US-Europe Cultural Differences

I think that the thing we Europeans (and us Brits in particular) often fail to grasp is that the USA is a very foreign country. I love my visits there and my US friends but it does not take a long stay for you to run into things that seem "incomprehensible" and you start saying to yourself "that cant be right".However it works the other way too. We fail to deal properly with things like the right to free speech - and our USA cousins find that pretty incomprehensible - surely a fundamental fre

I've lived across the various parts of the country. I've never been confused if I'm still in America. I've been through New York. They'll say things like, "Going way up there, eh?" But I still know I'm in the US and not Canada. Drive in New Mexico, there are points that just looking at the landscape, you might think you wandered into Old Mexico. As soon as you hit town there is an American feel; even along border cities.Never have I been unsure that I&#

> I am surprised these things are treated as normal.Most Americans have never lived, or significantly traveled, in a country other than their own.So they naturally treat every aspect of American culture as "the only possible way."It's really a shame. America has many great things. And in some areas, e.g. how prices are displayed, and healthcare, we could definitely learn from others.

Visiting the US, it always surprises me just how polarised the people’s opinions are as you travel around compared with other western countries. I imagine in California (the most similar part to other western countries) and this thread this frustrates people, but there will be plenty of places where people are rubbing their hands together seeing this as a kind of American exceptionalism...

The discussion is very much a case of people from the USA having the far too rare realisation than most places in Europe have nothing in common with their country.

There's plenty of cultural differences I accept about Europe, you can manage to accept this one about the US.

By describing the cultural differences within the US as "vastly different", you are basically just confirming the idea of Americans not understanding the depth of cultural diversity in Europe.I'm very well aware of the significant differences between the Deep South and the West Coast etc, but those differences pale in comparison to the vast centuries old cultural differences you can find in Europe even between towns only a few dozen miles apart. Hell, the differences inside the US barely comp

Do you mind sharing your nationality? This rings true of the opinions of many people I know in Europe but I would be very surprised if any Americans felt this way. Genuinely curious.

I have lived in Germany and the US each for years and for months in several other countries. From the outside or on a short visit all countries look homogeneous. Only after a while you see the subtleties. From that perspective I don't think the US is any different from other countries. Maybe other countries are in agreement on things that are contentious in the US but then they have other issues that never get discussed in the US. In short, the US is nothing special. It's a country lik

Yes but many are not. And more importantly: many of its inhabitants are not.It's this American view that the whole world is 'like America with just a different locale setting' I find really annoying.