4 ms·

No, it's something else, a cultural quirk among Americans.

by Luc 10y ago

adventured 10y ago
No it's not. The French, British and Italians for example all have extreme amounts of nationalistic pride and show it throughout their economies, the pride they hold regarding their history and culture. Scandinavia is very proud of its broadly tremendous standard of living and their well run welfare states, etc. - and Scandinavians are never shy about bragging about it online in my observation, you can hardly get away from it. The Chinese and Japanese are extremely nationalistic, and that's downplaying how nationalistic they are, extremely doesn't do it justice. I also find any time India has an accomplishment that gets global attention, Indians take a massive amount of pride in it, and you can see that pour out on HN or Reddit for example (and I don't think there is anything wrong with that). The chant may be a quirk of the US, the nationalism it represents is absolutely not.
- DanBC 10y ago
  When someone flies the England flag the assumption most people make is that the person is far right racist football yob. I have to constantly guard against this bit of bias - "no, DanBC, they might not be a drunken lout". It's a bit different during soccer world cup or european cup. Very few people fly the Union flag. And chanting: no-one chants unless they're at a sports match. Chants just feel weird.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Chants are just a show of strong emotion. Something the professional life generally abhors - that's why it feels weird. People are not supposed to be that happy about their success, and especially not to connect private business with national pride. But space industry is a bit different, and SpaceX is a very different company - they're honest-to-god driven by the idea, not profit. (This chanting irks me a bit too, tbh., but I know it's because I'm not American and I want to picture SpaceX's successes as something done for all mankind, not just one group of people I don't belong to. A funny psychological bias :).)
- vidarh 10y ago
  But it is the chant we are talking about. I can't think of anywhere else I've been where someone starting to chant the country's name in response to the actions of a single company wouldn't lead to embarrassed looks and face-palming from people around them. This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation elsewhere. This doesn't mean nationalism elsewhere is weaker - just that there are cultural quirks to how it gets expressed, and what actions are seen as representing something of the nation. E.g. most places I've worked I'd expect quite a few people would be offended if you started shouting the country name instead of e.g. the company name as taking away glory for the teams achievements. But in general chanting is perhaps rarer in many European countries outside of sports arrangements. I can't remember a single big work-related success where anyone started chanting anything. Cheering and clapping and popping champagne, sure, but not chanting. I think most places the latter would be seen as tacky more than anything. So the cultural quirk might be more about the level of exuberance considered appropriate in the workplace.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    You're thinking about SpaceX as just a random company in a random industry. It's not. SpaceX is the space company. On PR area they compete with NASA, the space agency. I can imagine that for many SpaceX employees, their work is synonymous with getting America back into space exploration game.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      And I still think that is an American cultural quirk. To me that notion is bizarre.
      - falsestprophet 10y ago
        What you people are missing is that Americans don't care what you think.
        10y ago
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lmm 10y ago
  We British would never dream of claiming our country was the best at everything - we might grudgingly admit that we get by all right considering - and my impression is that the rest of Europe is similar. Whereas Americans seem to get offended if you suggest there might be anything that another country was better than theirs at. Not to say it's necessarily good or bad but there is a real cultural difference there.
  - bane 10y ago
    > We British would never dream of claiming our country was the best at everything That's kind of silly. The British are widely known for claiming to have the best in many things. And I've watched enough TV in the U.K. to know that even currently extends into Science and Technology education.
sandworm101 10y ago
And here is the distinctly not-American quirk of singing the other country's anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHSaHRd4Q48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHSaHRd4Q48

No, it's something else, a cultural quirk among Americans.

by Luc 10y ago

No, it's something else, a cultural quirk among Americans.

No it's not. The French, British and Italians for example all have extreme amounts of nationalistic pride and show it throughout their economies, the pride they hold regarding their history and culture. Scandinavia is very proud of its broadly tremendous standard of living and their well run welfare states, etc. - and Scandinavians are never shy about bragging about it online in my observation, you can hardly get away from it. The Chinese and Japanese are extremely nationalistic, and that's downplaying how nationalistic they are, extremely doesn't do it justice. I also find any time India has an accomplishment that gets global attention, Indians take a massive amount of pride in it, and you can see that pour out on HN or Reddit for example (and I don't think there is anything wrong with that). The chant may be a quirk of the US, the nationalism it represents is absolutely not.

DanBC 10y ago
When someone flies the England flag the assumption most people make is that the person is far right racist football yob. I have to constantly guard against this bit of bias - "no, DanBC, they might not be a drunken lout". It's a bit different during soccer world cup or european cup. Very few people fly the Union flag. And chanting: no-one chants unless they're at a sports match. Chants just feel weird.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Chants are just a show of strong emotion. Something the professional life generally abhors - that's why it feels weird. People are not supposed to be that happy about their success, and especially not to connect private business with national pride. But space industry is a bit different, and SpaceX is a very different company - they're honest-to-god driven by the idea, not profit. (This chanting irks me a bit too, tbh., but I know it's because I'm not American and I want to picture SpaceX's successes as something done for all mankind, not just one group of people I don't belong to. A funny psychological bias :).)
vidarh 10y ago
But it is the chant we are talking about. I can't think of anywhere else I've been where someone starting to chant the country's name in response to the actions of a single company wouldn't lead to embarrassed looks and face-palming from people around them. This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation elsewhere. This doesn't mean nationalism elsewhere is weaker - just that there are cultural quirks to how it gets expressed, and what actions are seen as representing something of the nation. E.g. most places I've worked I'd expect quite a few people would be offended if you started shouting the country name instead of e.g. the company name as taking away glory for the teams achievements. But in general chanting is perhaps rarer in many European countries outside of sports arrangements. I can't remember a single big work-related success where anyone started chanting anything. Cheering and clapping and popping champagne, sure, but not chanting. I think most places the latter would be seen as tacky more than anything. So the cultural quirk might be more about the level of exuberance considered appropriate in the workplace.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  You're thinking about SpaceX as just a random company in a random industry. It's not. SpaceX is the space company. On PR area they compete with NASA, the space agency. I can imagine that for many SpaceX employees, their work is synonymous with getting America back into space exploration game.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    And I still think that is an American cultural quirk. To me that notion is bizarre.
    - falsestprophet 10y ago
      What you people are missing is that Americans don't care what you think.
      - 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lmm 10y ago
We British would never dream of claiming our country was the best at everything - we might grudgingly admit that we get by all right considering - and my impression is that the rest of Europe is similar. Whereas Americans seem to get offended if you suggest there might be anything that another country was better than theirs at. Not to say it's necessarily good or bad but there is a real cultural difference there.
- bane 10y ago
  > We British would never dream of claiming our country was the best at everything That's kind of silly. The British are widely known for claiming to have the best in many things. And I've watched enough TV in the U.K. to know that even currently extends into Science and Technology education.

sandworm101 10y ago

And here is the distinctly not-American quirk of singing the other country's anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHSaHRd4Q48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHSaHRd4Q48