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> When Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too. This doesn't hold true for any
by jonascopenhagen 14y ago
> When Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too.
This doesn't hold true for any of the Americans I've met (and I've met a lot). Also, one of the countries Martin Varsavsky mentions in his examples is actually the UK.
If it were true that the American definition of Europe doesn't include Eastern Europe, what part of the world do the many Americans who visit Budapest believe they're in? Asia?
> The Europe that Americans refer to does mostly use the Euro, have better-distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, and ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs in most of its parts.
Western European countries that don't use the Euro: Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway (and then there's the UK, but of course that isn't part of your definition of Europe).
> Perhaps the main point of the post was, be aware that Eastern Europe exists?
No, the main point was, if you visit e.g. the UK, don't make general observations about Europe based on that.
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- milesskorpen 14y agoI think most Americans would break the European continent into "Europe" (aka continental W. Europe), the UK, East Europe, and Russia. Even if rounded up, there is a clear distinction between Europe (W. Europe + UK) and East Europe (E Europe + Russia) which probably has something to do with Cold War borders and allies.
- loxs 14y agoCorrect regarding the reasons and wrong regarding the current situation. You will be much more spot-on if you divide between the "former USSR" and "rest of Europe". Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA. "The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but not only) the EU. This is only the political situation. In terms of culture, language, religion, markets, laws, all the differences remain.
- loxs 14y agoOh, and not to forget... this is a huge generalization on my side. There are huge exceptions to this, eg. the Baltic Countries.
- jonascopenhagen 14y agoThe majority of Eastern European countries were not part of the USSR. They were USSR's allies in the Warsaw Pact - in the same way that the Western European countries were USA's allies in NATO - but they were independent nations. I'm talking about countries such as Poland, The Czech Republic + Slovakia (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, the countries that were formerly Yugoslavia, etc. > Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. Not true at all. I've been to both Russia and several other Eastern European countries, and I can guarantee you that even within the former USSR there were many different languages, ethnicities, and religions.
- ajuc 14y agoNitpicking: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other satelittes of USSR weren't really independent. Certainly not in same way that UK or France were allies of USA. Maybe Yugoslavia was independent, but others for sure not. Moscow made all the decisions, elections were rigged, there were uprisings, etc, etc. I know you probably know that, but just in case.
- _pferreir_ 14y agoWell, they were "de jure" independent, I guess that's what (s)he means. They had their own anthem, flag, currency, government, etc...
- nuxi 14y agoNote that Yugoslavia was not part of the Warsaw Pact. It was aligned with USSR until 1948 when the Informbiro period started - i.e. the Tito-Stalin split.
- _pferreir_ 14y ago> Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA. Wrong. There are significant Russian-speaking minorities in most of those countries, but they all have their own official language (with the exception of Russia [doh...] and Belarus, I believe). They all had them before WWII, Russian having been an imposition of the occupying power. Common Religion? Have a look at Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan... all of them countries with overwhelming Muslim majorities. Let's not confuse the Soviet ideal of a common language and religion (lack thereof) with real life. The USSR was imposed by the use of force after WWII, it has got nothing to do with the US. > "The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but not only) the EU. Well, Switzerland for one has a long history of trying to avoid it at all cost, and the UK seems to actually want to loosen its ties with the EU. I can't imagine Norway or Iceland wanting to join the club anytime soon. There are negotiations ongoing with Turkey, but the case for accession seem to be losing internal momentum. The EU has reached a point at which getting to a political consensus is basically impossible. At the same time, the emergence of Asia and Latin America as new centers of economic growth is having an impact on the Union's importance both commercially and politically. And the ongoing sovereign debt crisis isn't helping.
- kamjam 14y agoI think most Americans would break the European continent into "Europe" (aka continental W. Europe), the UK, East Europe, and Russia. I think you're over generalizing now in thinking that most Americans know any other nations exist outside of America! I don't think I have ever met anyone though that doesn't think of the UK as part of Europe. Note there is a very clear distinction between Europe and the European Union. UK is part of both, we are not part of the Euro$ experiment though. See, difficult to generalize already!
- mpweiher 14y ago"I don't think I have ever met anyone though that doesn't think of the UK as part of Europe." Except Brits, of course ;-)
- drone 14y agoI think you're over generalizing now in thinking that most Americans know any other nations exist outside of America! Are you kidding me? This base derogatory discourse does no one any favors.
- jlgreco 14y agoIf you asked most Americans who have visited Budapest where they went/what area they were in, they would say Budapest. If you to press, they would admit that they were on the continent of Europe, but wonder why that mattered. Similarly, if they went to India, they would tell you they were in India. Upon further questioning, they would admit that they were in fact also in Asia, but would be puzzled as to why that mattered. Similarly, if they went to Egypt, they would tell you they were in Egypt. Upon further questioning they would admit that they were in fact in Africa, but would again be puzzled as to why that mattered. Now, on the other hand, if they went to France they would either describe themselves as having gone to France, or having gone to Europe. The key theme here is that the casual American mind, contrary to popular belief, doesn't generalize based on continent boundaries, but rather at a finer (often)multi-country/sub-continent grain. The largest unit of generalization on any particular continent gets the name of the continent (be it Africa, Asia, or Europe (I suspect Americans do generalize South America, and include anything south of the US in that generalization)). That doesn't mean they are generalizing the continent itself.
- lobster_johnson 14y ago> If you asked most Americans ... they would say How do you know what they would say? Aren't you wildly speculating, while at the same time inventing answers to imaginary surveys? I really dislike this kind of argumentation. This thread has a huge amount of Malcolm Gladwell-esque gut-feeling-generalization-disguised-as-indisputable-fact, but it adds nothing and only serves to validate the OP's point, which is that generalizations are bad because they are usually wrong.
- jlgreco 14y agoI am extrapolating from myself. Ask a kid to "Draw Africa" and you will get a wildly different picture than if you ask the kid to "Draw Egypt". Clearly the child is not generalizing all of Africa; the child does not include Egypt in the internalized perception of what Africa "is" even though they know full well that Egypt is in Africa. This isn't some sort of strange emergent phenomenon, it is nothing more than the result of how places are portrayed in popular media. "Egypt" and "Africa" are distinct destinations, despite the (well understood) geographic reality. It shouldn't be a controversial statement, I am not saying anything that is the slightest bit profound.
- treenyc 14y agohi, I'm in Denmark at the moment, would like talk to you about my impression of Denmark. How can I contact you?
- jonascopenhagen 14y agoShoot me a message at https://www.facebook.com/bentzenj https://www.facebook.com/bentzenj