How do Americans view Europeans?

[wtfsvi]

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Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that? Norway seems like a cool country, but for christs sake, we have a lot of morons from there posting here. penis envy?

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Self-rightiousness is the heart if the Norwegian culture. I hate it a lot.

That being said, I'm probably the Norwegian person you remember arguing with [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[ZeTurd]

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Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that? Norway seems like a cool country, but for christs sake, we have a lot of morons from there posting here. penis envy?

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We're very well endowed thank you very much.

[Bedreviter]

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Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that?

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Id say our press deserves a lot of the blame for this, as 90% of the coverage of the US is negative and heavily one sided. Tabloid newspapers are by far the most popular in Norway, and the majority of Norwegian journalists are pretty far to the left on the political scale. Americans tend to ridicule the USA Today, but USA Today is far more objective and serious in its reporting than any major Norwegian newspapers. Political pundits on Norwegian news also tend to be on the left side of the spectrum, and the capitalist bastards in the USA are often blamed for most of the wrongdoing in the world, one way or another.

The Norwegian school-system is also an extension of the social-democratic system that we have, and teachers tend to belong to the left side of Norwegian politics. The negative sides of American history and current society are often exaggerated, mainly because the teachers dont know better. The superiority of the Norwegian society and system is implied throughout society, from the media to the school-system. Its not so much a question of "if we are better", its more as "how much better are we". This obviously have an impact on many Norwegians.

When negative sides of American society is discussed in Norway its almost never put into context, the US is not compared to other European countries, its just mentioned and up for discussion why it is that way. If you compare the level of poverty or racial tension sin the US you would see that th eUS doesnt do any worse than most European countries, but this is not done by Norwegian press.

Many Norwegians can tell you how bad Halliburton, Dick Cheney and the conservative American christians are, while they would probably have difficulties telling you the name of the political leaders of our neighbouring countries. We like to compare ourselves to the US and Americans, and highlight where we are doing better and forget or marginalize the areas where we are worse. Little is done to explain the various factors that are contributing to American problems, we basically explain it being so due to the "fact" that Americans are uneducated, war mongering, gun waving racists.

While American culture (Rock music, Hip Hop, Rap, Hollywood, TV) is by far most popular in Norway it is frowned upon by the cultural elite who will rather tell you that the artistic French movies that nobody goes to see are superior to anything the US has to offer.

[Sciolist]

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Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that? Norway seems like a cool country, but for christs sake, we have a lot of morons from there posting here. penis envy?

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If we changed the word "Norwegian" to "OOT Poster", you have to start thinking of exceptions rather than disagree with the statement, don't you?

[ZeTurd]

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I don't think that anyone should claim someone else's way to think about work/vacation is inferior. That's incredibly arrogant. It's different, but you can't say it's better or worse. This is a bit like saying Europeans have worse taste in food. It's just retarded.

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Not quite. Having a system with low levels of production and a highly subsidized work force, might have very adverse effects for society as a whole. Sure, you might value free time over money, and that's a personal value judgment, but if you have a system that's not sustainable (it's tempting to point to France here) you're eventually going to run into trouble...

[wtfsvi]

This unsustainable system you're talking about must be political. If an individual decides to work less and spend more, he carries the consequences of that on himself. What right do I have to have other people work hard so "society as a whole" can do well, anyway? Political systems can be judged, indivudals' views on work and vacation can't.

[ZeTurd]

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This unsustainable system you're talking about must be political. If an individual decides to work less and spend more, he carries the consequences of that on himself. What right do I have to have other people work hard so "society as a whole" can do well, anyway?

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I agree that noone should be forced to work to benefit society as a whole, but I definitely think there should be incentives to increase productivity, and likewise, lack of productivity shouldn't be rewarded as it might be argued it is today in some of the more socialized European countries (Norway being no exception).

[wtfsvi]

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I agree that noone should be forced to work to benefit society as a whole, but I definitely think there should be incentives to increase productivity, and likewise, lack of productivity shouldn't be rewarded as it might be argued it is today in some of the more socialized European countries (Norway being no exception).

[/ QUOTE ] This is perfectly fine, and it is an opinion about political systems.

[Sciolist]

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As for political system, here it makes more sense to think your own country is superior (or inferior for that matter). Everyone else in the world thinks their own system is superior too

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I like this line of thought. I'd also say cultural system. The thing is that most people think this because they were brought up to think so. The people that don't think it, move. That's particularly easy in Europe too, with free movement of labour within the EU.

[captZEEbo]

I view americans as more technologically advanced, richer, but far far more ignorant, self-centered, and feelings that we deserve everything.

It's gonna be a rude awakening for our generation and the next generation when the smarter countries take over all our jobs and we are getting paid next to nothing relatively speaking.