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> But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. > If they're willing to break trust with the person clo

> But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. > If they're willing to break trust with the person closest to them in their life, what chance do I have as a mere business partner of not being screwed over at some point? That's a very American perspective. People position on extramarital affair is extremely culturaly dependant. It goes from deep public revulsion despite statitics showing people massively cheat in the extremely puritanical USA to silent acceptance in a "what I don't know don't hurt me" in part of Europe. People business life and private life are not the same things. I would avoid making too many black-and-white extreme judgments based on things you necessarily have a very narrow view.

rsj_hn 5y ago
We could use a bit less wildly inaccurate stereotypes than "extremely puritanical USA". Please consider updating your views of our country from the 18th Century. Imagine if I went around ranting about "extremely Catholic France".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  In my experience, such attitudes leave a hefty footprint on the culture -- or if you prefer, take much longer to shake off than the regime that bred them, religious in this case. In Europe you can still very clearly see which countries have a protestant, "work hard or go to hell" attitude to life, and which have an, oddly, Catholic "let's enjoy life and see how it goes" approach. Religion participation rates have dwindled away in Western Europe for sure, since WWII if not before.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Sure, but there is a difference between "being influenced by puritan culture along with many other historical forces" and "extremely puritan nation". I'm also not so sure about the accuracy of your Catholic stereotypes. The greatest German industry and wealth is in the Catholic south ("upper Germany"), for example, and not in the Protestant North or Northeast. Similarly there are huge differences between Northern and Southern Italy yet both are Catholic, so I don't think it's religion that is the difference maker when comparing, say, Germany and Italy's productivity and work habits.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      Well, for one, I'm not claiming that religious affiliation is a sole determinant of future success. Also, Prussia was subsequently steam-rolled by the USSR machine. But compare general attitudes in France, Italy, Spain vs. Netherlands and the Nordics. Or Austria vs. Germany. I think the overall point is quite valid. If you look at a whole host of societal norms in the US, they will be quite puritanical, compared to a bunch of [formerly] Catholic places, even though the US is far more socially liberal than many (most?) Catholic countries. You can always argue about what words to use to quantify, is it "extremely" puritan or merely "strongly influenced", not sure this can lead anywhere.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        > If you look at a whole host of societal norms in the US, they will be quite puritanical Honestly, I don't see this and think it's both bad history and bad social commentary. Cities all across the country let people walk into a store and steal whatever they want without prosecution. Homeless people defecating in city squares. Higher levels of corruption and bribery than in Europe. Much more more crime and lawlessness than in Europe. Certainly doesn't seem puritanical to me. If you are seriously interested in the U.S. founding, I'd recommend reading Albion's Seed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed Yes, there were puritans in New England. But also tobacco farmers in Virginia, Cavaliers, and Scotch-Irish and border English in the South, and the Spanish Catholic settlers in California and Florida. Incidentally the first European settlement of the US was Spanish Catholics. And then of course waves of primarily Catholic immigrants from Europe in the 1920s and the current wave of primarily Catholic immigrants from Latin America. It might be interesting to note that historically the U.S. was viewed (by Europeans) as a corrupt, lawless country, made wealthy by enormous land/person ratios. It was only after WW1 that the U.S. began to flex its economic power but it still maintained a "gangster" reputation, and in fact was the home of many world famous gangsters and scoundrels, together with grifting machine politics in all the major urban cities from Boston's Irish machine that gave us the Kennedy dynasty to Huey Long's machine in the South and virtually everything in between. Puritan was simply not the first word that came to mind in any meaningful description of the U.S. dating from the 19th century onwards.
refurb 5y ago
No, it’s not a uniquely American perspective. Generally humans (not all) value things like fairness and truth. Many will toss those to the side in the pursuit of things like money and power, but it’s pretty universal that screwing people over is viewed poorly.
- simonh 5y ago
  The thing is in many cultures, or social groups, extra-marital affairs (usually for men) are normalised and accepted. It's simply not seen as a trust or fairness issue. And yes this can be mysogynistic and abusive, but these attitudes do exist.
  - refurb 5y ago
    I live in one of those cultures today and I’d emphasize the “tolerated” part. Not that dissimilar to physically hitting your spouse. Nobody likes it but feel powerless to change it. But I wouldn’t say it’s viewed positively or even neutrally.
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      > I live in one of those cultures today and I’d emphasize the “tolerated” part. Not that dissimilar to physically hitting your spouse. It has absolutely nothing in common with hitting your spouse. It is extremely frowned upon to openly display it but relatively accepted if it's discreet. It's very correlated to the relation a population has to sex. People in very religious countries where sex is seen as moraly dubious have very strong view against infidelity and people in countries with a more casual view of sex don't think it's such a big deal. France is a relatively extreme example. The last Pew Research Center study shows that only 47% of the French thinks that infidelity is moraly unacceptable and there is no large gap between women and men answers.
      - cm2012 5y ago
        If it's culturally acceptable, a wink wink nudge nudge that both partners understand, it's not cheating since no trust is really broken. It's just an open relationship, who cares.

rsj_hn 5y ago

We could use a bit less wildly inaccurate stereotypes than "extremely puritanical USA". Please consider updating your views of our country from the 18th Century. Imagine if I went around ranting about "extremely Catholic France".

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rich_sasha 5y ago
In my experience, such attitudes leave a hefty footprint on the culture -- or if you prefer, take much longer to shake off than the regime that bred them, religious in this case. In Europe you can still very clearly see which countries have a protestant, "work hard or go to hell" attitude to life, and which have an, oddly, Catholic "let's enjoy life and see how it goes" approach. Religion participation rates have dwindled away in Western Europe for sure, since WWII if not before.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Sure, but there is a difference between "being influenced by puritan culture along with many other historical forces" and "extremely puritan nation". I'm also not so sure about the accuracy of your Catholic stereotypes. The greatest German industry and wealth is in the Catholic south ("upper Germany"), for example, and not in the Protestant North or Northeast. Similarly there are huge differences between Northern and Southern Italy yet both are Catholic, so I don't think it's religion that is the difference maker when comparing, say, Germany and Italy's productivity and work habits.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    Well, for one, I'm not claiming that religious affiliation is a sole determinant of future success. Also, Prussia was subsequently steam-rolled by the USSR machine. But compare general attitudes in France, Italy, Spain vs. Netherlands and the Nordics. Or Austria vs. Germany. I think the overall point is quite valid. If you look at a whole host of societal norms in the US, they will be quite puritanical, compared to a bunch of [formerly] Catholic places, even though the US is far more socially liberal than many (most?) Catholic countries. You can always argue about what words to use to quantify, is it "extremely" puritan or merely "strongly influenced", not sure this can lead anywhere.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > If you look at a whole host of societal norms in the US, they will be quite puritanical Honestly, I don't see this and think it's both bad history and bad social commentary. Cities all across the country let people walk into a store and steal whatever they want without prosecution. Homeless people defecating in city squares. Higher levels of corruption and bribery than in Europe. Much more more crime and lawlessness than in Europe. Certainly doesn't seem puritanical to me. If you are seriously interested in the U.S. founding, I'd recommend reading Albion's Seed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed Yes, there were puritans in New England. But also tobacco farmers in Virginia, Cavaliers, and Scotch-Irish and border English in the South, and the Spanish Catholic settlers in California and Florida. Incidentally the first European settlement of the US was Spanish Catholics. And then of course waves of primarily Catholic immigrants from Europe in the 1920s and the current wave of primarily Catholic immigrants from Latin America. It might be interesting to note that historically the U.S. was viewed (by Europeans) as a corrupt, lawless country, made wealthy by enormous land/person ratios. It was only after WW1 that the U.S. began to flex its economic power but it still maintained a "gangster" reputation, and in fact was the home of many world famous gangsters and scoundrels, together with grifting machine politics in all the major urban cities from Boston's Irish machine that gave us the Kennedy dynasty to Huey Long's machine in the South and virtually everything in between. Puritan was simply not the first word that came to mind in any meaningful description of the U.S. dating from the 19th century onwards.

refurb 5y ago

No, it’s not a uniquely American perspective. Generally humans (not all) value things like fairness and truth. Many will toss those to the side in the pursuit of things like money and power, but it’s pretty universal that screwing people over is viewed poorly.

simonh 5y ago
The thing is in many cultures, or social groups, extra-marital affairs (usually for men) are normalised and accepted. It's simply not seen as a trust or fairness issue. And yes this can be mysogynistic and abusive, but these attitudes do exist.
- refurb 5y ago
  I live in one of those cultures today and I’d emphasize the “tolerated” part. Not that dissimilar to physically hitting your spouse. Nobody likes it but feel powerless to change it. But I wouldn’t say it’s viewed positively or even neutrally.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > I live in one of those cultures today and I’d emphasize the “tolerated” part. Not that dissimilar to physically hitting your spouse. It has absolutely nothing in common with hitting your spouse. It is extremely frowned upon to openly display it but relatively accepted if it's discreet. It's very correlated to the relation a population has to sex. People in very religious countries where sex is seen as moraly dubious have very strong view against infidelity and people in countries with a more casual view of sex don't think it's such a big deal. France is a relatively extreme example. The last Pew Research Center study shows that only 47% of the French thinks that infidelity is moraly unacceptable and there is no large gap between women and men answers.
    - cm2012 5y ago
      If it's culturally acceptable, a wink wink nudge nudge that both partners understand, it's not cheating since no trust is really broken. It's just an open relationship, who cares.