Stop Generalizing About Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#341

Post by drone » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #223

gyardley wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ignorance of the respective areas is showing. It's hard to talk about a common culture between California and Louisiana when neither California nor Louisiana has a common internal culture. In Louisiana, spend some time in Houma, and then some time in Shreveport. Louisiana has a Cajun-dominated region and a region that's very much part of the Old South, and they're not much alike. In California, spend some time i…

> I'll gladly agree that Europe is gloriously diverse, but you really should stop underestimating American cultural diversity. Same differences exist in Europe in particular countries. Mountainers in Poland have different culture from Silesians, or Kashubi. Kashubi have different language, too. And Poland is one of the least diverse countries in Europe thanks to Stalin forced expulsions. Switzerland has smaller popul…

I find it odd that in an article about dispelling generalizations, the discussion seems to require a lot of generalization to make the point?

Namely, look at the following:

People in USA don't know anything about smaller countries in Europe, so they assume it's all the same. Availability heuristic.

Not all people in the USA have the same upbringing, world view, or experiences - just all not all people in the EU, Eurozone, or continent of Europe do. All of the hand-waving in the world won't change the fact the people are incredibly diverse in nearly all geographic or national units. You say it's impossible for a nation of 300+ million people whose heritage come from nearly every nation state to have diversity at a level anywhere near a population of 8 million people?

I'm sorry, but this generalization doesn't hold water, and does disservice to any point you are trying to make. When you back it up with People all over the world watch Hollywood movies, so we know at least something about cultural diversity of USA. that makes your point even weaker. "Urban Cowboy" will teach you nothing at all about the strong Chinese and Vietnamese cultures in Harris county, it won't touch at all on the wide diversity of languages and social norms that can change on a block-by-block basis here. "Love and a .45" will not teach you anything about how the culture in the Texas hill country is largely shaped by a blend of European (German and Polish primarily) and Mexican traditions.

No one is denigrating the cultural diversity here but the people claiming there is no cultural diversity in the US. You can tell me you know everything you really need to know about our culture, but then seem to miss the extreme differences in culture, or in some cases by others here, hand-wave away any difference entirely. To say that Southern Louisiana has the same "culture" as Northern California would be considered laughable by those having spent any reasonable time in the two regions. A more in-depth study rather than a few Hollywood movies would help modulate your position.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#342

Post by dgudkov » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:07 PM UTC

aeonsky wrote: post #235

sameerp1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, there is very little American cultural diversity. Slight differences in lifestyle don't make for cultural diversity. At least not in comparison to the various countries of Europe.

I'm Russian and will argue that most of the eastern Europe has very similar culture. Just because you rotate your head to say yes and nod to say no, does not make it vastly culturally different. The culture curtain ends somewhere around Czech Republic. Yes, I am even willing to say Ukraine is about 99% culturally similar, and that should stand for something since many know how much Russians despise being associated w…

>Ukraine is about 99% culturally similar

That's very ignorant. It's exactly the same as saying that Germany and Austria are 99% culturally similar.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#343

Post by tcgv » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:12 PM UTC

SheriffFatman wrote: post #182

[deleted] wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> but just like people don't consider India to be "Asian" American people, maybe: in the UK, the word "Asian", referring to a person and without other qualification, will usually be interpreted as Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi. > it sees unlikely that the world will suddenly include Brazil when they are talking about "Americans". I'm fairly sure that, in at least some Spanish-speaking countries, "americano" means…

In Brazil we use "americano" (it is Portuguese noun too) to refer to someone that was actually born in the USA.

I recall when I was a kid at school that a teacher once said even though we don't regard our selves as americans, it wouldn't be wrong to do so since we are born in south america. Then she'd say that we should refer to people born in the USA as "estadunidenses", but no one here does that, and if you do people will find it funny.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#344

Post by cadlin » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

klibertp wrote: post #254

cristianpascu wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Romania, so I can tell what we consider West: Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium. If one goes to one of these countries, one feels like going west. Otherwise, it's less and less. So when Americans speak about Europe, it's safe to assume that they might refer to these countries. Rock bands will always have a hard time to tell Bucharest…

Err.. that's curious, you mean that going almost exactly NORTH (Sweden, Finland) is considered going west? I'm not sure if I like this, even if only because it's so obviously, factually wrong :)

I think it mostly comes down to countries that were part of the Soviet bloc vs those that weren't.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#345

Post by nuxi » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

jonascopenhagen wrote: post #152

loxs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct regarding the reasons and wrong regarding the current situation. You will be much more spot-on if you divide between the "former USSR" and "rest of Europe". Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA. "The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but…

The majority of Eastern European countries were not part of the USSR. They were USSR's allies in the Warsaw Pact - in the same way that the Western European countries were USA's allies in NATO - but they were independent nations. I'm talking about countries such as Poland, The Czech Republic + Slovakia (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, the countries that were formerly Yugoslavia, etc. > Former USSR countries are mostly unif…

Note that Yugoslavia was not part of the Warsaw Pact. It was aligned with USSR until 1948 when the Informbiro period started - i.e. the Tito-Stalin split.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#346

Post by kafkaesque » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:52 PM UTC

I came to this party rather late, but here are my $0.02.

I don't pretend to be a super well-traveled individual, but I have traveled a bit.

I feel both Jonas Bentzen and the article he refutes are wrong to some degree, though Mr Bentzen seems to be making a less severe generalisation.

What I see occurring here is a classic example of metonymy and cosmopolitan and metropolitan cities vs. perceived 'real culture'.

Metonymy: A country seems to be defined by its major city or cities--to the outsider, the fewer cities represent it, the better.

Cosmopolitan cities: The problem is these major cities tend to be cosmopolitan cities. Think Alpha-, Alpha, Alpha+ and Alpha++. These types of cities tend to strive towards homogeneity. I had a history prof (who leaned towards socialism) lay out and explain how, historically, the bigger a city gets, the less unique and further away from its ancestors and traditions it culturally becomes. Cultural hegemony.

Metropolitan cities: Then there are 'medium-size' cities, or 'second major cities' that fight to keep some traditions and cultures from their respective countries. Some metropolitan cities strive to be more cosmopolitan, and have that sensation; I'm thinking of a few (very few) Beta-, Beta, and Beta+ cities here.

During the French Revolution, there were two major schools of thought in Spain. One went like this: Bonaparte wants to modernise countries and wage war on 'tradition'; let's join the French movement and abolish our backward traditions. These people, in Spain, were called 'afrancesados' ('Frenchifieds', pro-French), pejoratively. They were found in major Spanish cities.

Here is the really important part: people outside of major Spanish cities thought they were protecting the 'real' Spanish culture; they were often of humble birth, people that had given rise to what people outside of Spain thought was 'very Spanish' (flamenco, cante jondo, running of the bulls, gypsies, etc.) from a cultural perspective. They had traditions; old traditions. They were superstitious, street-smart, but they were also deceived by kings and, to use a modern term, their governments.

I don't see much has changed with regard to cultural representation.

The government projects/sells an image of their country to foreigners. Some people buy into it. The reality is that not only is each country vastly different, each region and city is.

We should be comparing cities with cities, not countries with countries.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#347

Post by euphemize » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 7:57 PM UTC

Typhon wrote: post #318

JPKab wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All of this wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that I see these kinds of generalizations all the time. It's not uncommon for Americans who've briefly visited one or two countries in Europe to say, "In Europe they..." or "Europeans are...". This makes me cringe every time, because it is the equivalent of a European person visiting a city in Mexico and going, "In North America they..." or "North Ame…

as if the U.S. is a homogenous culture Compared to Europe, it certainly is. From a merely linguistic viewpoint, in North America there's English and Spanish (Ok, and native american languages, but they're really not much spoken). In Western and Northern Europe, there's French, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish. The thing is, identity is a matter of contrast. See this : http://squid314.li…

Did you forget that 7 million people speak French in Québec? And because a language is not much spoken, it doesn't count?

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#348

Post by pixl97 » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

lobster_johnson wrote: post #233

jlgreco wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am stating two things: 1) Americans generalize. Defense: Everybody does, it should be no suprise that Americans are no exception. You really want data on this? 2) Americans, for the most part, do not think that all of Africa is "Africa-y", nor that all of Asia is "Asia-y", nor that all of Europe is "Europey". Defense: Suggestions otherwise are absurd. If you disagree, you provide the data.

I was referring to your specific examples (Budapest, Egypt, Africa) as well as your thesis (Americans have certain finer-grained generalizations). Not saying your conclusions are incorrect, just that your only data point is yourself, even though you phrase your comments as though you had tons of data. Everything else is just speculation, gut feeling, pop psychology, outright invention etc.

The best data I would suggest looking at is American news. Correlate Egypt with African news and then again correlate Egypt with Middle Eastern news. American news will tend to display stories related to Egypt's interactions with countries such as Israel, Iran, Iraq, and other Asian countries lumped together under 'middle east'. The next most common news grouping for Egypt would be Mediterranean, dealing with with countries such Libya politically and then in vacation destinations around the sea itself. Very little broadcast news in America is about countries outside of the Mediterranean and Middle East influence. You don't hear much about Egypt's and Sudan's relationships unless you tend to go looking for it. Contrast that to Egyptian and Israeli relationships.

With the advent of the Internet changing the way we view and seek out news our will change our generalizations of geography greatly over time. But to understand the generalizations we have now in the 30's and up age group, replaying the 'Nightly News with Tom Brokaw' would lead to great insight.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#349

Post by SheriffFatman » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 9:09 PM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #295

SheriffFatman wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's a difference in that "America" or "the Americas" can include a much larger area than just the USA, while that's not true for the countries you list. China is agreed by both the PRC and the RoC to include Taiwan -- they just disagree over who is the legitimate government; "Germany" historically meant all German-speaking lands, but that usage is now, for understandable reasons, defunct; the Commonwealth of…

"to which the former until recently laid claim." Now, now (Brit living in Ireland here)... In fact it is the other way around. We laid claim to the island in 1801 forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Around the turn of the 20th century, they weren't too happy with us though and wanted out, so in 1921 we agreed to let them have a chunk of it back (forming Ireland, Republic of and the United Kingdom…

I think we may be talking at cross purposes.

I'm a Brit too, and I'm well aware of the history you describe. If anything, you've presented the truncated version: English/British interference in Ireland goes back more than 800 years, to the Anglo-Norman invasions of ~1170 and the award of the Lordship of Ireland to the King of England by Hadrian IV (the first, and so far the last, English pope).

I was alluding to Article 2 of the Constitution of Ireland of 1937, which explicitly claimed the whole island of Ireland as the state's national territory; this was replaced by more wishy-washy language about the Irish nation in the wake of the Good Friday agreement of 1999.

By the way, the Irish state created by the 1921 treaty explicitly wasn't a republic: it was a dominion of the British Empire, and the King of England was still technically King of Ireland (even under Irish law) until 1949.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#350

Post by vacri » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 9:29 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #336

vacri wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were implying that CA and LA have more varied internal culture than do Bulgaria and Romania, else you wouldn't have made the comparison - it would have been redundant to what loxs had said.

That's what you inferred . gyardly says nothing about the internal culture of Bulgaria and Romania.

Nope, it's implied, due to the last phrase of my comment above. It may not have been consciously intended, but it is an implication of making that statement in the first place.