How do Americans view Europeans?

[dvo352]

The only thing I don't like about Europeans is that they automaticly hate me for being American. I remember being at a club in Amsterdam and the dj basically told the girls I was with to [censored] off when they requested a song... his reason... "I don't like Americans" Granted they wanted 50 cent and I was happy he didn't put it on. On a side note... I was freestyling with him by the end of the night after lots of drinking.

[wtfsvi]

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I agree with this post to some degree. Bedreviter makes Norwegian press sound a lot worse than it is.

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Our biggest newspaper is VG, a tabloid which focuses on huge headlines, big dramatic pictures and journalists that have without a doubt a very limited understanding of the complexity of many of the political issues they cover. You honestly feel that VG is covering US politics in a satisfactory way?

I also feel it is a problem that the biggest TV-station is run by the government, and its programming is heavily influnenced by the socialistic democratic ideas.

Something like 70% of journalists and journalism-students say they support SV, the party far left on the scale that has support in from about 8% of the population. Yeah, Im very critical of the Norwegian press.

Those Norwegians that claim that I am overly critical of the Norwegian press; have you ever compared the level of reporting in the American press like USA Today, NY Times or WSJ with that of VG, Dagbladet and Aftenposten?

If you have been to the US yourself and know a little about the country then you know that there is a lot of misconseptions among Norwegians about the US, and if not the press is to blame then who are?

[/ QUOTE ] I had not planned to talk more about Norway, but the way you use statistics needs a comment. Besides, it seems like a few people enjoy our navel-gazing argument.

You say 70% of journalists vote for SV (this is the most leftist of the mainstream parties). That is not true. Almost 70% supported SV or AP in 2003. (AP is the second most leftist of the mainstream parties.) Link for reference (in Norwegian). SV and AP together had, at the time these statistics were made, support from around 45% of the population according to the closest poll I managed to dig up. Link for reference in Norwegian again. Almost 70%/45% or 70%/8%. That's quite a difference. And there is more. Around 23% of the people in Norway (according to this poll) supported the right wing populist party (FRP). This party has almost no support among educated groups, be they journalists or others. So It's not reasonable to expect anything close to a proportionate percentage of journalists should support FRP. Your statistics are falling apart.

To answer your question about VG: No. I don't think VG covers US politics in a satisfactory way. But I don't feel they inspire hatred against the US either, just over-simplified thinking. I don't know how that compares to US newspapers, since I've never read them, but I'm more qualified to compare television. And I don't think US television looks any better than Norwegian television when it comes to over-simplified thinking.

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Of all the dumb assumptions he could make about you just because you are an American, to assume you did not vote against G.W. Bush can hardly be the worst. He was actually likely to be right.

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He was probably less than 50/50 to be right, given that poker players are going to be more liberal in general and therefore more likely to have voted against Bush. Of course there are worse stereotypes he could have made, but that's a pretty dumb one.

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If the assumption is that most Americans did not vote against Bush then he is in fact more then 75% likely to be correct. However if someone were to assume that most Americans did vote for Bush they would have a greater then 75% chance of being wrong. This is of course because about 50% of Americans don't vote, although in my experience most non-voters are more anti-Bush then pro-Bush.

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I don't have numbers at hand to back this up, but I am pretty sure that Europeans are increasing their productivity each year faster than Americans are, despite these laws.

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That's not true.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...uropean_p.html

Of course, that only matters if you find productivity rates to be of particular importance (they're not).

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How are productivity rates not particularly important? Increasing productivity is the best indicator of an increase in standard of living in a market economy.

[ZeTurd]

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When it comes to placing states on the map, there's also the practical concern of American states (mostly) being lumped together in a solid mass of land with little distinct geographical features to help separate them

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Because American states are (mostly) lumped together on the solid land mass of North America, whereas European nations are not lumped together on the solid land mass of... Europe?

Plenty of states' borders are drawn along geographical features, principally rivers. Believing that "American states are (mostly) lumped together on the solid land mass of North America" is completely ludicrous and basically describes every continent on the planet. I think your misconception comes mostly from scale, where several US states are the same size as several EU nations, but the sheer span of the US makes it look like those states are identical in terms of terrain where in Europe they'd encompass several different climates.

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Note the bolded part. Europe has peninsulas (Iberian, Italian, Scandinavian and more), islands (British Isles, Iceland, Malta, Cyprus and more), large inland seas (Black sea, Baltic sea, Mediterranean), more prominent mountain ranges, and more countries adjacent to oceans. It's really not that close.

[jokerthief]

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When it comes to placing states on the map, there's also the practical concern of American states (mostly) being lumped together in a solid mass of land with little distinct geographical features to help separate them

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Because American states are (mostly) lumped together on the solid land mass of North America, whereas European nations are not lumped together on the solid land mass of... Europe?

Plenty of states' borders are drawn along geographical features, principally rivers. Believing that "American states are (mostly) lumped together on the solid land mass of North America" is completely ludicrous and basically describes every continent on the planet. I think your misconception comes mostly from scale, where several US states are the same size as several EU nations, but the sheer span of the US makes it look like those states are identical in terms of terrain where in Europe they'd encompass several different climates.

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Note the bolded part. Europe has peninsulas (Iberian, Italian, Scandinavian and more), islands (British Isles, Iceland, Malta, Cyprus and more), large inland seas (Black sea, Baltic sea, Mediterranean), more prominent mountain ranges, and more countries adjacent to oceans. It's really not that close.

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I wasn't aware that the Mediterranean and Baltic were inland Sea's.

[bobman0330]

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I don't have numbers at hand to back this up, but I am pretty sure that Europeans are increasing their productivity each year faster than Americans are, despite these laws.

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That's not true.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...uropean_p.html

Of course, that only matters if you find productivity rates to be of particular importance (they're not).

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How are productivity rates not particularly important? Increasing productivity is the best indicator of an increase in standard of living in a market economy.

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Productivity is important, but comparing it between countries is a little dicey. If a country has laws or cultural norms that limit the number of hours worked, then a rational company will make sure that the least productive hours, tasks, etc., are the ones cut out. That will drive up average productivity even if the workers are equally productive.

[randomcards]

I'll chime in my 2 cents, only speaking for myself, there is so much diversity here in America I can't generalize.

For reference I am an educated (2 master's degrees) Texan who would be considered a religious conservative by others. Yes I voted for Bush.

I have spent almost 3 months across various Western European countries and various trips.

In general I think Americans work harder than the Europeans I have met. I think this is cultural (greater value on vacations, time off) as well as less motivation to perform due to the governmental systems. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but that's my view.

I think that due to the greater variation of education systems in America (I personally was home schooled) that our top 10% might exceed Europe's top 10%, but our bottom 33% is below most of Europe's bottom 33% (depending on country).

I think in general I also believe Europe to be much less religious (at least in terms of what I would consider to be integral personal religion) and have what I would consider lower moral standards than a large chunk of Americans (although many in America would be the same as many Europeans). I think in Europe religion is more historical and traditional, and while that exists here in the US, there are large chunks of our population for which religion is a deeply personal and integral part of our lives.

I think Americans are much more self centered and unaware of the world as a whole compared with most Europeans. I am always humbled when I travel to Europe and so many of you are multi-lingual and more aware of world politics/views.

I think many Europeans blame the US for political things that go on in the world. While I don't think we get all of our foreign policy decisions correct, I think if we did not do many of the things that we do the world would be much worse overall. I also think that we crush other countries in the amount of humanatarian assistance, and "good" involvement (i.e. economic assistance, food, water, missions, schools, etc) in other countries and that I think is generally not acknowledged by Europeans.

In my travels to Europe I found most Europeans to be very open, insightful, friendly and nice. Except for Parisians who are a bunch of jerks as a whole.

And finally I think that most Americans spend much less time thinking about Europe than the opposite. European culture is not as present (media, products) here and where it is it is Americanized.

[ZeTurd]

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You say 70% of journalists vote for SV (this is the most leftist of the mainstream parties). That is not true. Almost 70% supported SV or AP in 2003. (AP is the second most leftist of the mainstream parties.) Link for reference (in Norwegian). SV and AP together had, at the time these statistics were made, support from around 45% of the population according to the closest poll I managed to dig up. Link for reference in Norwegian again. Almost 70%/45% or 70%/8%. That's quite a difference. And there is more. Around 23% of the people in Norway (according to this poll) supported the right wing populist party (FRP). This party has almost no support among educated groups, be they journalists or others. So It's not reasonable to expect anything close to a proportionate percentage of journalists should support FRP. Your statistics are falling apart.

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Well, bedreviter (Norwegian for Besserwisser for those interested!) obviously botched the numbers, since the poll reported 70% voting for left-leaning parties, not on SV alone (basically filthy communists). If you look closer at the numbers you'll notice that SV is massively overrepresented in that 70% number though. The poll reveals that SV would gotten about 25% of the journailst vote, which is 3 times as high as in the general populace. AP, Norway's biggest political party (socialist leaning), would have gotten around 42% of the vote. Higher than what they would score among the general populace (about 4/3 as high), but nowhere near as severe as the discrepancy for SV.

I'd also like to point out that your claim of FRP having "almost no support among educated groups" is misleading at best. It's true that their appeal is higher among groups with lower education, but statistics show that the demographics of AP voters and FRP voters are surprisingly similar (Valgundersøkelsen 2001), so that'd leave you in a tough spot to explain the over-representation of AP voters among journalists.

OK, enough Norway for now!

[wtfsvi]

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and "good" involvement (i.e. economic assistance, food, water, missions , schools, etc) in other countries and that I think is generally not acknowledged by Europeans.

[/ QUOTE ] It's probably generally not acknowledged by Europeans that missions are "good" [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]