Talk:The European Dream

Problems

This page has major problems; it's all trees and no forest! What is the thesis of this book? What's it's target audiance? What's the point of this list of factoids? Surely Rifkin must go beyond the title of the book in comparing the EU and US. Does he make any policy suggestion on either side? - RedWordSmith 16:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've read it. There is indeed much more than is said in this article. This'll be a project of mine... EventHorizon talk 21:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The photo is of the European Commission headquarters, but does it add anything to the article? Is there a direct relation between the book and the building that needs explaining? If not it should be removed. Edward 07:28, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

---

What is deep play, by the way? I'm European, but I've never heard that term. --00:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Concur, what the hell is deep play? - FrancisTyers 13:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Likewise. Nonsuch 00:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

One interpretation is in the last paragraph of Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. -Mardus /talk 21:36, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

My goodness, I had a similar and better reply already here. -Mardus /talk 21:41, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

This article= lolwut?

"The European Union has a greater GPD than the United States"

WTF is GPD?

The rest of the article is sourced out of some unpopular and quite unscientific book written by a generally disregarded American author.

Nice try guise, find some better content please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.174.35.127 (talk) 23:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the page is (now was) both about the broader concept of "The European Dream" and about Rifkin's book. It started with Rifkin's book, which is why he dominates so much of it. Maybe there needs to be a new page for "The European Dream," in addition to this page on his book. I changed some edits to make this page more focused on Rifkin's book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robfenix (talk • contribs) 21:07, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Deep Play

Deep Play is the idea that culture, cultural institutions and community have value in themselves (look at for instance the various historical trusts in European buildings, or the widespread support for the welfare state). In the US it tends to be undervalued in favor of commerce and utilitarianism. Put bluntly, if something "makes no money, it has no value".

I really think it is a difference in values. Americans tend to admire people with more money, because money=status. Europeans seem to admire people who do "great things", and money is just one means to an end.

Didn't America actually invent wildlife refuges, national parks and nature preserves? The article on Yellowstone National Park says it was the first of its kind in history. And the US has a huge National Register of Historic Places and was one of the first countries to begin protecting them. "If it makes no money, it has no value" seems like a fairly ill-considered opinion to me. Frellthat (talk) 03:14, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Could we put this clarification in the article ? I had to go here to find out what Deep Play meant, its not described when googling either.

Trust

Can someone with knowledge of this article please fix the link to "Trust"? Trust is a disambiguation page, so the link should be replaced with [[<real page>|trust]]. I'd do it myself, but I don't know what the real link should be. Thanks --MrBoo (talk, contribs) 23:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I've read the book, and I've got no idea whatsoever what the original author of that sentence meant, either. —Nightstallion (?) 11:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV issues

The article is written like a booster piece for the book, or the book's thesis. Some credibility would be gained by including some criticism of the book. Also, the "deep play" claims above are at odds with the facts about the U.S.A., which has all kinds of historic trusts, non-profits, various cultural histories, etc. Kasyapa (talk)Kasyapa

"A notion which is absent from the US" should be "a notion he claims is absent from the US". Frellthat (talk) 03:05, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Contradictions in the article

"He [Rifkin] argues that the European Union, which he describes as the first truly postmodern governing body, is already an economic superpower rivaling the U.S., and has the potential to become a full world superpower." But the picture is subtitled "Rifkin contends the European Union could one day become a true economic, cultural, and political rival of the United States of America", which is quite the contrary (either R. thinks the Union is capable of rivalling the US one day, or he thinks it already does - not both!). Could someone fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.94.66.216 (talk) 14:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Well the present GDP of the EU is a bit larger than that of the USA. That would mean that the EU already "rivals" the US economically. However, the EU has a much lesser political, military (and in many cases cultural) clout than the US at the moment and may never reach a similar influence due to its internal difficulties. So, as the author mentions, it's presently only an economical superpower, not a full superpower. Hope that explains your doubts. ArticunoWebon (talk) 11:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Some real criticism

The current section on criticism is so couched in the language of philosophy that it's difficult to understand. I think the criticism would be better expressed in prose instead of through a pair of baffling quotations. Shinigami27 (talk) 00:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Deep play (book)

I won't quote the whole two paras, but point out this passage and the paragraph preceding it:

[Jeremy] Rifkin explains Europe's opposition to the death penalty in a historical context; after losing so many lives to wars in the early and mid-20th century, Europe is opposed to state-sponsored killing as a matter of principle. He also discusses the European commitment to "deep play" [emphasis mine] — a notion which is absent in the United States.

I found an article that redirects from Deep play to Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, an article about an essay by Clifford Geertz in his book The Interpretation of Cultures. In the article about the essay, a para separately explains "deep play" like this:

The title of the essay is explained as a concept of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), who defines "deep play" as a game with stakes so high that no rational person would engage in it.

— So I'm not quite sure whether that definition applies to this article's use of the phrase. -Mardus (talk) 01:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

What to do about his ridiculously unfair comparisons?

The article mentions that "the 18 most developed countries in Europe all have more broadly distributed wealth than the U.S. (the U.S. ranks 24th in the world), higher lifespan than the U.S..." That's absurd - arbitrarily taking "the 18 most developed" from one group and comparing them to the whole of another group? The "most developed states" in the US also have higher life expectancy than the EU. In fact, according to List of countries by life expectancy, the US itself has a higher male life expectancy than the EU. I'd like it if a more experienced editor could find a way to provide some perspective about these claims. Frellthat (talk) 03:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

While I find some of the comparisons puzzling, we can not add commentary on the book without relevant sources. And this is a 2004 book, so it likely covers a European Union with only 15 members. Cyprus joined in 2004, the Czech Republic in 2004, Estonia in 2004, Hungary in 2004, Latvia in 2004, Lithuania in 2004, Malta in 2004, Poland in 2004, Slovakia in 2004, Slovenia in 2004, Bulgaria in 2007, Romania in 2007, and Croatia in 2013. The Union now has 28 members, is much larger in size and population, and is facing wider financial and social problems. Its comparisons seem rather dated to a European citizen like myself. Dimadick (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2016 (UTC)