I’m an American who’s been lucky enough to travel to many other countries, and I’m currently living in the EU.
Blanket statements on praise-worthiness are stupid; one should only praise things, people, and nations when and where they deserve it. There’s a lot to admire and there’s a lot to be disgusted at when considering just about every country and government.
What I find in EU culture socially is that people are far more exclusionary, prone to isolationism, and prejudicial about my and my countrymen’s competence and intelligence than what I was told to expect. I expected some “haha, dumb American” memes, but I didn’t expect people here to honestly believe everyone thinks and acts like our worst people back in the US. It was very eye-opening in a negative way.
EU citizens need to stop treating outsiders as 1-dimensional caricatures, but regrettably, that’s been one of humanity’s greatest faults, and I doubt it will be rectified anytime soon. I try not to get too butt-hurt about it, as we say, but it is irksome after encountering that attitude in conversation after conversation.
I’m an American who’s been lucky enough to travel to many other countries, and I’m currently living in the EU.
Blanket statements on praise-worthiness are stupid; one should only praise things, people, and nations when and where they deserve it. There’s a lot to admire and there’s a lot to be disgusted at when considering just about every country and government.
What I find in EU culture socially is that people are far more exclusionary, prone to isolationism, and prejudicial about my and my countrymen’s competence and intelligence than what I was told to expect. I expected some “haha, dumb American” memes, but I didn’t expect people here to honestly believe everyone thinks and acts like our worst people back in the US. It was very eye-opening in a negative way.
EU citizens need to stop treating outsiders as 1-dimensional caricatures, but regrettably, that’s been one of humanity’s greatest faults, and I doubt it will be rectified anytime soon. I try not to get too butt-hurt about it, as we say, but it is irksome after encountering that attitude in conversation after conversation.