Are We Americans “Spoiled”?
May 18, 2022
A quote from Jessica Wildfire’s May 18th story on Medium: “We are spoiled.”
She’s referring to the baby formula shortage and how our culture of almost mindless dependence on technology causes us to think our life of conveniences has always been the norm. (Nothing could be farther from the facts as she explains.)
For me her story has broader, deeper meaning. That’s because I recently started taking German language courses online. This has re-exposed me to an entirely different culture, one which is notably more formal and empathetic. Others include are countries like Japan, also more formal and socially aware than in the U.S.. (I took two years of German in high school, more than 50 years ago. I noticed this difference then and I notice it even more today.)
Since beginning to reacquaint myself with the German language and culture I’ve also run across comments by German immigrants who’ve lived here a while and from American expatriates who’ve lived in Germany for a while (a few years). One comment about some things that German immigrants have found hard to believe: “I cannot understand why so many Americans don’t believe in facts.” Wow — exactly the problem we who do believe in facts are experiencing. I see the most people indicating they don’t believe in a set of facts from American Christians (not the same kind as Christians in other countries) and those who are choosing sides in the political war now being waged in the United States. Democrats don’t believe in any fact presented by any Republican and Republicans don’t believe in any fact presented by any Democrat.
Oh and comments from both American ex-patriots and German immigrants match up very well. Both believe that living in America makes one feel unsafe. This feeling is non existent in most other Western countries. It was non existent in the United States until the 1990s too.
To say, “Thank you, officer.” In German you say, “Danke, Offizier.” Notice that Offizier is capitalized, that’s because everyone in Germany uses the formal tense when addressing law enforcement officers. Here in the States it’s more often, “Go to hell you stupid pig!” See the difference in cultural norms?
Our most prominent politicians on both sides also indulge in the disregard for facts and almost pathological antipathy toward others. Bill Clinton, 1990s: “It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” Donald Trump 2016–2020: “More fake news…”. The idea that one can choose their own word definitions is now firmly entrenched. No one provides the dictionary definition for anything any more. (Casually discarding nearly two centuries of hard work by thousands of experts in word meanings and origins — such as that found in the Oxford English Dictionary.)
And both Democrats and Republicans routinely accuse the other party of committing not just mistakes but actual crimes. (But few if any of those “crimes” are ever even considered by a prosecutor.). Two consecutive attempts to impeach President Trumps were struck down by the US Senate yet prominent Democrats still routinely say he was impeached. It’s “as good as” replacing actual fact.
For me, becoming an independent voter was simply a matter of reviewing the actions of both parties and the consequential turnover from one party to the other in cyclic fashion. I decided it would be illogical (and stupid) to continue favoring one over the other based on some vague notion of loyalty to one party. Neither deserves that loyalty from any of us. How can these incredibly dishonest organizations expect us to keep voting them into power? Yet millions of “loyal” voters consistently vote for all the candidates of the Democratic or Republican Party.
As Mark Twain once said, “Both parties accuse each other of the most terrible things. Both are correct.” We tend to treat this as a humorous comment, but Mark Twain was dead serious though he used his cleverness to make it seem funny.
When you decide to become loyal to any political party: you license that party to distort reality in any way that party wants to skew reality.
When an honest person is told they’ve been mistaken in one of their statements, instead of anger they respond with acknowledging their error and often with corrective action. None of us is error free so I have found it leaves me feeling better about myself and the other person because they respectfully pointed out a mistake to me. But the current situation is now almost inevitably marked by both parties feeling anger and animosity toward each other. Isn’t feeling better not worse the more desirable goal for us?
Recently I wrote about an error Tucker Carlson made in his 10PM program on Fox News. I couldn’t have been the only person doing so because the very next night Carlson spoke again on the same topic, omitting his erroneous line of logic. It will be a great day indeed when I see someone on the Democratic Party side do the same decent thing.
This is the way to detoxify American thinking. We didn’t learn this in high school civics class because when I took that course it was just assumed everyone would “believe in facts” and treat each other with civility and with good manners. Notice too that “civics” is all about how to be a responsible and well informed U.S. citizen. Civility = good citizen.
We are spoiled, and misled to believe that animosity and constant casualness accomplishes good. Say what you mean, mean what you say and be grateful for any corrections to the errors we all sometimes make.