That’s a lot of stuff, to say nothing of the fact that non-policy attributes of the United States, like it being really large, have a lot of good policy-relevant features. It’s relatively easy in this country to just go someplace else and “start over,” we’re not dominated by a single hegemonic city, people aren’t especially under pressure to conform, etc.Well, I have no idea what the first sentence of the above means, but as for the conclusion, let me say this about that. Virtually every significant foreign writer who has discussed America has noted that ours is an exceedingly conformist society, indeed, they have gone so far as to consider our political, philosophical, and intellectual conformism the most salient feature of American culture. We are less tolerant of idiosyncrasy, eccentricity, and dissent than any other "Western" society. There is a deep undercurrent of distrust, bordering on hatred, for heterodox opinions and ideas, and no, I am not talking about whether or not one believes in "single-payer health care" or thinks we should have "free markets."
-Yglesias
Also to the point, we have a cultural bias toward conversational accomodationism, so whereas if you dine with a group of French or English, you will encounter a diversity of opinion on all manner of subjects forthrightly and forcefully expressed, among similar groups of Americans you will inevitably see an intentional moderating of opinion to give the appearance of greater agreement.
49 comments:
"cultural bias toward conversational accomodationism"
As a sometime expatriate, lemme just say: yes.
This is why Jews don't fit in. We like to fucking ARGUE.
I could use a good ass-kicking, I'll be very honest with you.
What the fuck is he talking about, man?
I often wonder if little Mattie is a Yale plant, whose mission is to "devalue the Harvard brand".
Among other things, little Mattie might reflect on how it is that, 70 or 100 years ago, there were significant numbers of American Wobblies, Klan members, Trotskyites, Bundists. Today? People toss around terms like "socialist" or "fascist" as epithets, but they've become as meaningless as grunts.
(Oh, tradition: What's more, nobody acknowledges that at least socialism and fascism are ethoses/ethosi.)
-- sglover
ethi?
A thousand times, yes.
...an intentional moderating of opinion to give the appearance of greater agreement.
This is so true, and I always end up hating myself when I contribute to it.
You people are so....well, actually you make good points.
No, you're totally wrong.
Oh, wait, I'm British.
So what if the French can forcefully speak their mind if they are unwilling to back it up with action?
As we Americans like to say, talk is cheap.
I'm confused...Did you just make the point that generally we (Americans) don't allow for dissent and have very little room for disagreement...and then back that up with a point about we like to water down our actual opinions so we can come to an "agreement"? So we're very intolerant of dissent but also end up agreeing around the dinner table.
I need a map or somethin...
"This is so true, and I always end up hating myself when I contribute to it."
Hating yourself if you contribute to it or hated if you refuse to contribute to it. Life's a bitch.
"whereas if you dine with a group of French or English, you will encounter a diversity of opinion on all manner of subjects forthrightly and forcefully expressed, among similar groups of Americans you will inevitably see an intentional moderating of opinion to give the appearance of greater agreement."
Ah, so they're more like Swedes then?
--
"So what if the French can forcefully speak their mind if they are unwilling to back it up with action?"
Indeed. Apart from the massive street protests, dumping manure outside government offices, general strikes, and boss-kidnappings, what have the French ever done for themselves?
tm - well there's the whole defending Paris thing they've never tried.
If indeed it is true the US has a cultural bias toward conversational accomodation, this blog-and I'd guess 99% of others-sure doesn't bear that out. So maybe what you are saying is that we just tend toward politeness in face to face communication around the dinner table. Certainly not a universal truth, but even if it was, I am not sure why that makes us worthy of scorn because no one likes to dine with an arrogant jerk; bad for digestion.
Not just foreigners:
It seems to me that this necessity is responsible for one of the characters that observers often note in the average American, to wit, the character of orthodoxy, of eager conformity—in brief, the fear to give offense. “More than any other people,” said Wendell Phillips one blue day, “we Americans are afraid of one another.” The saying seems harsh. It goes counter to the national delusion of uncompromising independence and limitless personal freedom. It wars upon the national vanity. But all the same there is a good deal of truth in it.
What is often mistaken for an independent spirit, in dealing with the national traits, is not more than a habit of crying with the pack. The American is not a joiner for nothing. He joins something, whether it be a political party, a church or a tin-pot fraternal order, because joining makes him a part of something larger and safer than he is — because it gives him chance to work off his steam within prudent limits. Beyond lie the national taboos. Beyond lies true independence — and the heavy penalties that go therewith. Once over the border, and the whole pack is on the heretic.
- The American by H.L. Mencken
The New York Evening Mail, May 3, 1918
So what if the French can forcefully speak their mind if they are unwilling to back it up with action?
So, pointing out that other countries display more of a healthy ability to tolerate dissent and disagreement without feeling the need to superficially judge and condemn brings out yet another example of the cheese-eating surrender monkey trope. It gets fresher and funnier every time!
You know, Erin, France lost close to a million men in the first World War, so it's really no surprise that they, along with pretty much everyone except a psychopath like Hitler, were not too eager to start another war twenty years later, not to mention that of all the factors underlying their quick collapse in WW2, some type of cowardice inherent in the French character was pretty far down the list. So go fuck yourself with a stale baguette, you dumb bitch.
"well there's the whole defending Paris thing they've never tried"
Never tried, outside multiple world wars?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1204213/Spoof-poster-Obamas-face-painted-The-Joker-branded-dangerous-mean-spirited.html .
"A poster depicting Barack Obama as Batman villain The Joker has been called 'mean-spirited and dangerous' by the U.S. President's supporters.
The image, which has been adopted by Mr Obama's critics, shows him wearing the white face paint and smudged red lips of the character most recently played by the late actor Heath Ledger. Beneath the picture reads the word 'socialism'."
I stand coorected-the pressure to conform to IOZian thought is certainly strong here.
Could any of you guys perhaps grow a pair and express some kind of dissent to anything he says - besides Steveb?
erin4, can't speak for these guys but I'm here because I share a great many perceptions with our host and find his expression of them entertaining and usually spot-on. It's the entertainment, cuz, not the dissent.
"If indeed it is true the US has a cultural bias toward conversational accomodation...I am not sure why that makes us worthy of scorn "
"Could any of you guys perhaps grow a pair and express some kind of dissent to anything he says"
Talk about movable goalposts.
Hey troll, how's the trolling?
"tm - well there's the whole defending Paris thing they've never tried."
Well, dumbfuck, they actually did in the Battle of the Marne circa 1914...and they succeeded. I remind you that a century earlier, we were not so successful in defending our capital.
Well, Erin, the general beliefs and opinions offered by IOZ, from the usefulness of political activism/voting, to drug legalization, to foreign policy, to an obsessive interest in The Big Lebowski, would mark one as a strange bird around pretty much any dinner table in this great nation of ours; the fact that there seems to be a small group of people here that also share those beliefs/opinions does not indicate "conformism", unless you think that everyone should be an incomprehensible island unto himself/herself. Besides, if you haven't noticed, we disagree and insult each other all the time.
And for that matter, my telling you to go fuck yourself with a stale baguette was related to my disgust with yet another right-wing moron taking an irrelevant cheap shot at a ridiculous caricature of France, not an attempt to curry favor with IOZ, whose opinions on the essence of the French character or on the proper usage of baguette-dildos are unknown to me.
Your ability to logically follow along is really terrible. Did you go to the same law school as Orly Taitz?
In the context of cheese-eating surrender monkeyhood, it's worth mentioning that Reagan, Ford and Eisenhower were appeasers. Yes, they appeased with a will when the going got tough. They were spanked, respectively, by a Lebanese militia, the Vietnamese and the North Koreans -- and they appeased them. Oh, the disgrace and shame of it all!
It is true, it is true--Frenchmen are so unlike Americans. The opposite of us, in fact.
Can anyone remind me what Americans are again? There seem to be so many of us, it's hard to keep track, whereas there is only one sort of Frenchman.
"Could any of you guys perhaps grow a pair and express some kind of dissent to anything he says"
I got some dissent. It's quadratesticular dissent too, or maybe something to do with chromosomes. Anyway. IOZ should have voted for the Ambien Grandpa and his Glossolalia Nurse. If he was serious about his Leninist Appeasement Strategy, that's what he would have done. Grandpa would have appeased Iraq and Afghanistan, that's what. He would have because his faction is the faction of Appeasement.
But IOZ, like all his fellow Leninists, is unserious and missed his chance.
I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man.
"Well there's the whole defending Paris thing they've never tried"
Ahh, history began in 1939. Beautifully done.
"We have a cultural bias toward conversational accomodationism..."
I was at a White House dinner the other night, and I found myself quietly agreeing with everyone just to get along. I was all, like, "Trig Palin? Sure, let's snuff the bitch."
On a positive note, they offered me a slot on a death board. And dessert was delicious.
I am always intrigued by American antipathy towards the French. Had it not been for French support of, and tactical advice to, Mr G Washington, there probably wouldn't have been a United States.
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7061&IBLOCK_ID=35
What I find peculiar/entertaining is how you all believe you're so CONTROVERSIAL and UNIQUE!!!! without realizing that you are the cliche; your thinking is the new orthodoxy. And it doesn't require any cajones, apparently, for the buy-in.
Erin, that's a churlish and jejune style of imputation. I, for one, am neither controversial nor unique. I do not think I am because I know that I am not. Passionate mind-reading will not convince me that I believe otherwise. In this, I am like millions of others.
This blog itself is a nice little enclave, with an interesting host and frequently interesting guests. An affinity for and appreciation of that is not orthodoxy.
The blog is one of many thousands of such places scattered across the web. There are... a lot of people who don't think in terms of testicles, the grabbing thereof and the lack thereof. There are plenty of writers as skilled and entertaining as Monsieur. It's a big world! There are lots and lots of people, with rich cultures and traditions. And some days, it's grand to simply be alive amongst them, even if they aren't controversial or unique.
Erin seems to think we disagree as a matter of course. If we agree, then, we somehow invalidate our meager protests.
Agreement and harmony are not inconsistent with autonomy and reason. So there are some here who agree. Elsewhere, they differ. This isn't a system. It isn't a program. It's a group of people (if one can call it that), with natural affiliations and natural disconnects.
I don't seek to align myself with IOZ--or with any other person--though I will say that he's definitely made me consider a few things. But when I do agree, it is because I have found myself in the same place as another person, rather than shifted my views to fit that person's.
As far as my thinking having become the new orthodoxy... I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. Reading your comment, I realize how much I prefer Inkberrow. I have been unfair to him.
Shorter Erin: I love that bumper sticker - "You Non-Conformists Are All Alike." HAW HAW! It's so true!!
So Erin, at any point are you going to own up to the fact that your stupid, witless Franco-bashing was rightfully smacked down, or are you going to keep trying to distract us by calling us followers?
Show just a little bit of god damned intellectual integrity, I beg of you.
Since we're on the topic, let me say that I love reading books by foreign authors visiting America and giving their impressions, so if anyone has any recommendations that I might be unaware of, I'd be glad to hear them.
Wait -- did that sound too conformist and agreeable? What I meant to say was: if any of you cockbiting swampdonkeys have any suggestions for books like that, list them so I can mock you mercilessly for your shitty taste.
Sure anon131, but first, true story.
Saw an ad on ebay recently:
French field rifle-never fired; only dropped once.
And btw, your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of elderberry.
You do have a sense of humor, right?
Seriously, my original point was simply that if Ioz's observation is correct, why is that so bad? So what if we recognize we need to band together according to a set of ideals? We don't have the blood ties to the land that other countries have and what makes someone an American who wasn't born here is agreeing to a set of creeds set forth in the Constitution.
The whole French/not defending Paris line was a joke. I guess I should have included a "jk" after, but it's such an old joke I thought it unnecessary- and helping you all take a look in the mirror at your own intolerance of dissent- while simultaneously criticizing Americans for conversational accommodationalism- was just a side benefit.
Some of you may not be aware that I enjoy Ioz too,obviously for the length of time I've been trolling around here, but it woild be nice if a few more of you thought critically about his whole world view, rather than continually lapping it up.
Whoa, Erin--you're moving the goalposts there. IOZ wasn't talking about "band[ing] together according to a set of ideals." He was talking about the tendency to keep one's ideals to oneself when dining with others. Once again, you seem to have agreement confused with conformity. And you may very well confuse them, but they are two different concepts. It is very good if a group of diners share common values, and very good if a community does as well, but that's not what IOZ or, indeed, anyone other than you was discussing.
Specifically, my experience has been that American political discussion is anemic, timid, and intellectually stunted for its being so little practiced. Our political divisions are not even so broad as some other countries--take France, for example--and yet we can still not bear the slightest upset from those we claim to hold close to us. So we button our lip and discuss local sports or the weather. It may be the reason why our politicians are so daft and embarrassing; our basic citizenship skills, let alone the ability to understand others as human beings, are sorely lacking.
And I wish you'd define "lapping it up." I'm not sure who's done that. Some of my praise for IOZ has been particularly cloying, but I and most other people here are happy to point out his errors or contradictions. It's a blog, not holy writ.
(And can anyone else explain to me why authoritarians always accuse others of being cult members and symps? Jesus, if that's not projection...)
What do you think happens when you move to America? You turn in your library card? Get a new driver's license? Stop being Jewish?
DEATH TO AMERICA!!1!
To bring things back to the original post: Yes. The US has a stiflingly conformist culture. John Lewis Gaddis, writing specifically about the First Red Scare (which he viewed as an outbreak of paranoid hyper-conformity in ideology), said it well when he said that behind the various deportations and lynchings of that period lay the fear that the US "was really a very dis-united place". Our culture may have adapted to accommodate our diversity by becoming more authoritarian over time. How else can a system survive so long keeping millions of slaves/second-class citizens, etc. Hell, we didn't have a Catholic prez until 1961. Conformity of culture is the price we pay for keeping all those WASPs on top for so long when their subjects kept getting darker, and Catholic-er, and Mexican-er, etc.
my experience with americans and europeans regarding political conversations and acrimony (or hegemony or conformi-mony) is generally reversed. odd.
Erin,
The best thing you can take away from this fast-paced exchange at net is that "cajones" means big boxes in Spanish, not "testicles" (cojones). Or you could learn to say balls in French, which might give you your first real in insight on France.
-Smin
Oh Erin, I have a sense of humor, it's just not a shitty sense of humor. "French r cowerds !!!111" jokes are about on par with people from NYC making fun of Jersey or lady golfers all being dykes as far as tired, unfunny jokes go. Just because it's an old joke doesn't mean it's a good one.
I'd ask for a little originality or at least some historical accuracy if you're going to stereotype a whole nation's character, but you're you so I'm not going to hold my breath.
I'll bet your kids have permanent cringe-face from having to endure all your shitty hacktastic jokes over the years.
Rectum? I could've killed 'em!
reflexive conformism:reflexive dissent::heads:tails
Anonymous asked for book recommendations. Luigi Barzini, next to Nabokov, is one of the loveliest foreign writers of English prose. He was an Italian immigrant to the US in the 20s and wrote O'America. The Europeans, another of his books, contained a chapter on Americans as well (and chapters on 4 other European nations).
Entertaining stuff.
As a naturalized American, I share Anonymous' taste for writing on and about America and Americans; it's a country very amenable to mythologizing.
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