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- I am AmericanWhile I agree that the original comment is a logical fallacy ( hoc ergo propter hoc or correlation proves causation) I would have to disagree on preconceived notions.
North America breeds individuals and individualist culture. The whole society is based on consumerism built into its core and that is reflected through everything, including family relations. There is a huge driving force in North America behind ensuring that each individual grows up thinking that they are best off functioning and living as an individual, avoiding sharing, giving, long term relationships, attachment, etc. Everything revolves around "me" and instant gratification. This is inherently at odds with what a family stands for and what community building is all about. Further to this, because of the high living standard there is little need to band together as a community and function as a unit to get things done. Simply put, if one's life is pretty good on one's own, then there is no need for that one to band with others to raise their living standard.
If you actually do some research into sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, you will find very hard research that shows these things to be facts, not opinions. I encourage you to do so. Maybe you will understand the world around you a bit better...of if you are too lazy to do that, tell me how many of your family members and your friends family members are around every week doing something as a community and how many of your neighbors do you actually know and socialize with on regular basis?
Don't knock things you know nothing about. Even if you can single out experiences from other areas that show that there are issues of detachment and narcissistic type of individualism present, that still does nothing to refute very known facts about North America. If it makes you feel any better, UK, Germany, and a few other Northern European countries also have some of these issues, but not as bad as the cases present in North America.
And as not to needlessly highjack this thread any further, I will simply say that the individualism/collectivism conversation has been been taking place for quite some time. And for each "negative" derivative of individualism one can find an equally distasteful by-product of collectivism.Last edited by [email protected]; 02-14-12 at 09:06 PM.
02-14-12 08:59 PM - I'm hardly naive. I'm a businessman. Naivety would be a serious handicap. Again you hijacked my post to the poster I was replying to. While you are obviously knowledgable about this topic, this is not the place to talk about it. I would meet you for a beer and talk frankly and freely about this matter and I'm hardly politically correct.1. Yes it is, so was your post
2. Thank you for letting me know. Unfortunately just because somebody tags their location here that does not mean much.
3. I believe that since I now know that you are from India. I can also say that most Indian families are like this because I interact with them every day. You see, observation Culturally, you are like that. It is therefore typical of your culture. There is nothing bad about that, it's just what it is.
4. Don't be offended that I said you know nothing about the topic. You brought it upon yourself as a result of making a broad statement about preconceived notions. There are no preconceived notions on these matters. They are well studied and well known. Fact that North American society is largely a "set" of individuals is a fact. It is also a fact that they have very low emphasis on family ties throughout their life. See, unlike you I actually explained the cause behind that (they are not born with it just to be crystal clear), as opposed to just saying, and I paraphrase "I know, and you should be quiet because you don't know what I do or don't know".
5. Defending your argument by repeating the same thing that established your original argument does not make your argument stronger. Also, I did not imply that you are ignorant to the ways of the world, just on the particular topic. Besides, I do not even understand why this bothers you so much. Cultural differences do exist and are very strongly delineated. This was even discussed by very famous psychologists and is effectively defined as a "personality" of a society. If you want more reading, there is actually a good definition for "culture" to be found here http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/1101...le%207l-35.pdf. Just do a search for "personality of a society".
6. Nobody was being insulted, unless some Americans do not like being told that they are not perfect (which some may not like). I do not understand why you are making this a personal issue for yourself. I've had some very unpleasant experiences with cultural tolerances, nationalism, and racism myself but I'm not afraid to talk about it.
7. Actually, no he was not. He simply stated that Americans (I would correct him on that and say North Americans) are generally not family or communally inclined which is the de-facto truth. There is no grey area there. His premise and conclusion did not follow though.
8. Not everything in life is so "indeterminate" as you think. Individuals exist everywhere, and gradients do too, but a particular culture as a whole is a mirror reflection of the general belief and value system of a given group. That also is a fact. There is nothing there to be interpreted. Family ties are much more than just a lack of resources.
Anyway, you actually seem like you are pretty bright, but maybe a bit naive in wanting to have this utter sense of equality and political correctness around everything. There is no need for that. People need to see things for what they are if they are ever to progress. I will leave it up to you to define "progress" in this case as I do not have one definition or one path that would define it precisely.
But sweeping statements which the poster made makes for a tit for tat post. You can just read some of the posts about India above my post to get an idea on what I'm talking about. It quickly descends into an insult war.
Anyway I guess you get my point on my post. Nothing to do with being politically correct or defending North Americans, just about being CIVIL.02-15-12 08:43 AM
