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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   32506 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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racially insensitive (including towards other Eastern Europeans, e.g. gypsies and Albanians)

That's nothing. In Europe, everyone hates gypsies (and pikeys, if they are British or Irish and educated enough to know the difference). Our so-called-liberal-elite just know to shut up about it in public. /r/historymemes is down, but there are some epic memes on this point.

True, but I think that blue tribe Americans (most people on here) would be surprised by that.

Blue Americans look at Western Europe, and love to pretend it is the anti-south; a mythical place where none of what they hate about their own nation exists. This is of course very silly, as are Red Americans who pick up on this and look down on Europeans the same way they do with their own cosmopolitan countrymen.

These attitudes are (very annoyingly) fed by the issue that the only Europeans most Americans will deal with are the cosmopolitan ones themselves. Normal people don't like having to shift to English all that much and will stick to themselves, leaving the everyday 'voice' of Europe to what is our blue tribe equivalent.

Good points. The cultural divides in Europe are generally big, even if they're different in complex ways from the US, e.g. being a Christian Democrat, a VVD supporter etc. is acceptable in cosmopolitan circles in Germanic countries (in my limited experience) whereas in Italy or the UK things are more fraught. I can usually guess people's political views in the UK or Italy, whereas in e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, or the parts of Eastern Europe I know, it's much harder.

Is it really fair to say that most people on here are blue tribe Americans? That's not my read.

(actually, if we do a survey at some point, we should totally have it include what tribe people most identify with)

Let's check the original definition:

The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.

Perhaps not quite, though I imagine that a lot of people on here tick a high proportion of those boxes, with a few being rare e.g. liberal political beliefs about immigration, conspicuously being upset about sexists or bigots, or driving Priuses. The same would be true of the Grey Tribe definition:

There is a partly-formed attempt to spin off a Grey Tribe typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk

Many of these fit, but I think that libertarians are overrepresented on here but not a majority, and Dawkins-style atheism is present but quite rare.

Not everyone, but only because the modal northwest European has never met one.

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