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What I LOVE about the USA - from non-Americans
- Thread starter apophenia
- Start date
Not everyone is able to just laugh off stereotypes. Most of them are meant in jest also by people who know they're not true, but many of them are meant with real malice depending on the source (sometimes from other Americans.)
Plus, let me say this.
While in high school, I spent two weeks in Japan, living with a family. My host brother was clearly expecting someone who would accurately represent his image of what an American is. And, well... I didn't. I'm an otaku, and despite this fact, in hindsight I was constantly acting like the very thing I was trying to avoid being: a baka gaijin.
I honestly feel saddened by this. Not only by the fact that I wasn't able to live up to his fantasy, but that I didn't have the capabilities at the time to explain what was going on(I have asperger's syndrome and didn't know at the time). As a result, he ended up more social with others who came with me, who were not only closer to the image he had, but better able to talk to him about things they were mutually interested in. (Don't get me wrong; he was a great guy and we did get along and had loads of fun the first week.)
Oh! Art! That's my domain!
And when it comes to artistic culture... okay, the US isn't great when it comes to mass-media, but outside the mainstream, we've got some FIIIIIIINE art, comparable to the rest of the world. ^_^
Broadway. The Cowboy Mythos. US video games. Dungeons and Dragons (yes, the RPG was invented in the US). Disney.
And lest we forget, the US is the computer and internet capitol of the world.
Ultimatum
Classical Liberal
Well I, personally, still do not see why people should get offended about these things when they know they are not true. At least, on the forums at RF (which is what I was quoting).
I sympathise with you for this story, but I did specifically quote harmful words inflicted over RF (the internet).
Oh, the Americans on RF that I've seen are incredibly great at laughing off the stereotypes, but it really, really helps that the site is based in the US, and the vast majority of its membership is American. (Plus, this is the single most well-behaved site I've EVER seen on the internet, which is shocking considering its primary subject matter. lol.)
The thing about others taking offense is that... well, there's no "seeing why" with it. Sometimes we can empathize with people being offended by certain things, sometimes we can't. I've seen people get legitimately offended by things so trivial that even I, hyper-empathic, couldn't empathize.
But just because we "can't see it" doesn't mean we should brush it off, or tell them to "get over it." Some people just have really, really deep scars.
Culturally speaking, there's no one America except perhaps in the sense that most Americans seem to believe they are capable of reinventing themselves again and again. I think that's part of being future oriented. As a people, we tend to think we are what we wish to become. Or, at least, that's how I see us.
But apart from that and maybe a handful of other generalizations, America is comprised of several cultures, rather than a country united by one culture. There's a progressive America, an old fashioned conservative America, a fundamentalist America, a new conservative America that has largely forsaken the values of the old conservatives, and so forth. In some ways, these different cultures can be profoundly divided.
But apart from that and maybe a handful of other generalizations, America is comprised of several cultures, rather than a country united by one culture. There's a progressive America, an old fashioned conservative America, a fundamentalist America, a new conservative America that has largely forsaken the values of the old conservatives, and so forth. In some ways, these different cultures can be profoundly divided.
Ultimatum
Classical Liberal
Well, I'm afraid there is nothing we can do to combat these stereotypes for the sake of those who are offended easily. It is extremely important, though, that we do not discriminate against those who do say such things because otherwise, we become as bad as those countries that censor certain things on a large scale. It's what the Paris marches were about: liberty and freedom of speech.
People, seriously, need to turn their heads, brush off the dirt, and get on with the more important things in life.
I regard the Bible Belt as effectively a foreign nation, moreso even than Tokyo, for all the cultural similarities it has with the SF Bay Area. (Yes, Japan is less foreign to me than the Bible Belt, and I don't speak Japanese).
Heck, even single states aren't homogenous. Here in California, we have several cultures. We may technically be a "blue" state, but that's only because of the high populations of San Francisco and Los Angeles; geographically we're mostly "red". (For non-Americans who don't know, "blue" means expected to vote democrat, and "red" means expected to vote republican.) Heck, San Fran and L.A. are themselves very, very different places, and both are culturally distinct from other cities and suburbs.
Hehehehe.... I know how to do it.
In fact, it's kind of my job. ^_^ (...well, it will be.)
apophenia
Well-Known Member
Yes !
ROFLMAO ! ( in my mind, anyway )
(I've not mentioned my recent discovery that like yourself, I am on the aspy spectrum.
)Here's something I hope you appreciate, particularly the last of the five ..
HD. She rocked.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
Beautiful.
Yes !
ROFLMAO ! ( in my mind, anyway )
(I've not mentioned my recent discovery that like yourself, I am on the aspy spectrum.
It's SO much easier to deal with when you FINALLY have a context for why your behavior and outlook is so much different from others'! ^_^
Oh! And speaking of American art and asperger's syndrome, we produced H.P. Lovecraft, who's suspected of being on the spectrum, and reading his work and knowing his biography, I've no personal doubt. (I often describe the act of thinking about human life in terms of the Cosmic Scale as "looking upon the face of Cthulhu".)
*sigh* Sadly I'm not really that great at appreciating modern poetry, at least not when I first read/hear a piece.
Unless, that is, it's a subject matter that I'm intimately familiar with...
(And it's still kind of on topic... the first poem is by an Australian, but the second is by a British-born American about a phenomenon that, from what I understand, is part of the American.... "branch", if you will.)
apophenia
Well-Known Member
And so much easier when you understand the way your difference has been guilt-tripped and humiliated into submission.
"Hey ! You ! Get offa my cloud !"
E.O.Wilson said that the fundamental characteristic of the human psyche is ambivalence.
Hilda "H.D." Doolittle (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961)
Modern ?
Mama mia !
Heh.
...I don't know about "the" fundamental characteristic, but certainly "a" fundamental characteristic.
Hilda "H.D." Doolittle (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961)
Modern ?
Mama mia !
^_^
I have a very skewed perception of time(my therapist tells me that that's pretty typical of those on the spectrum). As a lover of the Old Tales, I sort of consider any post-US-Revolution literature "modern".
Astrologer
Member
I love American life from a daily(Nature) standpoint. We have created such beauty,but I'm sad that we no longer create our own durable goods the same way we used to. We have too many slaughterhouses, and our food is being downgraded (junk foods). I was born in 1947. It was easy to tune out politics as a child, but I have to say that the US leaders have more than crossed a line with their Corporate warmongering. So many people have died based on outright lies. I miss "the old days" when crime wasn't so rampant, when people weren't as unhealthy as they are now. Towns are blighted with light and sign pollution, junk food, bad architecture. I think that many Americans are not well educated, and believe a lot of the propaganda thrown their ways.
Leaders take us into unproductive wars because the voters favor it. I know, I know....I sound like a broken record....but remember that both Bush & Obama were re-elected with an agenda of continuing the wars.
There was a time when it was different? I suppose that light pollution is the singular thing which really got bad in the mid 20th century. At least we have space based telescopes now.....there's a great thing about Americastan.