American Stereotypes....

@jathu v,

jathu_v;71279 wrote:

Made a video the other day about a hysterical discovery I made on Google.

YouTube - Why are Americans...

I myself am not American, and I do NOT want to offend any Americans, but just want to know your thoughts and opinions.

Would you find this rather ironic, considering Google is an American corporation?

And do you think this really how the rest of the world views the United States?

What about a precis of the answers? Smile

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@jathu v,

Pure silliness! Anyone could make such a video with the result being whatever desired.

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@jathu v,

Curmudgeon - it is just a game people play.

Why are Americans (or friends of Americans) so short tempered?
Why are Americans (or friends of Americans) so bothered by videos?
Why haven't Americans lynched Rehmat? Where is the old frontier spirit and who has drunk it?

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@kynaston,

What specific stereotypes do you want to talk about?

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@jathu v,

And if you know the meaning of stereotype, you know it is wrong to paint a group with the wide brush of a stereotype.

When I was in Africa in the late Sixties, many East Africans thought all Americans were either wealthy or cowboys, and many Americans only thought of Tarzan or White Hunters when they thought of Africa.

Not sure if I really care how the rest of the world thinks of the USA.

1 Reply

@Curmudgeon,

Curmudgeon;71296 wrote:

And if you know the meaning of stereotype, you know it is wrong to paint a group with the wide brush of a stereotype.

When I was in Africa in the late Sixties, many East Africans thought all Americans were either wealthy or cowboys, and many Americans only thought of Tarzan or White Hunters when they thought of Africa.

Not sure if I really care how the rest of the world thinks of the USA.

Yeah, some of the misconceptions people have about Americans are actually quite funny. I remember talking to this one lady from Croatia who said that Americans are seen as being really good at sex.

Stereotypes aren't always necessarily wrong.

There is some truth to Americans being fat. There is truth to Americans being more religious (than many European countries). There is some truth to Americans being bad at geography.

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@jathu v,

I,ve just been reading this forum with great interest and being from a small town in Australia i,d like to put two bobs worth in.. You guys in America are a strange mob. We Australians here do not understand why Americans are trying to stop the new health initiatives Why you dont look after your own people? You run around the world saving people from tyranny and oppression but do not practice what you preach in your own home. Your education system is introverted and nationilistic it hardly teaches your children of an outside world yet you country seems to know everything.

The fundamentalist christian thing is also hard to understand, you go to the Moon but believe in angels, science and fiction hand in hand but somehow you keep a bent rationale. Your social security system is particularly strange in that you can;t obtain it unless you are employed (maybe wrong) but i always thought that social security meant looking after those who are not doing it easy. You guys are so tough on the less fortunate and to me and us over here We,re Glad We,re over here.

1 Reply

@Bretthoffy,

Brett.hoffy;71321 wrote:

I,ve just been reading this forum with great interest and being from a small town in Australia i,d like to put two bobs worth in.. You guys in America are a strange mob. We Australians here do not understand why Americans are trying to stop the new health initiatives Why you dont look after your own people?

Well, amongst the staunch opponents there is an irrational fear that somehow passing the healthcare initiative will lead to communism. I know it sounds silly but there are people who actually believe this.

Quote:

You run around the world saving people from tyranny and oppression but do not practice what you preach in your own home. Your education system is introverted and nationalistic it hardly teaches your children of an outside world yet you country seems to know everything.

This is true. Americans are taught little to nothing of other countries.

Quote:

The fundamentalist christian thing is also hard to understand, you go to the Moon but believe in angels, science and fiction hand in hand but somehow you keep a bent rationale.

It's sad that in this day and age, people actually believe in the story of Noah's Ark. I am sometimes embarrassed by the stupidity of my fellow Americans.

Quote:

Your social security system is particularly strange in that you can;t obtain it unless you are employed

This is not true.

Quote:

You guys are so tough on the less fortunate and to me and us over here We,re Glad We,re over here.

I think a lot of what you're hearing is exaggerated.

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@jathu v,

I'm sure a great deal of what we are all hearing is exaggerated: as I've said before, I've scarcely ever met an American I disliked over here: it is the extraordinary contrast between perception and report that is so startling. The tea-party people sound like things from the black lagoon, Stalinist fantasies, crazy fiction. I saw 'Inherit the Wind' when young, and could hardly believe that people with - allegedly - the same religion as my socialist and communist chapel ancestors could have been so nutty so late - and now, bigod, they are coming here to NOW in time machines, hordes of 'em. The mixture of advanced science and scientific illiteracy is extremely alarming!

1 Reply

@kynaston,

kynaston;71334 wrote:

I saw 'Inherit the Wind' when young, and could hardly believe that people with - allegedly - the same religion as my socialist and communist chapel ancestors could have been so nutty so late

"Inherit the Wind" claims to be based on fact but actually it is very inaccurate so you shouldn't base your ideas about Americans on it.

If you want to know the truth about the Scopes trial I suggest you read this:

Inherit the Wind - Answers in Genesis

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@Fatal Freedoms,

Fatal_Freedoms;71324 wrote:

Well, amongst the staunch opponents there is an irrational fear that somehow passing the healthcare initiative will lead to communism. I know it sounds silly but there are people who actually believe this.

This is true. Americans are taught little to nothing of other countries.

It's sad that in this day and age, people actually believe in the story of Noah's Ark. I am sometimes embarrassed by the stupidity of my fellow Americans.

This is not true.

I think a lot of what you're hearing is exaggerated.[/QUOT

Yes your probably right. We are all subjects to His Majesty; King Rupert.
Australia claims him as a son but of course he was born in America learnt English in Australia went back to being a Yank and well What Can Ya Say?

Australians want to be American and the stereotypical American image is Rich ,Smart,C.S.I. Miami type people Your all cops saving everyones bacon and theres always a Moral to the story. Australia owes your country a great debt for saving us from the japs in ww2 but ifeel we gave you our souls to your country , we eat more fried chicken than you guys do and people worship McDonalds. In short Aussies love american culture and may as well be another state of your country and it scares me Big Time because you guys are wierdly Insane with the fundamenatalist religious thing Creationism it's strange. Republican Party springs to mind.

The Muslims are doing the same thing.Fundamentalist Crap. Get religion out of Politics and we can all get some sleep.

1 Reply

@Bretthoffy,

Brett.hoffy;71341 wrote:

Yes your probably right. We are all subjects to His Majesty; King Rupert.
Australia claims him as a son but of course he was born in America learnt English in Australia went back to being a Yank and well What Can Ya Say?

Australians want to be American and the stereotypical American image is Rich ,Smart,C.S.I. Miami type people Your all cops saving everyones bacon and theres always a Moral to the story. Australia owes your country a great debt for saving us from the japs in ww2 but ifeel we gave you our souls to your country , we eat more fried chicken than you guys do and people worship McDonalds. In short Aussies love american culture and may as well be another state of your country and it scares me Big Time because you guys are wierdly Insane with the fundamenatalist religious thing Creationism it's strange. Republican Party springs to mind.

The Muslims are doing the same thing.Fundamentalist Crap. Get religion out of Politics and we can all get some sleep.

This is news to me.

One difference I have noticed, is that here in the US, we don't have a problem with fundamentalist muslims. Most of the muslims here are very passive. I've heard that at least in the UK, there are a lot of Muslims campaigning for creationism, this is not the case here. Those who are pushing for creationism in schools are 99% christian.

As far the republican party goes there seems to be an even more radical group forming from the republican base, known as the "Tea party".

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@theophilus cv,

theophilus;71336 wrote:

"Inherit the Wind" claims to be based on fact but actually it is very inaccurate so you shouldn't base your ideas about Americans on it.

If you want to know the truth about the Scopes trial I suggest you read this:

Inherit the Wind - Answers in Genesis

I have read it, mostly (it is very long). Essentially it seems to be based on the idea that Evolution is anti-religious propaganda rather than science, which it isn't: a scientific theory is something seriously checked against reality, as Evolution clearly has been. The facts that Bryan was a progressive (which I knew) or that Scopes wasn't imprisoned (it had never crossed my mind that that was conceivable) are irrelevant. No serious Christian has ever taken the Old Testament as an example of scientific thinking of the same kind as - say - The Origin of Species: it is a series of documents of various intention to be read in various ways, and all serious Christians have always done that. This creationist nonsense is, I'd guess, entirely heretical: certainly in my Churchgoing childhood I'd never heard of such ludicrous silliness actually being believed. I think people who accept this stuff are seriously ill, honestly I do.

1 Reply

@kynaston,

kynaston;71364 wrote:

a scientific theory is something seriously checked against reality, as Evolution clearly has been.

It is possible to check a theory about what is going on now, but if you have theory about how something happened in the past how are you going to check it?

If you check this site

Science Against Evolution Official Home Page

you will find that not all scientific evidence supports the theory of evolution.

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@theophilus cv,

theophilus;71368 wrote:

It is possible to check a theory about what is going on now, but if you have theory about how something happened in the past how are you going to check it?

If you check this site

Science Against Evolution Official Home Page

you will find that not all scientific evidence supports the theory of evolution.

The same way we check anything that happened in the past: Records.

We know oxygen content in the atmosphere over the course much of the earth's history through records. Especially with ice core samples.

These are 'natural records' as opposed to 'written records' that historians use, but it's the same basic idea. I'd even go so far as to say natural records are much much more accurate than written records, because there is no ambiguity, or hyperbole when we are talking about natural records.

Most of these websites, and 'experts' who are against evolution have no scientific training whatsoever. I have more scientific training than Kent Hovind does, so why does he get to put a "DR" in front of his name?

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@theophilus cv,

theophilus;71368 wrote:

It is possible to check a theory about what is going on now, but if you have theory about how something happened in the past how are you going to check it?

If you check this site

Science Against Evolution Official Home Page

you will find that not all scientific evidence supports the theory of evolution.

I find that presentation entirely dishonest. It is very wicked, I think, to pretend that the lifework of so may devoted and honest people is trivial, like some sort of nonsense thought up in a bar.

Going back to the Book of Genesis, you ought to face the fact that you are comparing totally different things when you put it up against science. Let's take it stage by stage:

Early peoples, on such evidence as we have, used ceremonial magic before engaging in important activities like hunting and (later) planting. Some of them dressed up as animals to dance being hunted, and 'became' those animals to the extent that their particular clan must never eat its flesh - it was taboo, cannibalism for them - as with Jews and pork, and so on - while the rest of the tribe was allowed to do so. The British seem to have had a particularly strong horse taboo.

As time went on they began to see the figures of the ritual dance as 'gods', strange magic beings, which helped them explain the unexplained (rain, wind, earthquake, whatever) and is a kind of early 'science', I suppose. 'Gods' were forces of nature, normally seen at first as animals, as in the dance (Egypt), then as shape-shifters who often became animals (classical Greece). Very slowly, particularly in the Fertile Crescent, religion began to develop into morality, ethics and philosophy and move towards the notion of one single God (coming, probably, from the Sky-Father god of the pastoralists). This was a huge advance, and various reformers began to experience messages from such a being, important messages too. That was the way their minds worked, in my opinion: they certainly weren't lying.

'Truth' in all such societies is expressed in stories. Some, like the universal habit of telling creation-myth stories are primitive and not to be taken very seriously, while others, the epics, parables and the like, are profoundly serious and still work without any of us having to be literary critics and 'spell out' the truth contained. These stories - like the New Testament, Shakespeare or Tolstoy work like great music: they effect us directly.

Language, however, is not well designed for scientific truth, because (read Lakoff and Johnson's 'Mataphors we live by') it works so heavily by metaphor. I am writing this IN April, for instance (time is a box), ON Saturday (time is a surface); I am WRESTLING WITH WORDS (discussion is a physical combat) to make my meaning CLEAR (meaning is a sort of glass). All language is like this, which is why I am so dubious about philosophy, and why we need mathematics to make serious statements.

Science began to develop much later, and in my view, will establish truths about reality but NOT about how we should behave, so that to mix up ways of thinking developed millenia apart is simple anachronism. Sorry to go on so long, but I think it matters.

1 Reply

@jathu v,

Quote:

Americans are taught little to nothing of other countries.

Is this true today? When I went to school we were taught a lot about the world. Maybe because I went to school a long time ago. I do see and hear younger people that seem to have no clue about other countries and cultures.

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@kynaston,

kynaston;71392 wrote:

Early peoples, on such evidence as we have, used ceremonial magic before engaging in important activities like hunting and (later) planting. Some of them dressed up as animals to dance being hunted, and 'became' those animals to the extent that their particular clan must never eat its flesh - it was taboo, cannibalism for them - as with Jews and pork, and so on - while the rest of the tribe was allowed to do so. The British seem to have had a particularly strong horse taboo.

As time went on they began to see the figures of the ritual dance as 'gods', strange magic beings, which helped them explain the unexplained (rain, wind, earthquake, whatever) and is a kind of early 'science', I suppose. 'Gods' were forces of nature, normally seen at first as animals, as in the dance (Egypt), then as shape-shifters who often became animals (classical Greece). Very slowly, particularly in the Fertile Crescent, religion began to develop into morality, ethics and philosophy and move towards the notion of one single God (coming, probably, from the Sky-Father god of the pastoralists). This was a huge advance, and various reformers began to experience messages from such a being, important messages too. That was the way their minds worked, in my opinion: they certainly weren't lying.

You used the phrase "on such evidence as we have." So just how much evidence do we have that this is how it happened? I agree that there is probably evidence to show that many ancient peoples used ceremonial magic and that others had belief in a supreme God. But is there any evidence that the ceremonial beliefs came first and then developed into a belief in God? Isn't it equally possible that all humans originally believed in a supreme God but some of them lost this knowledge and their religions degenerated into ceremonial magic? If the Bible is correct this is what happened. How can you show scientifically which came first?

1 Reply

@theophilus cv,

theophilus;71413 wrote:

You used the phrase "on such evidence as we have." So just how much evidence do we have that this is how it happened? I agree that there is probably evidence to show that many ancient peoples used ceremonial magic and that others had belief in a supreme God. But is there any evidence that the ceremonial beliefs came first and then developed into a belief in God? Isn't it equally possible that all humans originally believed in a supreme God but some of them lost this knowledge and their religions degenerated into ceremonial magic? If the Bible is correct this is what happened. How can you show scientifically which came first?

By looking at the simpest hunter-gatherer societies now existing - who certainly don't seem to believe in a supreme god - and at the earliest records we have of other societies, in which 'gods' are clearly associated with animals in the way we might expect in beliefs developed to rationalise ritual dances involving animal-figures - we can find a fair bit of evidence to support the position I put forwards, whereas - except by circular arguments from the Bible and the like - there is not much evidence for the other possibility. The origin in ritual dance is not provable, but it seems to fit such evidence as we have better, that's all.

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