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This. I hope I won't offend anyone here but there's a story that seems quite appropriate: When I was still living in the US, an acquaintance of mine once aske
by codethief 6y ago
This.
I hope I won't offend anyone here but there's a story that seems quite appropriate:
When I was still living in the US, an acquaintance of mine once asked me, "So don't you think the United States are the best country in the world?" I was absolutely baffled. Putting aside for a moment that the US clearly did not rank "best" on so many scales, the question (to me, as a European) didn't even make much sense in the first place: What metric are we talking about? And what's the point of comparing countries on an absolute scale in the first place? No matter what metric we choose, it will never convey the full picture.
Sure, I enjoyed living in the US. But I've also come to enjoy living in other countries over the years and I know there are many more that I would absolutely love to live in. In any case, I don't think it would even occur to a European to call their country "the best". Our continent's history is so complicated and riddled with grave mistakes, wars and crimes, that a claim that one country were "better" than the other would just seem… strange. Everyone here knows that their neighboring countries are at least as beautiful as their own and every place and every mentality has its pros and cons.
Anyway, I ended up explaining my POV to said acquantaince and also said that, if he so insists on ranking countries in a such an absolute manner, then we would also have to talk about all those things in the US where there's still… room for improvement. We ended up having a long and fruitful discussion and he started agreeing with me (or so I thought) that the question might not make that much sense after all. Still, after an hour of discussing all this, he goes, in a very matter-of-fact way: "Everything you said is certainly correct. But I still think the US are the best country in the world."
At this point the only explanation I had left was that he must have been brainwashed properly in school, pledging allegiance to the flag and so on.
To the Americans reading this: Where do you think does this sense of "living in the best country in the world" come from? Where did you "learn" it? I'd really be interested in understanding this phenomenon better.
- robbmorganf 6y agoI'm an American who has lived overseas and I think I have a little more nuance than this, but overall I have the mindset you describe. I think it's kind of like the factoid that ~70-80% of people say they are better than average at driving. In particular, a healthy level of self esteem helps individuals to perform better because they are more confident and take advantage of more opportunities. And I think "USA is the best country" is a myth that creates the self-assuredness that makes Americans come off as "pushy" to everyone else. In many (but not all) businesses, a "pushy" strategy works well financially. So even though it seems illogical, it's not that attributes of America cause it to be "best", but that America thinking of itself as "best" causes it to have certain strategic attributes. Now, that said, many Americans have a totally unhealthy level of self-esteem that turns into nationalism, white supremacy or near-fascism. TBH I don't know how to deal with those people, but by my logic above it might be more successful to help them consider the impact of their beliefs rather than why their beliefs are wrong.
- philzook 6y agoAmerica invented many things, but we did not invent nationalism. It is natural to feel good things about a place where all your loved ones live and has a language and culture that is familiar to you. You really think it makes no sense to Europeans to think of their country as "the best"? It seems to some degree to be the character of most right wing parties I'm aware of that this is a part of their stance. But also, America is the best: 1. American Breakfast 2. American Coffee 3. McDonald's 4. Best Movies 5. Most Jacked I could go on and on.
- angry_octet 6y agoDefinitely the best in their category. No one makes better American Coffee than Americans. What I find interesting is that Americans are most proud of their culture at home, and when overseas that tends to be moderated. Whereas some immigrants always say their native country has 'the best X'. I'm thinking in particular about some Greek immigrants I've known, but then in the next breath they'll tell you about corruption back home.
- HatchedLake721 6y agoThis list made me laugh and made me worried I missed a sarcasm somewhere. I’ll give you best movies because of Hollywood, but everything else, really? Have you travelled much outside the US? It’s seems so weird to hear “USA the best because breakfast, coffee, and McDonald’s”, it sounds like a cliche. What do you mean by jacked?
- fighterpilot 6y agoThey're talking about an absolute/total sense instead of relative to per-capita situation. If we forget that the US has more people, they are the best at many things. Science, GDP, sports, and so on. That's probably what he means when he says "best". It'd be like calling Google or Apple the "best" tech companies even though you can make more money at some small startups. It's true in some sense (they're the biggest, dominant, etc), not necessarily true in the per-capita sense (I might have a better time somewhere else).
- HatchedLake721 6y agoReminded me of this https://youtu.be/4fTkA3dvpPM https://youtu.be/4fTkA3dvpPM