"The French have always wanted to be French because they believe they're the best. The Germans are only now emerging from that guilt feeling of what happened prior to and in the Second World War. The Italians are confused in everything they do, and I think Czechs are secure in being Czechs with Czech traditions and a Czech way of life."It's just one example but I hear this kind of thing pretty frequently around Europe ... even in professional settings. That is, it's common for people to make sweeping statements about other people groups - usually labeled by nationality. And while I can say with confidence that I have adapted pretty well to the various cultures I work in over here, this is one thing I have not gotten used to. As an American, I've become very uncomfortable with any statement that is structured:
[people group A] are [any descriptive phrase].There's an easy way to test yourself on this if you live in the U.S. -- is there any good way to finish this sentence: Mexicans are [fill in the blank]. I would say: no there is no acceptable form of that sentence in terms of respect or accuracy or kindness.
Honestly, I don't really know how to respond when it comes up in conversation. On one side of my brain, my American alarm system is going all 5 alarm and telling me to step away from the conversation. On the other side of my brain I'm thinking that European countries may have simply chosen to be more nationalistic. Maybe this type of generalization is just the flip side of nationalism.
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Maybe Europe is less a melting pot than a collection of ethnic neighborhoods. I dunno. I just can't imagine what it would be like to be within a day's drive of something like a dozen different unique countries and cultures. Must be pretty freaking cool... and tempting to relax into reductionism just to make sense of the diversity.
In the States, we tend to refer to people from other regions with generalizations. It sort-of seems okay because it's not ethnic or religious, necessarily -- it's just that people from the Northeast are stand-offish and often rude, and people from the West Coast are so shallow in their relationships, and people from the Midwest eat way too much sausage...
SB, at "way to much sausage" my mind lept to those classic 90's SNL episodes where the Bears fans sat around a table eating sausage and cheese. In one gut-buster of a skit, Chris Farley is choking on something he ate... which turns out to be a huge pork chop he'd ingested without even chewing.
You know, one of the big revelations I had moving from the west coast of the US to the east coast of the US was the east coast's willingness to make sweeping generalizations about ethnic groups. In fact, one of my first conversations at work out here went something like this
NJ Native: "Oh you don't want to live in Lodi, NJ."
Me: "Why not?"
NJ Native: "Well you KNOW what L.o.d.i. stands for, don't you?"
Me: "No."
NJ Native: "Lots Of Dirty Italians"
This SHOCKED my SanFran Sensitivity-trained ears beyond belief! That was my first, but CERTAINLY not my last, experience with that kind of talk over here.
I would agree w zeke about the "collection of ethnic neighborhoods", and I would extend it to include (at least what I've seen of) the east coast of the US (or at least my section of what Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz likes to call "the tri state area").
Well, since white European migration moved Westward, it makes perfect sense that Christopher's experience on moving East is, in a sense, a proportional representation of Craig's experience. The farther East you go the more segmented, or isolated the "neighborhoods" are— the farther west you go the more homogenated. The same is true with dialects within English, right? On the East coast dialects are separated by rivers. On the West coast, it's pretty much the same dialect up and down the whole coast. In Europe it's different languages. Makes sense that the same would be true with cultural attitudes.
I think it's just part of the human condition -- at a very elemental level, people tend to fear anyone who is different from them.
At the same time, when confronted with something foreign or unknown -- particularly something viewed as a threat -- we tend to try to rationalize it in a way that helps us understand it.
But because we're afraid and we don't understand it, our interpretation is distorted -- that's why it's called pre-judice, I would imagine.
They objective, I guess, then is to evolve above that kind of elemental reaction.
Correction to SB: Us Northeast folk are standoffish, rude, AND we eat way too much sausage....
My sister-in-law, who was born and raised in Mexico City (but lives in the US now) says, "Mexicans are very family oriented".
Didn't Reggie White get totally blasted for saying almost the same thing?
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