[lbo-talk] Why are the US-ers such assholes?

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Tue Nov 1 18:31:09 PST 2005


At 1:02 PM -0500 1/11/05, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


>The question remains why such attitudes seem to be more widely spread in
>this country than elsewhere -

My theory is that Americans are probably no more likely to be stupid windbags than anyone else. There are people like that everywhere. However, Americans with ugly political views are less likely to be inhibited from saying stupid things in public. I think this is a manifestation of the strong American anti-intellectual cultural trait. The ignorant and stupid actually believe that their opinion is as good as anyone else's. Whereas in other places there is a cultural imperative on the ignorant masses to keep their mouths shut in public.

Americans think they have a right to express their opinion. The riff-raff here know that people will think they are stupid and know to keep their mouths shut. As the old saying goes, better to keep quiet and perhaps allow people to think you are stupid, than to speak out and remove any doubt.

Here's an illustration of what I'm trying to say. There was a time in Australia recently when ignorant arseholes were temporarily emboldened to speak their mind. They were inspired by Pauline Hanson, who was actually elected to parliament on the strength of her ignorant racist prattle. She was getting up to 25% support in parts of Queensland. Ignorant fools were coming out of the woodwork everywhere and starting to spout all kinds of drivel.

But the ruling class and the elite soon put a stop to it, She was derided isolated and basically put in her place. Eventually she was even jailed (though later released on appeal.)

The general tenor of elite opinion was that these kind of views were intolerable. They gave the country a bad name with our neighbours, who happen to be Asian. Australia can't afford to make that many enemies. Bad for business.

But of course all those people haven't gone away, or changed their opinions. They've just gone back to being unrepresented in public discourse.

Now the thing is that America doesn't do that with its ugly opinions. Its a cultural thing in the US to believe that even ugly opinions are entitled to express themselves. Also, it CAN afford to alienate the world (or thinks it can.) That isn't the case here and in other English speaking cultures.

US-ers: no more than the normal proportion are arseholes. Just that no-one else tolerates arseholes expressing their opinions.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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