non Americans: do you think we are violent?

[Leon Royce]

American born abroad:

I find the US more trashy than violent. People there are just weird. There an unhealthy, sick sarcastic "thing" about Americans. A lot of Americans look down on educated people, especially self-educated. At least that was my experience there. I was considered a weirdo because I red and spent a lot of time alone.

Violent? Maybe a little more than anywhere else in the old west. But there's plenty of violence here in France.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

I just think its weird that the media is a-okay with violence but anything even resembling sex is treated like its the biggest deal ever.

The weirdly puritanical sensibilities towards sex are confusing to me.

A personal annoyance is mother characters. They're all stick thin rakes and flat as a board (as are most female leads), basically going against every other cultures depiction of a maternal figure. They also all dress incredibly demurely, rarely showing cleavage.

Women who are being portrayed as slutty however WELL THEN BOOBIES ARE GO! I'd go as far as to say that showing any prominant boobage is basically a big flag for "this woman is sexual and therefore bad" in American media.

Its just immensly confusing and makes me wonder if these studio execs have some mother issues they need to resolve.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

The average American certainly doesn't intend to live up to the stereotype. The problem is, with ease of access to weaponry down there, even a reasonable person can in the heat of the moment get to levels of violence not typically seen in less well armed societies.

 

[Silvershadowfire]

Hello from Canada

I think the question is misleading. Are Americans violent? Sure, some of them are. That's the same the world over. But is American culture violent? That's a bit of a knotty question. It presumes, for one thing, that American culture is monolithic. It's not, any more than Canadian culture or French culture or Japanese culture is. There are aspects that are nearly universal of course, but even then which aspects are emphasized and de-emphasized can vary wildly from state to state, and county to county.

To answer the question, then, I don't think every American is a frothing psychopath ready to shoot someone as soon as look at them. Most Americans I've met seem to be for the most part nice people. I do think there is a general glorification of fictional violence that marries oddly with reactions to real violence. It also tends to go in cycles, according to the mores of the current time.

 

[Synigma]

Canadian, born/lived 20-30 mins from the border for most of my life, so close that when I go to Toronto I sometimes get accused of being American because of my accent.

Straight to the point: I don't think America/American's are any more prone to violence than anyone else. However the violence does tend to be more extreme when it does happen; sometimes what could have been a fist fight is instead a gun fight. I believe that your media is a big part of the problem though. The US is all about the bottom line; News is just another commodity to sell so it gets treated as such. "If it bleeds it leads" + 24 hour news channels = why I avoid watching American news.

Growing up I used to watch a lot of American TV (why I have such an Americanized accent) and I would hear this every day: "X and what you need to know about it (to save your money/life) on the News at 10!" News outlets have been fearmongers for decades now and it's really only gotten worse since the internet started chipping away at their profits.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I would say the US is violent, because there is ALWAYS some continuing aspect of proxy/indirect warfare for the benefit of US military expansion. It's a bit hard to not view the US as violent when the primary exposure one has to Americans is watching them build a U.S air force base, naval yard, or barracks somewhere in your country.

It's like telling the freshly occupied people facing a retinue of soldiers that the Roman empire is peace-loving, even as they slowly build walls around you and start ordering you to tithe goods. Sell goods to the US for USD, USD printed at near zero cost, therefore actual goods exchanged for nothing of intrinsic value. You can sort of see the parallels to the Imperial tithing system.

And Heaven forbid if you buck the trend and decide to buy/sell oil in anything other than US dollars .... Big daddy will bomb your arse until you learn the tithes can never stop flowing. Given that this is a reality for EVERYONE forced to import oil, and thus need a reserve of US dollars ... yes. I think the US has a well deserved image of being violent. Even if the average American is not.

 

[PlayerDos]

You lost me at " in the hood". So basically what you're saying is that there is only violence when black people are around?

I used to live in the hood and I'm white as fuck. So yeah, your accusation says more about you than anything.

 

[Phillip Jones]

As a US Army Cavalry Scout veteran and as a Libertarian private citizen who believes in the sacrosanct right to self-defense, I do not hold the opinion that guns in and of themselves will make a society more violent - they are tools. Tools that require FBI background checks and professional training to obtain. The issue lies with our strongly-held cultural values.

It's also important to note that vast swathes of land here (our country takes up more space than the entire continent of Europe) are still not settled. Many Americans still live a frontier existence in less populated parts of the country, where hunting for your food is quite common. Europeans have been densely settled in ancient cities for amazingly long periods of time. We, however, are just getting started here. Firearms are a crucial tool in our way of life and national character that Europeans just can't relate to.


Anyway...


American culture is very violent, and is very vengeful. I am forced to admit. With the most well-funded, well-trained, well-equipped, and most technologically advanced military in human history - the U.S. wields a tremendous amount of power to enforce American values (specifically our notion that every country in the world, not just the West, wants freedom, democracy, and a individualist economy like our own). In this respect, we are rather naieve, though it comes from good intentions.

As a geographically massive country which borders only two major nations (one extremely similar to us in many ways), we lack an appreciation and understanding of non-Western culture, and, as we have long been one of the most heavily emigrated-to nations in the course of history, we assume our system of government and economy are the most "correct" systems in the world. When America wages war, the general population eagerly accepts the explanation that the massive death and destruction we use to invade and occupy a region of the world is justified by the fact that the remainder will have a happy existence as we help them re-forge their government in our progressive and powerful image.


_______________________

American culture also embraces violence and competition with zeal. To become a great man or woman in this country is very often achieved through a glorious and honorable military career, or a ruthless climb up a corporate ladder. To be violent for the right cause allows those who cannot defend their own needs and interests is viewed as the height of civic virtue in our Republic.To be honest, this is so strongly programmed into our collective psyche that millions of us, myself included, are prepared to die for this.

And, to do business in a cutthroat manner, exporting our manual labor to countries with few labor protection laws in order to maximize profits is considered a necessary practice to create a strong corporation and thus maintain our position as the world's largest economy, and thus another form of civic virtue.

This translates to the everyday behavior of the average American by sending the message that to shirk the ideas of violence and ruthless competition is to be weak, and no person in any culture of the world wants to think of themselves as weak. It is very common for brawls to break out in bars, clubs, parties, or in the street for trivial issues such as maintaining eye contact for too long, shoulder-checking, spitting in their direction, or even stepping on someone's shoes.

In matters of law, we consider life without parole in total isolation and the death penalty to inseparable to the mainstream idea of retributive justice. We cannot abide the notion of forgiving those who commit the most horrific crimes such as aggravated rape and murder. If the courts fail to properly avenge the victim/victim's family, many Americans will feel the need to take the matter into their own hands - lynching people from trees or shooting them in public on many occasions throughout our history.


In matters of war... 9/11. We had never felt such fear, grief, or rage after the attacks - and it has changed the way we think. It was much like the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 in that Americans were shocked and horrified that an enemy could attack us on our own soil. To Americans, these sorts of massacres of our own people would fuel an (initially) nearly unanimous public outpouring of rage sufficient to invade two countries with the second being based on the premise that Iraq -might- have some sort of relationship with our great enemy and could provide him with the means to repeat 9/11. This is rooted in the American value of violent vengeance, which I cannot conceive of as being anything but a core part of our national mentality. I am aquite sure we're going to make many mistakes in the future because of this.


_______

That said, I love my country - and not just because of circumstances of birth. I love our national foundation formed around freedom of expression/press/religion, separation of church and state, separation of the military and law enforcement, the right to defend your homestead and loved ones, the right to a fair trial of your peers, and the other civil liberties guaranteed to our people (or the full citizens, at least).

And for all the violence, there is a great deal of compassion and friendliness as well. We're a generally very polite people, and we love Europeans, Canadians, Australians, Japanese, and South Koreans very much. We care for our allies, and we do mean to do right by them.

 

[Phillip Jones]

I'm Swedish, so I'm from a country people have a lot of odd ideas about (like we're some socialist paradise of horny blondes)... but some of them are probably true, to some extent.

Also we think our stereotypical "that's racist!" depictions, like the Swedish chef, is pretty funny. Imagine if he was the Somalian chef, or Chinese chef - would they just laugh and consider him entirely unoffensive? People, and nations, should be able to laugh about themselves and how strange you seem to others.

Anyhow we (Sweden) used to be a conquering world power, back when Norway, Finland, parts of Denmark and Poland (who wasn't Poland back then) and such was just "The Kingdom of Sweden". That all ended centuries ago and since then we've not, as a nation, been at war. But that is how I see the USA.

You are a child of a nation, well teenager perhaps. Insecure and violent against all that could be dangerous to your unity. Basically you're us 300 years ago. Ready to fight anyone who looks at you funny, and prone to overly committing to anything. Be it the idea of freedom, your choice in religion, views on government regulation - basically everything. You'll find both extremes in the USA.

God hates the gays! - Gay marriage is legal.
No government oversight! - Regulate EVERYTHING!
God is the answer! - Actually like 30% of the people don't believe in God.
You'll pry this gun from my cold dead hands! - Ban all the guns! In fact: Ban all the weapons!
We are the 1%: Go trickle down economics! - We're the other 99% you're milking for money, go fuck yourself!
We want all the violence on TV! - No blood, or bruises, basically we hit people but no one is ever injured... well, maybe a small cut on the brow and some soot.

You're such a big nation and there's really just not one kind of American. There's no real national identity, there's multiple based on a lot of other things rather than "I was born in the USA". You're diverse, to extremes, and as a nation you're still trying to figure out what it means to have a national identity - because there's so many. I mean as a nation you're bigger than the entire EU. We're diverse as fuck so agreeing on anything is a right pain in the ass, and we're mostly just trying to agree on economics and regulations. At least you guys mostly all speak the same language

Anyhow I think this basic lack of a common identity and insecurity manifests itself in a kind of fear that makes you more prone to violence and you have a nation built on revolution, on fighting and being able to fight for what you believe in. You also don't know your fellow citizens in the same way as a more homogeneous nation does, you can't go to the other side of the nation or city and just find more people pretty much like you. You're strangers in a nation of strangers, and that sounds kind of scary too me.

So the short answer is: Yes, I think you seem prone to violence and you do glorify violence, or the capacity for violence, in a way I find worrying, as you brush over the consequences. But then some of you are probably just like me, it's bound to happen in such a diverse nation.

The point is that you're still a young nation. Hopefully you'll become more unified a couple of centuries from now and stop acting so insecure, juvenile and scared. Until then the rest of us will try to enjoy the show and hope you don't break too much growing up, because if such a large gathering of diverse people like you manage to unite in peace then that means the rest of us can too.

I would argue that being a young nation has little to do with our behavior. It's got more to do with being the superpower of the Western world - we see ourselves as the champions and protectors of Western civilization, and our immense power (both military and soft [culture, media, technological]) and lack of major enemies on the world stage feed our sense that we can and should intervene to protect Europe and North America by promoting our values and governmental systems in places that attract our attention for being dramatically at odds with those values.

I think most people see it as our national obligation, even if it really isn't ethically correct or politically pragmatic.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Americans are still high on WWII and when they were both top dog taking on the big baddies of the world and well loved, they've just found it very hard since then to be both world hegemon and disliked, something Britain took almost perverse pleasure in.

Plus movies are movies, the bigger problem is real violence in news media, something which many Americans hate and something that dovetails into what Jim Sterling has talked about with people's reactions to fake violent compared to real film of people dying.

This is absolutely true. Americans think of themselves as the saviors of Europe, the founders of Western civilization. It excites us to think that we went from being a colony of a European superpower to eclipse the continent itself. We like thinking that we've impressed you.

At the same time, America just wants Europe to love us. Americans adore most of Europe, and many of us mistakenly believe you love us too, as a friend as well as your protector. Most of us don't realize that Europe's appetite for interventionism died in the most terrible war in history - it bore the brunt of the devastation and learned its lesson. We, however, did not suffer in the same manner. We helped Europe rebuild, but we failed to realize the change in European political cultures. We are still stuck in the past, without appreciating the progress and changed that occurred in the continent.


For what it's worth, America does genuinely adore you guys - especially Britain. The public here can be very sensitive when Europeans criticize us. It's borne out of benevolent naivete and ignorance.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

Chilean. I don't think you really are violent or at least, not more violent than most countries (specially first world ones). Your attitudes towards guns are fucking weird though.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Chilean. I don't think you really are violent or at least, not more violent than most countries (specially first world ones). Your attitudes towards guns are fucking weird though.

We're a country with a LOT of land still untouched by settlement. Many people in the rural areas of the countries rely on their firearms for food and protection of livestock. Even those people who now live in urban areas have these attitudes towards the necessity of firearms in our land. Also, we were born in a violent revolution where we had to fight the greatest military power in the world of the day, and in doing so we came to appreciate the potential of citizen militias as a potential defensive force if we were ever invaded - not at all likely today, I know. But it's our culture.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

Chilean. I don't think you really are violent or at least, not more violent than most countries (specially first world ones). Your attitudes towards guns are fucking weird though.

We're a country with a LOT of land still untouched by settlement. Many people in the rural areas of the countries rely on their firearms for food and protection of livestock. Even those people who now live in urban areas have these attitudes towards the necessity of firearms in our land. Also, we were born in a violent revolution where we had to fight the greatest military power in the world of the day, and in doing so we came to appreciate the potential of citizen militias as a potential defensive force if we were ever invaded - not at all likely today, I know. But it's our culture.

Naw, yeah. I understand that. The part about having a gun if you live in a rather secluded place, away from effective police assistance (or if you have to shoot coyotes trying to get your sheep). What I don't understand is having anything over a shotgun for said purposes. I'm pretty sure that a coyote doesn't run towards livestock in the open and neither do burglars aproach you in a file.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Chilean. I don't think you really are violent or at least, not more violent than most countries (specially first world ones). Your attitudes towards guns are fucking weird though.

We're a country with a LOT of land still untouched by settlement. Many people in the rural areas of the countries rely on their firearms for food and protection of livestock. Even those people who now live in urban areas have these attitudes towards the necessity of firearms in our land. Also, we were born in a violent revolution where we had to fight the greatest military power in the world of the day, and in doing so we came to appreciate the potential of citizen militias as a potential defensive force if we were ever invaded - not at all likely today, I know. But it's our culture.

Naw, yeah. I understand that. The part about having a gun if you live in a rather secluded place, away from effective police assistance (or if you have to shoot coyotes trying to get your sheep). What I don't understand is having anything over a shotgun for said purposes. I'm pretty sure that a coyote doesn't run towards livestock in the open and neither do burglars aproach you in a file.

Yeah, I can understand how that might seem bizarre to the rest of the world. In reality, a shotgun is by far the most practical weapon for the confined areas and fear-induced-adrenaline-fest of a home invasion.

An AR-15, on the other hand, is a semiautomatic version of our military's M4/M16. It is by far the most popular weapon in the U.S. and has gained notoriety in a small number of high-profile shootings. While it was designed for military engagements, it is an exceptionally accurate weapon favored by hunters and sport shooters.

A huge proportion of Americans will have fired a gun in their life, even if they dont own one. You can find everyone from college students and sportsmen to lawyers, doctors, and computer professionals at the average indoor shooting range. It's considered perfectly normal for every socioeconomic class to keep handguns or shotguns for protecting themselves and their family.

As we say here, "An armed society is a very polite one."