This isn’t exactly a pitting, but there’s been a recurrent theme in a few recent posts by elmwood that I’d like to see explained. (I may be a bit late on the reaction, seeing how he made the last of these posts a few days ago, but I’ve just noticed it.)
First [post=9933990]this[/post]:
elmwood was the first one to bring “obnoxious” in the thread. Most people until then were agreeing (or disagreeing) with the notion of Americans (and other national groups) as being loud. Other than the condemnation of Fox News, there wasn’t much in the way of moral judgement either way. Then [post=9936212]this[/post]:
even sven also didn’t make any moral judgement. Maybe her choice of words wasn’t perfect (“open” and such), but what I understood her to mean was that some cultures tend to put more emphasis on the expression of emotions, while others are more phlegmatic and show less emotion. That’s certainly possible, and it could be expected that the first group would speak more loudly. There’s nothing “good” or “bad” here.
Finally, we get to [post=9955293]this[/post]:
Honestly, on boards like this one, I’ve never seen the fact that some cultures, notably European ones, tend to be less individualistic and more “communautarian”, so to speak, than the US, be considered a “good” thing in general. Indeed, since most of our membership comes from the US, the idea that in France parents must have their children’s names be approved by the government, or that in Germany people are forbidden to buy Nazi memorabilia, is often seen here as the first step on a slippery slope toward tyranny. (Myself, being from a less individualistic culture too, I tend to see good points in both value systems.)
So my question is, where did elmwood get the idea that people here give a break to non-Americans when they would blame Americans for the exact same thing? Because I didn’t see anything like this in the linked threads. I’d like to see some evidence of this hypocrisy or double standard.