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Notes -
I think many European criticisms of American culture and red states are psychologically grounded in fear of American foreign policy posture and its impacts on the rest of the world. Going on about your Big Gulps, guns and megachurches may not be entirely rational, because in themselves they do not affect us much. But Europe doesn't spend a lot of time thinking itself superior to rural regions of other countries (it doesn't think of them at all). When it comes to America, though, there's sometimes a tendency to focus critically on the traits we see projected out into the world in the form of foreign policy and through multinational companies.
We might be wrong about the details of whatever southeastern state you're from, but we're not wrong about the material effects the US people's choices have on us, and sometimes that disgruntlement comes out wrong.
Sorry, might post might have been unclear. I was saying that European mockery of the US is analogous to NE or NW USians' mockery of Southeastern USians. In both cases, the mockery is rooted in an overestimation of one's understanding of the target of mockery, as well as a feeling of superiority that inoculates against any curiosity about the target.
As I said in another post, I think it's perfectly fair for Europeans to criticize American foreign policy, and I do not take it personally when I hear such criticisms.
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