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> PS. I've just had another thought about that. One of the issues we have in the UK at the moment is the importation of a strange kind of political correctness

> PS. I've just had another thought about that. One of the issues we have in the UK at the moment is the importation of a strange kind of political correctness where you mustn't joke about stereotypes etc. (which is a particularly european thing: to joke about each other's culture -- this tends to feel connecting to europeans). This maybe due to the physical boundaries of Europe, that it's no insult to comment on another's "otherness" when they are traditionally (and a probably self-acknowledged) outsider. In the US, we're all stewing in the same pot with a more than a dash of (at least historical) racism and bigotry, so (negatively) emphasizing differences goes against our cultural mythology. I can assure you, Americans have no difficulty with ridiculous caricatures of sterotypical British/French/German/Italian/etc behaviours.

mjburgess 9y ago
Sure, I've considered that too. That's the missing context British people have when opining about the American way of doing politics: that it's keeping a lid on something that here we do not have. However I think it's more than that. The places that have the most european sense of humor and way of live are those with the highest population density. New York / Boston humour is quite close. Yet, NY -- the most dense US city -- is still only have as dense as paris. The US is incredibly sparse. Everything is very far away from everything else even within cities: a shop is a drive from another shop. I suspect that does something peculiar to public spaces. The recent civil war and racism doesn't help though.