Americans are a peculiar bunch, but I do not feel that there exists any single, or few, overriding trait(s), at least not anymore.
WE combine many dual tendencies- we contribute to help others in need in a way that can cause people in other countries to become embarrassed for their own lack of charity...while at the same time we allow the greatest human atrocity of the last 60 years- American foreign policy- to go on.
Americans need allot of personal space ( in any other country, if you were to stand six feet away from the counter, you would not be in line- but here in the US, it's OK).
We drive slow in the fast lane ( causing accidents ).
We think burnt coffee from a certain unnamed corporation is an affordable luxury
Our tea is like dishwater
We drink wine that has been 'flavored' with oak chips, to compensate for not being aged in oak barrels
Our inner cities have been abandoned- a suburban morass has taken their place-shopping mall architecture is a brutal assault upon the soul, yet these monstrous structures flourish.
A 'national consensus' restaurant menu has destroyed our bodies. Food service chains take national cuisines-Mexican, Italian, steak, seafood- and from this melting pot emerges an awful, homogenized diet of blobs of grease and dough.
We are suspicious of 'high culture' or real art. We will embrace the 'middle-brow' and declare ourselves to be sophisticated.
Americans tend to blame themselves-things are their fault... if the chips are down, it is their responsibility to pull themselves out of the mess, they created it. (But there is a large segment of the population that believes the opposite ).
American women can be outwardly cold, and privately promiscuous. European women tend to be the reverse- outwardly warm and friendly, and privately reserved.
Most Americans do not know how to drink.
Many (most?) are too slavishly loyal to authority figures.
Being disengaged from the serious world around you is a virtue among most young people. The youth are too self-absorbed and narcissistic to give a hoot about the fate of the nation. Electronic corporate media has raped their collective minds.
In America, if you are physically harmed, say, in a park, it is always somebody else's fault, somebody should have done something to make the situation safer, you need to sue someone. In Europe, the attitude is : you are on your own.
Americans have a childlike attitude toward adultery.
We are skeptical about 'experts,' education, and science.
America does not have a sense of the tragic, but this may be changing. The Europeans always thought of us as being like simple children, we being shocked by life's tragedy and mystery, where they just see 'life.'
Our naive enthusiasm gave us a strength- we won WW2, went to the Moon, beat polio and the Soviets, etc. (sort of).
Before the early 1960's, we were tough, self-reliant, possessed a can-do spirit, and believed in ourselves and our historic mission.
WE combine many dual tendencies- we contribute to help others in need in a way that can cause people in other countries to become embarrassed for their own lack of charity...while at the same time we allow the greatest human atrocity of the last 60 years- American foreign policy- to go on.
Americans need allot of personal space ( in any other country, if you were to stand six feet away from the counter, you would not be in line- but here in the US, it's OK).
We drive slow in the fast lane ( causing accidents ).
We think burnt coffee from a certain unnamed corporation is an affordable luxury
Our tea is like dishwater
We drink wine that has been 'flavored' with oak chips, to compensate for not being aged in oak barrels
Our inner cities have been abandoned- a suburban morass has taken their place-shopping mall architecture is a brutal assault upon the soul, yet these monstrous structures flourish.
A 'national consensus' restaurant menu has destroyed our bodies. Food service chains take national cuisines-Mexican, Italian, steak, seafood- and from this melting pot emerges an awful, homogenized diet of blobs of grease and dough.
We are suspicious of 'high culture' or real art. We will embrace the 'middle-brow' and declare ourselves to be sophisticated.
Americans tend to blame themselves-things are their fault... if the chips are down, it is their responsibility to pull themselves out of the mess, they created it. (But there is a large segment of the population that believes the opposite ).
American women can be outwardly cold, and privately promiscuous. European women tend to be the reverse- outwardly warm and friendly, and privately reserved.
Most Americans do not know how to drink.
Many (most?) are too slavishly loyal to authority figures.
Being disengaged from the serious world around you is a virtue among most young people. The youth are too self-absorbed and narcissistic to give a hoot about the fate of the nation. Electronic corporate media has raped their collective minds.
In America, if you are physically harmed, say, in a park, it is always somebody else's fault, somebody should have done something to make the situation safer, you need to sue someone. In Europe, the attitude is : you are on your own.
Americans have a childlike attitude toward adultery.
We are skeptical about 'experts,' education, and science.
America does not have a sense of the tragic, but this may be changing. The Europeans always thought of us as being like simple children, we being shocked by life's tragedy and mystery, where they just see 'life.'
Our naive enthusiasm gave us a strength- we won WW2, went to the Moon, beat polio and the Soviets, etc. (sort of).
Before the early 1960's, we were tough, self-reliant, possessed a can-do spirit, and believed in ourselves and our historic mission.
posted by Zero at 11:33 AM
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