Why do Europeans hate Americans? Be honest... - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14054113
Most Europeans do not hate Americans individually. They are annoyed by the US liberalism and fear Americanisation. They do not want to adopt the worst aspects of the US culture. Those who like America and its culture tend to be Americanised and like to visit the US. A lot of Britain is extremely Americanised to the point where there is almost no real cultural difference between the US and England today. In the 1980s there still were big difference between England and America but by today England shares the same mind and consciousness with the US. It is always interesting to me to see what England would have become if after the poverty following the war it had gone for communism and received Russian cultural influence while being insulated from American culture.

Decky wrote:This, it is particularly bad in Britain (and I assume the rest of the Anglosphere) where we have their "culture" bombarding us constantly with **** music and moronic TV, it feels rather like being under siege.


It is a big problem in the English speaking world. When you share a language there is no barrier to the flow of ideas and culture. Some of the worst trends which developed in the US have effected and damaged the UK society. Other European countries have been spared some of this no doubt. This is because their language servers as an insulator against the flow of culture and ideas. The use of English in the UK means the flow is not at all stopped. Added to this it is widely believed that because the US has the same stock of people (English, Irish, Scots) as the UK and Ireland, it is therefore a brother country. Such an opinion forgets that the US was made up of all European peoples (Germans are a huge amount, maybe the largest) as well as Africans, Asians and Jews. Many Englishmen are extremely pro-American due to the US cultural influence and feeling of kinship, especially in the last thirty five years.
#14054129
As a Canadian, I can't say I hate Americans, but I can certainly hate what their country does. My experiences with the American people have been, for the most part, pretty positive.
#14054156
Political Interest wrote: In the 1980s there still were big difference between England and America but by today England shares the same mind and consciousness with the US.


Oddly I would have said that America was way more popular in the UK in the 1980's.
Fashionable even.

The aftermath of 9/11 really did a lot to change that in my opinion. Turned them into a boogie man society where before only the far left had openly hated on Americans.

In the 80's and even the early nineties it was all American holidays, American TV shows, American fashion labels.
This noticeably fell out of fashion once things changed.


With regards to feelings kinship, there has been plenty of intermarriage, by far the bulk of it in my estimation occouring during WW2.
This is part of the reason America has fallen out of fashion here, in my estimation. That generation is dying of old age.
#14054684
Care to quantify that? Because normally, currency collapses are not good things. Maybe long-term, but short- term, the collapse of the euro would be disastrous.


Nope, you pro EU types rarely listen to reason.

Blah, blah, blah I think Utah is a country.

Again, this is basic stuff most Europeans don't know. The United States of America isn't a snappy name, it's a discription in the same way, European Union is.


The US is a country. The EU is not a country, you are comparing apples and oranges.
#14054737
The US is a country. The EU is not a country, you are comparing apples and oranges.


So your contention is that Europeans have an inherent inability to geographically locate areas that based upon their specific relationships to larger political unions?

Can't you just say that Europeans and Americans are both pretty bad at finding things not in their backyard?

I've told this anecdote on here at least once before, but I think it sort of demonstrates that smugness is a two-way street.

I was at a party and someone from the norse countries (or the lowland countries, I sort of forget now) asked where I was from. I told him Oregon. He asked if that was in the US, and I replied in the positive.

Him: Oh, the Bible Belt!
Me: No, it's actually a few thousand miles away—thankfully
Him: Well, anything not on the coast is the Bible Belt for me.
Me: Oregon is on the coast.
Him: No it's not!
Me: I grew up in sight of the Pacific. It's between Seattle (I always said that as the whole 'Washington' thing is always confusing) and California
Him: (Getting attention of his friend) Listen to this, the Americans are so stupid and bad with geography he doesn't even know where he grew up!
Me: The Hell? I grew up on the West Coast of the United States. That's where Oregon is.
Him and his friend laugh.

Granted that's anecdotal, but I rarely ran into someone who knew for sure how many states there were, exactly where Alaska or Hawaii is, or anything beyond California, a kind of approximation of New York, and maybe Florida...always with no sense of the scale.

That's not to say that Europeans are stupid, because they're not. It's that Americans are as useless at geography as Europeans.
#14054824
I work in Orlando and an Icelandic couple asked me how long it would take to bike to Georgia because that heard there were mountains and thought it would be a nifty place to have lunch. :|

( a note to Europeans the answer is that you will collapse from exhaustion first. ;) )
#14054834
I had a friend move to Chicago briefly to do some work. He asked if he could come visit me, in Oregon, later that day.

I mentioned that I was further away then he thought.

The next day he called and said, "I don't think I'm that far away, you're close to Canada right? So am I. Do you want to have lunch later today?"
#14054858
Does anybody look at maps anymore? If someone tells you that you are wrong (at least geographically speaking) it is painfully easy to verify one way or the other. In an age when doing your own research on any given subject is getting easier, it seems like more and more people are getting to lazy to even bother trying. ::facepalm::
#14054870
This was in the middle of the night at a house party in a party-house before everyone had smart phones. We were guests without our computers, and nobody living there was going to rush out to the store to go buy a map, or take their computer downstairs where it was packed to the brim with drunks holding drinks to figure out where Oregon was because two people out of a hundred were arguing about it.
#14054929
There are two basic sides to this.

The individual - boorish, arrogant, fat loud tourists etc
the American state - Depends on your politics but the vast majority of Europeans (especially the young) are way to the left of America.

I am not really convinced that the hatred/snobbery is any more on either side though. I see plenty of flaming from both sides - take your pick.

The irony being that, as previously stated, we are all basically "European countries" that have been working and trading together sense the very beginning.
#14054975
The Immortal Goon wrote:This was in the middle of the night at a house party in a party-house before everyone had smart phones. We were guests without our computers, and nobody living there was going to rush out to the store to go buy a map, or take their computer downstairs where it was packed to the brim with drunks holding drinks to figure out where Oregon was because two people out of a hundred were arguing about it.

:lol:
I've heard the same crap.
"You live in Canada!? I have a friend there. Perhaps you know him?" :knife:

BTW...Oregon and Washington are my favorite states.
I LOVE crab meat...and beaches.
#14054980
Decky wrote:Nope, you pro EU types rarely listen to reason.


I'm not pro-EU. I just assume, rightfully, that the collapse of one of the largest currencies in the world would lead to disastrous results, at least in the short term; what with everyone who used to have their savings in that currency suddenly noticing their money becoming monopoly money before their eyes... :eh: I assumed this wouldn't be contentious.
#14055099
Buzz62 wrote:I've heard the same crap.
"You live in Canada!? I have a friend there. Perhaps you know him?" :knife:

I met a person in the US, who told me he knew somebody from The Netherlands.
And it just so happens I knew that somebody. He was in my highschool.
A girl who heard that freak thing joined in and named an other Dutch person.
I also just happen to know him from my volleyballteam

That doesn't mean ANYTHING besides that its a small world afterall.
#14055654
Can't you just say that Europeans and Americans are both pretty bad at finding things not in their backyard?


Nope, pretty much 100% of Europeans would find the US in a map, I bet the percentage of yanks who could find Poland on a map would be much lower. QED.
#14055702
Decky wrote:Nope, pretty much 100% of Europeans would find the US in a map, I bet the percentage of yanks who could find Poland on a map would be much lower. QED.

Did you use the initialism QED to be cute? Because it certainly doesn't make any sense in this situation since it traditionally goes at the end of a rigerous mathematical proof, what you said was called an opinion, and contained nothing resembling a proof. I think one of the underlying themes of this thread is that people who try to talk about things that they do not understand sound foolish. I believe you illustrated that point quite nicely.
#14055775
Hey Buzz62, Do you know Jim, from Seattle? He's loud and boorish, but he buys drinks and is still a pretty nice guy, so I can't complain much. :lol:
#14055845
This is true:

Pretty much 100% of Europeans would find the US in a map, I bet the percentage of yanks who could find Poland on a map would be much lower.


But this is also true:

Pretty much 100% of Americans would find the EU in a map, I bet the percentage of Europeans who could find Colorado on a map would be much lower.

Which is somehow proof that Europeans and Americans aren't both pretty bad at finding things not in their backyard?
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