "hate speech" that it itself defines.
As it stands, we Americans are privileged to enjoy a history of government intentionally hindered by checks and balances. Our institutions are built by history and imbued with trust. We may suffer from certain suboptimal social indicators such as access to health insurance and inequality, but the value of such social indicators are predicated upon a "collectivist" approach to utility, rather than the "individualist" approach that was imbued by the Founding Fathers. Such a system allows the best of the world to emigrate and add their innovation. Such a system allows people to build their own lives rather than proceed along the path of school, work, state-subsidized children, retirement and tax disincentives to making more than about $300,000 a year. Such a system made the world safe for democracy from 1941 to 2002 and hopefully for centuries to come.
Like the rest of the Class of 2003, I'm on the cusp of entering the real world. I can't understand it -- not even the tiniest fraction of the great machine that governs our lives. All I ask is that we humble ourselves before it. There are but a few values that are universal -- rule of law, the sanctity of life and freedom -- and the rest, like store opening hours, reflect an imposed value. We need to realize that there isn't one solution, one all-encompassing formula to utility. It can't exist for humanity, a country, a county or even anything more than two people. We need to preserve our rights to find it.
