Originally published at crisis magazine
Italy and the Italians have long had a well-deserved reputation for crafting goods of superior quality, from clothing and food to cultural artifacts such as painting and sculpture. The United States has never attained a similar status, instead being known for technological and mass-market innovations. In short, Italy leads in quality and the U.S. in quantity. That characterization was affirmed in two recent speeches on the world stage.
The first, delivered by Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on September 23, 2024, to centrist global think tank the Atlantic Council, was short but powerful, and it was full of ringing affirmations of the virtues of Western Civilization. The second, delivered on September 24, 2024, as a farewell address by President Joe Biden to the United Nations General Assembly, was loaded with a list of personal achievements inserted into a vague context of fighting against bad stuff in the interests of global peace or something like that.
The contrasts are striking. Meloni, relatively young (47), multilingual (Italian, Spanish, French, English), is relatively new to politics. Biden, old (81), monolingual (though he may possibly know some Latin from church and law school), has been in politics for over half a century. Both are
