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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31421 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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The last gasp of the europoor

For years, I've been treated to a steady diet of smug elitism coming from effete liberal Europeans laughing at obese, gun-toting and bible-thumpin' Americans. This reached its crescendo during the George W. Bush administration, took a lull during the Obama years and was resurrected after Trump took office.

The American was an ignoramus, a loud-mouth, a religious fundamentalist and irreversibly stupid. Hopelessly inferior to us sophisticated and cosmopolitan Europeans. Did you know half of Americans don't even own a passport? Most don't even know a second language!? Ha! And don't get me started on their healthcare, their gun crime and all other sorts of social pathologies. America, you see, is a third world nation masquerading as a first world one.

But as the years went by, these smirks felt increasingly hollow. The economic distance - and with it, standard of living - between the two major partners is growing wider by the day. A young French econ professor at Wharton lays out the bad news over just how deluded his fellow Europeans are on this question. Prominent FT columnists have noted the same.

Yet, perhaps there is still time to save the last shreds of honor for us poor Europeans. For one, the gap in PPP terms doesn't seem to be changing much. Europe has been behind for a long time. In terms of total GDP, the situation is much the same. Another aspect is that Europeans tend to work fewer hours.

While some of these arguments may have some validity, they all feel like desperate excuses. I for one am very much happy to see the insufferable elitism of Europeans slowly being wiped off our collective smug faces. The uncouth and primitive barbarian across the ocean turned out to be smarter and harder-working all along.

Perhaps this can also lead to a more pro-capitalist liberalism in the US. For much of my upbringing, liberal Americans were typified by folks such as Michael Moore and his obsessive admiration of the European welfare state. Colbert's snark about the embarrassing Red State American always felt like an underhanded way to gain favor with declassé elites across the ocean. Ann Coulter's observation that liberal elites in the US loved soccer because it is European surely hit closer to home than many in the media were willing to admit.

Of course, there is still some amount of liberal American simping left in the bag. This is perhaps most obvious whenever there are discussions on urban policy and the words "walkable city" invariably comes up. (To be clear, I actually think Europe gets this part better than the US).

Outside of an increasingly narrowing set of areas where Europe still outperforms, we are slowly witnessing a reshuffling of the deck. The old illusions are slowly coming undone and reddit-tier arguments about the US being a third world hellhole are convincing fewer by the day. At long last, after years of insufferable and unjustified smug elitism, the europoor is finally unmasked as the sham living on a lie that he always was. And I couldn't be happier.

I for one am very much happy to see the insufferable elitism of Europeans slowly being wiped off our collective smug faces. The uncouth and primitive barbarian across the ocean turned out to be smarter and harder-working all along.

The average European doesn't care or think about you at all. And rolls his eyes when told how much you lot work.

Which is good for you, if Europe understood America's role in its affairs, we'd get a few of our own bin Laden figures.

elitism coming from effete liberal Europeans laughing at obese, gun-toting and bible-thumpin' Americans

You ever heard about the yellow vests? How do you think they feel about their own 'elites', the people who tell them that instead of paying for gas they should buy an e-car ?

third world hellhole are convincing fewer by the day.

There are no places in Europe as dangerous as the heavily black US cities.

reddit-tier arguments

Your entire post is boo-outgroup, in this case railing against the type of European who has a Ukraine flag in bio and uses twitter.

They're largely not present here at all, hence I'm calling the target seletion for your screed into question.

The average European doesn't care or think about you at all. And rolls his eyes when told how much you lot work.

I don't see this at all.

In my experience, Europeans are absolutely obsessed with America. They listen to American music, they watch American movies, and they follow American politics to the exclusion of their own.

I'm not sure how this reflects on Europeans. You could see it positively or negatively. Positively, as Europeans having a greater curiosity or knowledge of the greater world. Negatively, as Europeans feeling insecurities about their position in the world relative to the United States.

From a practical perspective, the obsession makes sense. European culture is downstream of American culture moreso than the opposite. Trends that start in America, whether obesity or rap music, often make their way across the pond. Europeans should be obsessed with America, just as people in Tennessee should be obsessed with California. What starts there comes here, more often than not.

What starts there comes here, more often than not.

This, exactly. It's absurd and ridiculous when our local progressives start parrotting the American talking-points that don't fit at all into the local context, but this is where we are now.

and they follow American politics to the exclusion of their own.

While I agree that American politics often spills into Europe (see the BLM and Women's marches), I think this is taking it too far. People in Europe are invested in the really big changes in America (e.g presidential elections or important supreme court cases) and to some extent the gossip and scandal surrounding individual politicians (though I could say the same for the Royal Family).

They neither know much of nor care about anything smaller than that, even if objectively the goings on in a state of tens of millions are as important as the goings on of a European country, but the smallest details of domestic scandals are regularly found on the front page of European newspapers. I've been living in France for the past few months, in April even if you avoided every newspaper and TV station you'd still hear about Macron's pension reforms from the man on the street.

Young Europeans will often know who JFK or Reagan were but will draw a blank on Mitterand or Helmut Kohl, unless they come from the country of respective leader. So I am not sure if @jeroboam is wrong here.

Interestingly, I've often found much higher name recognition for someone like Thatcher, but that could also just be an offhand sign of the status of English as the lingua franca.

I mean just being fair here I don’t think not knowing all of the previous leaders of your country is that unusual. Most Americans would struggle to name 15 Presidents of our 46. And of those who could, outside of really important leaders and events could not tell you what happened during the terms of those presidents. For most people, history is trivia, good to know, certainly, but doesn’t affect daily life in any real way.

unless they come from the country of respective leader.

Sure, they'll know a bunch of US presidents specifically and not many leaders of other European countries unless there's good reason to (e.g the Irish have always had to pay attention to British politics). Still, while America is the exception to the rule of knowing very little about foreign politics, domestic politics will still take the prime spot.

In my experience, Europeans are absolutely obsessed with America.

You should provide some data, such as EU music charts.

Here’s a relevant new top-level thread about American culture war in Europe: https://www.themotte.org/post/576/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/118884?context=8#context

Why are Hungarians fighting about Pride month (an American invention based upon events that happened in the US)?

Having spent several months in Europe, the dominance of US music seems so obvious as to not need explanation.

But here you go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Hot_100_Singles

The European Hot 100 Singles was compiled by Billboard and Music & Media magazine from March 1984 until December 2010. The chart was based on national singles sales charts in 17 European countries:

Most number-one singles

Madonna (17)

ABBA (13)

Michael Jackson (10)

Eminem (8)

Britney Spears (6)

Boney M. (6)

Elton John (5)

Rihanna (5)

Whitney Houston (5)

Beyoncé (4)

Kylie Minogue (4)

Robbie Williams (4)

Shakira (4)

Adding all those up by country we get

USA (50)

Sweden (13)

UK (9)

Germany (6)

Barbados / USA (5)

Australia (4)

Colombia (4)

This is just the top acts, obviously, but the US is so incredibly dominant that I don't feel the need to do a deeper dive.

This is not a particularly good way to show European music charts on this particular topic, actually, since the question is whether people in whatever country listen more to American music or their own country's music, and these charts aggregate around the common denominator, which is American (and, historically at least, UK) music.

According to this article I managed to find, Finland's most streamed songs in 2022 were:

  1. BESS – Ram pam pam

  2. JVG – Amatimies

  3. Ramses II – Villieläin

  4. Gettomasa – Shamppanjadieetillä

  5. Olli Halonen – Pohjola

  6. Harry Styles – As It Was

  7. El Migu - Erilainen

  8. Isac Elliot – 20min

  9. T Swoop – Mon Ami

  10. Pihlaja & Etta – Bändäri

Harry Styles is the only non-Finnish artist, and at least if we go by titles most of these are in Finnish. Predictably markets for music in Finnish are pretty sparse outside of Finland.

Here's the most sold music artists of all time in Finland. As one can see, the top 10 is entirely Finnish (and, apart from Nightwish, sing in Finnish), and Finnish artists take up 41 spots from the top 50.

Then again, Finns might have expectionally domestic tastes, but assuredly almost all of that, apart from Nightwish and HIM which managed to break abroad, would be utterly unfamiliar to non-Finns, and similarly, say, Dutch or Portuguese domestically popular artists would be unfamiliar to pretty much anyone who didn't make a specific effort to get to know them.

Then again, Finns might have expectionally domestic tastes, but assuredly almost all of that, apart from Nightwish and HIM which managed to break abroad, would be utterly unfamiliar to non-Finns, and similarly, say, Dutch or Portuguese domestically popular artists would be unfamiliar to pretty much anyone who didn't make a specific effort to get to know them.

I don't think so. It's similar in Sweden with 8 of the top 10 singing in Swedish and 9 of the top ten being Swedish artists, Ed Sheeran being the only foreign artist making the top 10.

And this is Sweden, a famously xenophilic country.

Thank you for validating my choice to stick to listening purely to established 80s artists.

The only one of these songs I might have heard was Ramses II - Villieläin, since someone posted it on Facebook. Can't remember at all how it went, though.

Here’s a list of international George Floyd protests, including Europe. Can you provide a recent European event of similar scope that inspired similar levels of protest in the United States?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States

Do you think any of these protests was attended by more than a few hundred people ?

I’m not certain. But even if the numbers are low, I have never seen even a small wave of protests in the US over a police killing in another country. Nearly every country in the world imports US culture war to some extent or another.

Regular decent sized protests, especially on or near college campuses, happen in response to Israeli police or soldiers killing Palestinians. I cannot think of another example.

I considered this, but the scale of that conflict is on a completely different level and it’s also tightly connected to US foreign policy. But I agree, it’s the closest corollary.

There's not much more to say here than 'duh'.

Of course people, if we use the term very loosely, in provinces are going to ape trends from the imperial center. Fortunately it's limited to trendy & leftist university students.

Okay. So European culture is downstream from American culture. There was nothing to argue about because you agree and you’re just cranky and rude.

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