I believe a person can’t claim something is better than it’s American counterpart(s) without deeply deeply hurting the feelings/ego of the majority of Americans witnessing it.
That is patriotism gone too far IMO.
People say that things are better in their country than their counterpart in my country all the time. I tend to agree with them in most cases. It certainly doesn’t hurt my pride. Afterall it is nothing to do with me if, for example, our trains are bags of wank. I didn’t make them, I had nothing to do with them. Why should I feel any hurt when someone criticises them. So why do most Americans feel deeply hurt when someone criticises something American. I think patriotism alienates you as a people.
Erm I believe I should say something like “ducks and runs” at this point.
I am afraid the replies to this post prove what I was saying. I can see you guys egos are hurt. It’s obvious.
the request for evidence is the first defence of someone who’s been hurt by an opinion they don’t like.
I don’t need to supply information as this is just an opinion, my opinion. I have come to it through years of talking in newsgroups, chat rooms, message boards, and seeing it in the media. I can’t possibly supply enough evidence as it is just observation over several years of talking to Americans and seeing Americans talk.
And it’s difficult to explain how it alienates. It just does. Imagine the countries as people - one of the people is something of a beginner, but he regularly shoots off aboout how big his muscles are, how intelligent he is, how expensive his clothes are etc… all the other people will dislike him. He will be alienated. Isn’t that obvious?
(1) Do you think the intent of the remarks has anything to do with it? Very often, it seems that comments about American movies or American food or American quirkiness (e.g., our resistance to the metric system) seem to carry some intentional overtones of criticism regarding America itself. Nobody likes to be attacked, even by proxy.
(2) In what I’ve heard (firsthand and secondhand) of European attitudes toward the US, it seems to me that what’s really irritating to them is the very fact that we are pretty patriotic to begin with. They can’t get over the fact that in the US, nationalism doesn’t have the dirty reputation that it seems to have earned in Europe.
Americans do it all the time! you do it far far more than anyone else! I sometimes think you do it without realizing it. Americans are the biggest culprits for ‘blanket statements’ about other countries. And you get pissed off and hurt when someone does it to you, well that is definately patriotism gone too far.
I am not suggesting that you LolaBaby have blanket-stereotyped any country. I am genralizing (and yes that is an effing valid thing to do!) that Americans do it far more than most.
people who say ‘cites?’ when we read between the lines you are really saying “I am hurt, so I am going to resort to saying ‘cites?’ in a vain attempt to look like the winner”
People who say we shouldn’t genralise - we f*&K*g should! generalisations are there for a reason, they are there to describe a average trait without saying that all of the people being generalised have that trait.
You could generalize that brits are comparatively reserved, and you’d be right, sure lots of us aren’t reserved, but the average brit is more reserved than the Average American. who ever came up with the idea that generalisations and stereotyped are invariably invalid? because they are just plain wrong!
“All people from the UK are insensitive dolts, because all they could do on 9/12 was say it was America’s own fault what happened to us. All they can do is criticize other countries as if they don’t have the same types of problems and jerks.”
The BNP is patriotism gone too far, the NAZIs were patriotism gone too far. Can you blame me for thinking patriotism is a bad thing?
BNP - British National Party - Extremely racist, nationalistic political party.
Well, yeah. Nobody here in the “colonies” is going to be offended if you say you have the best warm beer, clotted cream and breaded cod. You guys do. You have some very comfy cars for riding in, and the bestest fox hunts. But if you start in on some of the things we take pride in, we might be a little put out, even if we aren’t really the best at it. And we desparately want to be the best at what we do apply ourselves to. So yeah, our Hitler and Tojo and Saddam beating war machine is second to none. Our California wines are worth arguing about in the same sentence as the best French and Italian wines. And if the grandest bordeauxs edge out our best cabernets, we damn well intend to come back next year and show those Frenchmen a thing or two about squishing grapes. If we were into coal, we’d have a better way to bring it to Newcastle! (We do have a lot of coal, and we get 10 times more energy out of it now than 100 years ago). We didn’t invent the car here, but we did invent mass producing it. So we are very frustrated with American car makers who can produce a better mass market car than the Germans and Japanese.
It may be true. We probably are an insensetive nation. I may not like it, and am not insensetive myself about 9/11 but I am not going to deny it.
Britain is full of problems ang jerks. what I am getting at in this thread is the inability to admit that America is not perfect. That America is not the best at everything
America probably IS the best at most things! that doesn’t mean you have to shout about it so fucking much! Patriotism in my opinion clouds the truth. It’s bound to! Patriotism is all about believing in the greatness of your country. it is not physicaly/logicaly possible for your country to be great at everything, so patriotism clouds the truth.
So there you go–your OP was misleading in that you’re not criticizing how we express our patriotism, but the fact that we are patriotic.
As for your logic, it’s kinda dumb. EarthFirst!, the “Animal Liberation Front”, and Pim Fortuyn’s assassin(s) might represent enivronmentalism “gone too far”–so does that mean it’s ipso facto bad to be an environmentalist?
Why is it that when I’ve said “Americans are too patriotic” (paraphrased) you’ve all somehow managed to read it as “America is crap and full of jerks”???
My original logic was sound. my original post was clear. it is being drawn into this argument with people who have been hurt by the basic statement “you guys are hurt too easily” that may have forced me to sacrafice logic in favour of not being severely overwhelmed by the number of people the statement applies to replying to me.
