Question for people born outside of the U.S.

[TheBeardedJedi]

I was always curious: what do other countries think of people from America? What is the general consensus or even the stereotype? Are we seen as lazy, incompetent, arrogant, etc? I'm a second generation American, but I tried hard to avoid some of the "spoiled" sterotypes that go with the opinons on this country. I try to pay for everything out of pocket, avoid overspending, do math "in my head", and try to put in 57 hr workweeks. My goal is to live like the stereotypical "hardworking Asian/Indian" (many of my friends are from there; I mean no offense), but I often can't tell. What's it like living outside the U.S.? Is there a stronger sense of work ethic outside the United States? Just Curious.

Again, I mean no offense, I'm just trying to find out what it's like in other countries. Thanks!

[Matt]

Violent
Not just the second amendment gun thing, but even the basic norms of entertainment culture - the way people casually insult each other on sitcoms, the way things escalate to someone dying as a punchline, stuff like that.
EDIT: Revo's post reminds me of one particular example: the utterly normalized, casual cruelty with which service/retail industry employees are treated by both employers and customers is staggering.


Entitled
"It's my right" is so often employed as not only an excuse but the entire justification for any behaviour, however noxious, hurtful and pointless.


Poor Boundaries
You can chat with total random strangers and they will start giving you advice, judging your work/behaviour/clothes/culture, making all sorts of rude comments to your face.

The less dark side of this is that Americans are often more warm and welcoming than other cultures.

[revo794]

I'll join Matt here in noting that Americans in general seem to have a bit less "restraint", if you know what I mean. But isn't it quite a moot point? We're talking about a social group on a scale of hundreds of millions of people and, depending on whom you're talking to, both the "lazy wankers who don't know their arses from their elbows" stereotype and its complete opposite may be true. My friends from the US are quite erudite and composed individuals with good education and manners, yet when I browse some particular pages, I read shite that I can't believe people would write in their right mind. To me, Americans aren't good or bad, they're just very different : p
In regards to work ethic, it might be the case of vocal minority, but I've got the impression that employers out there constrain their employees a bit too much in how they work. Sometimes I read stories about how employees routinely tolerate crap that we would strike against in a matter of days, but it seems to be quite all right otherwise.

[MartinHowe]

I think Matt said most of it, but I would add why do you think a 57 hour work week is a good thing? That's by British standards, insane, like an 11-12 hour day five days a week. In the UK we don't 'live to work', we work to live. Work is a means to earn survival and a few luxuries. Yes, in an emergency workers may have to do this for a short period of time; for hardcore scientists, sportspeople and so on, they may do that voluntarily - I have lost count of the number of hours in my own time that I spend Doom modding or writing astronomy lectures; but to work at what for most people is a wages-slave job for that much time? Ick.

If my vacations or weekends are anything to go by, then If I won the lottery, or in 12 years when I can afford to retire, I will probably work as hard as I do now, or maybe even 11 hours a day for 5-6 days a week, but its time on my things that I want to do, on noble challenges (e.g., my current Doom mod coding or public science outreach), not on merely staying alive.

[Graf Zahl]

Entitled
"It's my right" is so often employed as not only an excuse but the entire justification for any behaviour, however noxious, hurtful and pointless.

That's sadly not a particular American trait, you can find these people who insist on putting their own petty needs above the requirements of a working society everywhere, but it often looks like in the US it's a lot stronger than in most other countries.

[Gez]

The positive stereotypes associated to Americans are inventive, easy-going, and (for lack of a better word) cool. By that I mean the way American culture has been so successful abroad, with music, movies, TV series, and games all exporting so well.

The negative stereotypes are greedy, contemptuous (the tendency of Americans to assume anything that's not made in America is irrelevant or backward), and ignorant (largely as a consequence of the other flaws).

As for what it's like living outside the US, it's great! No student debt! Affordable healthcare! No industrial-scale prison labor system leading to an incarceration rate six times greater than the rest of the OECD! Two months per year of paid vacations for every employee no matter how junior! Direct elections so every vote actually counts instead of only counting if you reside in a "swing state"! A national history that goes back further than 250 years!

Entitled
"It's my right" is so often employed as not only an excuse but the entire justification for any behaviour, however noxious, hurtful and pointless.

That's sadly not a particular American trait, you can find these people who insist on putting their own petty needs above the requirements of a working society everywhere, but it often looks like in the US it's a lot stronger than in most other countries.

In Americans it's not just about their petty needs, it's also as a rejection of the very principle of having to follow rules for the greater good. It's how you end up with coal-rollers. This kind of spiteful "you say I shouldn't do that? Well fuck you I'm gonna double down because I'm American and that means you can't tell me what to do!" This shit is a lot less prevalent in other countries, mostly because it's a lot less tolerated.

It's also a trait that is expressed strongly on the world stage by American leaders. Bush Sr. said in 1992 at the Rio Summit that "the American way of life is not negotiable" and that was a clear indication of that national level of selfishness and carelessness about consequences. It's also stuff like America deciding its laws apply to the entire world, giving it the right to sanction foreign companies for any reason even if there's no legal justification; while at the same time rejecting any idea of having American citizens or corporations be responsible (like threatening to put sanctions against the judges of the International Criminal Court if an American were tried there). This whole attitude of "we're the empire, deal with it" is absolutely detestable and the major source for the growing anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world.

[Rachael]

FWIW many Americans find the attitude of many other Americans quite detestable. Particularly when it comes to selfishness, insecurity, and the doubling-down when they do selfish things. It's not as much that it's "tolerated" here per se, it's more that there's less you can really do about it, especially when the more craven idiots tend to find each other and band together.

We also have a lot of people here who have such severe problems with narcissism, that every time someone says "you're wrong" or "you're being an asshole" it's viewed as a direct attack, and the other person immediately plays the victim card, whining and crying about why they can't be a selfish asshole, and it's their right, etc. The problem is - even though the people who do this kind of thing are an extreme minority, they're much more noticeable than anyone who does not engage in this behavior. Yes - our culture does nurture this kind of thing, even going as far as to pariah anyone who shows even the slightest shred of empathy.

As for American corporations - I could go on hours-long rants about those. They will single-handedly destroy the entire human race if something is not done about them to keep them in check. The problem is far more severe than anyone internationally even thinks, and yes, American citizens quite often do become victims to corporate lust for greed and profit - both employees and consumers alike, as well as what Gez mentioned with our prison industrial complex with forced prison labor, which really is just legalized slavery.

[Graf Zahl]

any idea of having American citizens or corporations be responsible (like threatening to put sanctions against the judges of the International Criminal Court if an American were tried there). This whole attitude of "we're the empire, deal with it" is absolutely detestable and the major source for the growing anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world.

Fun fact: When Trump announced to withdraw American troops from Germany it was only the politicians complaining. The majority of the population just would like to see them gone for good as quickly as possible.

[TheBeardedJedi]

Thank you for the responses guys.

To answer one of the questions about the work schedule, when I put in those many hours, I did burn out for a while. Lately, I've been scaling everything back, but I suppose the reason I tried to put in so much could be atttributed to my self-esteem (which was pretty low at the time). I used the work schedule to compensate. I'm over it now, though, so it's back to a healthy schedule.

I'm seeing a lot of responses about Americans appearing to act arrogant, which is different from what I was expecting. Not that it's a bad response, it just took me by surprise. It's very informative.

[Arctangent]

I think Matt said most of it, but I would add why do you think a 57 hour work week is a good thing?

we don't

our minimum wage just isn't

[wildweasel]

I think Matt said most of it, but I would add why do you think a 57 hour work week is a good thing?

we don't

our minimum wage just isn't

yeah believe me, if the option existed to NOT work 57 hour weeks, most of us would take that option

[TheBeardedJedi]

I really didn't have a choice about the 57 hour work week at the beginning. Without going into too much detail, it was either that, or losing the position. I work somewhere else now. After it was over, I had about two years of extreme exhaustion, but then I bounced back.

[MartinHowe]

Good to hear these replies about working hours; I so often hear Americans talking up 'work til you drop' as if it were a sacred duty, that I assumed it was a cultural value; I hadn't realised that many of you do it only because you have to

[Rachael]

Oh, the people who benefit from others' productivity *wish* it were a cultural value! And of course, there's the idiots who go along with it, not knowing any better...

[Matt]

The work-till-you-drop thing I've never associated with Americans so much as certain kind of East Asians, esp. white collar or tech, but that mentality does seem to have made its way into anglophone North America quite a lot in the past decade or two.

(This is not about America's horrid lack of social safety net forcing people to work ridiculous hours - I'm thinking of people who might only have one job, and it pays a comfortable amount of money, but there's a huge social pressure in the office culture to burn yourself out in the work, be the first to show up, be the last to leave, etc.)