As a thinking-out-loud digression, there was that movie several years ago, The Corporation, which took the idea of corporate personhood a step further, and psychoanalyzed them. (Spoiler: Corporations are extreme sociopaths.) I’ve talked to my brother, the professional therapist, about applying the same lens to cultures, and we agree: The United States is a deeply traumatized culture.
There are probably lots of reasons for it (settled by unpleasant weirdos who were kicked out of Europe, founded on genocide, slavery, a civil war, waves of immigrants who fled traumas in their home countries, etc.), but whatever the cause, this sort of shut-up-and-deal-with-it attitude that we don’t deserve a better physical environment feels like a trauma response at a societal level. (Also, see: The “I fear other people and don’t want to be near them” criticism of public transit.)
I’m an American immigrant in Germany, and looking at American culture with a bit more distance… yeah, 100%.
Personal space and general public respect are two areas where I notice it most- Germans are not an especially friendly or warm people (not a criticism, just a somewhat hackneyed observation), but they don’t require as much personal space, and even with a significantly more formal culture, strangers still yell at/aggress each other more frequently on the street, when someone’s doing something dickish or stupid, even in places big enough to be cities, but not big enough to give no fucks.
I was once awoken at ~4am by college kids drunkenly ringing everyone’s doorbells up and down my street. My first thought was, ”they’re gonna get shot.” My second thought was “they’re not gonna get shot- they’d probably be more polite if that was a risk.”
I think that explains the larger pattern as well: Americans are wary of each other. Not always, obviously, but generally speaking, anyone could be armed and anyone could be having a bad fucking day- I think that lurks in people’s subconscious and colors how people treat each other.
As a thinking-out-loud digression, there was that movie several years ago, The Corporation, which took the idea of corporate personhood a step further, and psychoanalyzed them. (Spoiler: Corporations are extreme sociopaths.) I’ve talked to my brother, the professional therapist, about applying the same lens to cultures, and we agree: The United States is a deeply traumatized culture.
There are probably lots of reasons for it (settled by unpleasant weirdos who were kicked out of Europe, founded on genocide, slavery, a civil war, waves of immigrants who fled traumas in their home countries, etc.), but whatever the cause, this sort of shut-up-and-deal-with-it attitude that we don’t deserve a better physical environment feels like a trauma response at a societal level. (Also, see: The “I fear other people and don’t want to be near them” criticism of public transit.)
I’m an American immigrant in Germany, and looking at American culture with a bit more distance… yeah, 100%.
Personal space and general public respect are two areas where I notice it most- Germans are not an especially friendly or warm people (not a criticism, just a somewhat hackneyed observation), but they don’t require as much personal space, and even with a significantly more formal culture, strangers still yell at/aggress each other more frequently on the street, when someone’s doing something dickish or stupid, even in places big enough to be cities, but not big enough to give no fucks.
I was once awoken at ~4am by college kids drunkenly ringing everyone’s doorbells up and down my street. My first thought was, ”they’re gonna get shot.” My second thought was “they’re not gonna get shot- they’d probably be more polite if that was a risk.”
I think that explains the larger pattern as well: Americans are wary of each other. Not always, obviously, but generally speaking, anyone could be armed and anyone could be having a bad fucking day- I think that lurks in people’s subconscious and colors how people treat each other.