So I’m European and am aware that American culture is very different in many ways. Idk if this is just some type of thing about American culture and mentality in general that has always been there or if it is a trend that started recently in the past few years.
I don’t wanna generalize any country and know that not everyone is like this but I definitely noticed this type of pattern.
I increasingly noticed in the past years that many Americans are very hateful/cruel, are lacking empathy, become more and more aggressive and it seems like it’s becoming worse.
I’m not sure if this is maybe related to Americans needing to be “though” or something because I always hear about that the American mentality is pretty competitive and individualistic and instead of saying “we will go through this this together” they often have this mentality “it’s either me or you but it can’t be both who will win”. I mean I’m pretty sure that all these things like this biking culture, driving big “manly” pick up trucks, wrestling, football etc. are pretty prevalent in America compared to other countries and American culture generally seems very loud and direct. I think here in Europe people are way more reserved and I guess the strongest opposite to Americans are probably Japanese people. Maybe American culture is generally more “rough” where they aren’t super sensitive and don’t really care how their words come over and just speak their mind (maybe cause they value free speech so much).
But to me this seems to go to the point where many Americans seem to have this attitude and are very ignorant and arrogant and basically think they’re better than anyone else and they only care for themselves.
And it feels like it’s so extreme to the point where everyone is hating, attacking and bashing on everyone and instead of being stronger united they’re just fighting against themselves and putting each other down and they always focus on the negative.
Especially online it seems like that no matter what the topic is and independent from whether they are Democrat or Republican they’re constantly bashing on someone and baselessly calling them “weak” even though in reality they’re probably the ones who are weak and trample onto people cause they’re obviously dissatisfied with themselves and aren’t able to man-up to face the real issues. You just can’t blame everything on others and have to take responsibility for yourself!
Some stuff that I’ve seen on American news like “Fox News” just seemed crazy where the reporters personally attack and bash on people which is something that would be unthinkable in Europe.
Even though many people were saying that Americans have this “fake friendliness” I’m thinking that even that disappeared in the last few years and they’re becoming more open to show what they really think which seems to be that they “don’t give a f* about you”.
Many Americans that I encountered seem so aggressive like they always need to bash onto something in this toxic way even though they’re actually in a very good position and have a lot to be grateful for. Like in other poor countries people have real problems and are literally starving because they have no food or they have war in their country.
I’m always thinking “dude, you need to chill” cause literally no one is attacking them and they’re fully secure. But it seems like they’re always searching for a fight or something.
It seems like many of these people are so disconnected from nature and become less human and I wonder why they can’t just spend meaningful time with other people being positive and not constantly waste their time with hating or complaining about something. Because this just doesn’t work and in a society with multiple people especially in a world where everything is more connected than ever we need to hold together and have empathy for one and another. That is one of the core morals that a human needs!
It seems like many Americans generally have this “cruelness” about them cause I also heard things that many Americans are physically beating their children and even the fact that guns are popular and legal in America to the point where you can’t even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school and also this general mindset of America is doing everything the best and “America first”. I really don’t wanna bash on Americans at all and only want to share my experience because I just haven’t experienced this type of hate here in Europe in that extreme way and it just makes me very uncomfortable because I feel like this mood is affecting the whole world since American media and influence is prevalent everywhere.
To me it feels like this won’t end well and it feels like it’s just a matter of time until something very bad happens like the second civil war or so and the storm on the capitol might be nothing compared to that. But maybe that’s the only way they will finally learn if they’re lacking these core morals and integrity and they don’t get educated about that in school.
It also seems like they can’t handle critique and can’t admit it/stand to those things. When I once asked a similar question on Reddit the only thing I got back was bashing and personal attacks and I hope it’s not the same here, cause that is literally just proving my point. There needs to be constructive discussions.
You’d have to go to fox news–the network that lies so much that even their name is a lie–and ask them why they’re doing everything they’re doing.
Short answer is, they’re the taliban.
There’s war in Europe. Climate change is fucking up the world faster than we can respond, and America is burning to the ground physically and metaphorically as we speak.
Tensions are a bit high.
Propaganda. Mostly funded by the rich, in order to, of course, stay on the top of the class hierarchy. Easier to be a filthy evil oligarch when the “rabble” just fight each other and don’t pay any attention to you, or worse, kiss your boots.
After Occupy movement was gutted by the media and police… The owner class got us fighting culture wars so we don’t gain class consciousness for the class war.
And it’s an ongoing class war that the rich have been fighting and winning my entire life while the donkey-brained, temporarily embarrassed millionaire set keep handing them hand grenades to lob at us (and themselves).
Americans have always been hateful and destructive. We’ve just recently been given permission to do those things out loud, with impunity.
There are obviously multiple factors that go into this, but I think the big ones are the systematic destruction of the US educational system and the wealth inequality caused by late-stage capitalism. Fixing the education problem will take decades. Fixing the wealth inequality could be done quickly, but things will have to get worse before people begin to agree that it needs to happen. I’m confident that things will eventually get better. I am no longer confident that it will happen soon or without violence.
Similar things are happening in Europe, with the rise of the extreme right, but the situation there is not as far along as it is in the US. I think Europe still has a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst of this.
fixing the wealth inequality can happen quickly
no it can’t sadly, stuff like that takes time to process into law, and to obtain information on. The best way of doing that would likely be a wealth tax, but the second any actual traction hits (which is already a major barrier due to how lobby heavy everything in the states is torwards that stuff) any company that’s residing in the US is going to ding dong ditch to another country or migrate that wealth offshore to avoid the tax.
I think the best route would be either a significantly higher tax on money transfer over X amount yearly between the borders, but that would force company is just to go into how they used to do it before a digital was a thing where they just transport Cold Hard Cash or other physical entities over the borders and then we convert it back over once they’re domestic again.
or alternatively a higher business tax for companies overall, and said taxes are increased even further for a companies who are headquartering outside of the country, but this isn’t going to fix the wealth inequality, it’s just going to lessen the rate the wealthy gain their wealth.
The issue with all of these options though, is they all have the same fatal flaw, there’s no controls in place that would prevent the company from just offsetting the new taxes into their existing Goods pricing, we’re experiencing the same issue with the renters field. Price controls are inefficient and where applied don’t generally impact big buisness and instead tend to force the little guys out of the market as they lack the incentive and funding to keep in the market.
There’s the argument that well if they increase the price too far people will just stop buying it in favor of cheaper competitors, but that’s not the case for anything that’s deemed essential good, which would be most of the grocery sector, the housing sector and the utility sector.
Sure smaller competitors may eventually pop up, but that’s not something that will happen just at the snap of your finger that’s going to take years to do
The US got themselves into a super sticky situation by having years of lack of taxes and controls. They have created a problem that has no real good solution, and it will take some time to fix and it will likely hurt the consumer fixing it, but regardless something needs to be done.
As for the education sector, that’s a whole other issue on its own, while I think that is repairable it like you said is going to take years to accomplish, and the entire time that happens it’s going to be fighting an uphill battle because it’s hard to argue against if we cut the spending on the sector you save money, because many people can’t see past the short-term effects of a decision, making them blind to the overall longterm effects that gutting a public education system has.
This effect is exasperated by the fact that one of the two major parties heavily pushes the ideology that less knowledge is good, because statistically speaking the further educated you are, the more apt you are to lean torwards the other way, which is something that the party wouldn’t want.
I have to agree with you, it’s a roaring dumpster fire and without some pretty disruptive changes nothing is going to be done anytime soon. I’m not advocating violance but the people who say that it’s an easy fix, or can be flipped just by someone else taking command are sorely mistaken, this is a problem that is going to be existing for at /least/ the next 3 or 4 presidential terms at best, and that’s if it’s attacked head on now, which it won’t be as it isn’t the majorities concern at the moment, for some reason.
It’s not that the country is more arrogant and idiotic (although that’s arguable) but it’s more that arrogant and idiotic messages and people are being broadcast more.
In the old days a person with radical ideas had a hard time finding others with the same mentality. It cost money to send out letters, print stuff, etc. Now you can blast out whatever comes into your head to potentially millions of people. You can form groups with them and feed each other’s paranoia and biases. On top of it broadcasting to you has become even easier and targeted and most of what is broadcast as news online is negative and fearmongering.
Then there is the whole issue of the “anonymous asshole” online who feels disconnected to those they are communicating to and makes assumptions (usually hostile) about them and feels freer to be hostile or provocative.
Nah, it’s older than that, watch Deathwish 2 and tell American boomers weren’t itching for an excuse to murder teenagers.
You’re watching the collapse of an empire. The citizens are getting desperate and scared, those of them that don’t realize or understand the situation they’re in even moreso. What you’re seeing isn’t driven by malice, it’s just too difficult to care for others now. A lotta my friends struggle to pay rent every month and keep food in their mouths. We walk around with the knowledge a stranger could freak out and gun us down at any moment. Is it any wonder that they are numb to violence, numb to threats, even numb to the fear of death?
Once you get that numb and hollow, you cut what’s extraneous away and focus on your own survival. Americans are, broadly speaking, panicked animals. The worse things get, the more panicked and desperate they’ll become, and the less they’ll care about standards and morals in the pursuit of survival.
Constructive and condecending are two different things. Some people simply love to flaunt their pros and trash our cons.
I am more centrist with mildly right leaning views, but I play dnd with people that are quite left leaning. We respect each other’s perspectives and differences but otherwise get along just fine. There are divides, mainly boiling down to city vs rural but reality often isn’t as polarized as the news and comments will have you believe.
I’m willing to answer any questions you might have here or in DMs
Out of curiosity, what do you consider centrist with mildly right leaning views?
It generally means I’m more in the middle of the road.
I like that marijuana is becoming legalized. I also want more responsible gun ownership. I want people to enjoy gay rights and freedom of religion as they see fit. I want a smaller less bureaucratic federal govt while also keeping a capable military. I want a good economy and action to mitigate climate change. I want very poor and homeless people to be cared for without ecouraging them to do nothing about it.
Basically I have something to piss everyone off
I’m gonna bring up a slightly different take on the situation.
2001, during the walk between my 1st period and 2nd period class, my country changed forever. My math teacher had a shocked look on his face, he put the radio on, and told us that it was very important to listen, as we will never forget this moment. An airplane had hit the world trade center. I remember the bell going off, going to my history class, and shortly afterwards, being told that the busses were coming back to take my classmates home. They were terrified, that their school busses would be attacked and that they wouldn’t make it home. I found my brother and we walked home early that day. I got home in time to see my mom staring at the TV, which was surreal on its own because she hates TV. By the time I go home, the towers were falling.
That moment was a catalyst for irrational hate and fear taking over the US. Anti-musilm hate (if you can even call it that sophisticated and targeted, really just anyone the right shade of brown) really took off. I remember hearing about men being assaulted and having their beards shaved. Women had their head covering confiscated, and mosques became a primary target for yahoos and bigots to deface and burn. A few years later I remember and popular jingle about bombing Afghanistan, not specifically the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but just Afghanistan in general. Hate became more mainstream and visible to me than ever. Sure, the US wasn’t perfect before, but for my generation, 9/11 was the moment that “Othering” people who didn’t look like you, talk like you, and pray like you, became not just a coping mechanism, but a core identity for a significant portion of the USA. If you spoke out about the irrational hate, you were Un-American, or a traitor. My father took me to see Fahrenheit 911, and I remember hearing about protestors attacking theaters that were playing the movie, and people that were buying tickets for it.
Anyway, that’s my two cents on where millennials (at least) got their hate enemas from.
Americans are have lived through so much. Two buildings were demolished.
You aren’t wrong that other people have it much worse. I don’t think the hate we’ve developed post 9/11 is proportional or justified compared to the scale of the attack. I wasn’t trying to do that with my post, I was trying to explain when and why I saw a shift in how Americans treat each other internally.
I think Americans experienced way too much unnecessary trauma, uncertainties and weird life events in general that probably made them fearful/put them in survival mode and it turned into anger. It is definitely understandable from a psychological perspective to a point.
why are European Nazis so hateful and destructive in 2025 (Germany, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, etc)?
What you see on TV is for-profit corporate media that is showing what their advertisers approve. Its not an accurate reflection of the society as a whole.
Roughly 30% of the US population are supporters of fascism. Largely this is due to poor education.
Every part of our society is dysfunctional and declining, and that’s self-perpetuating. If you throw a rock, you’ll hit a reason why the US is like this. We are pretty FUBAR.
It’s pretty much always been this way, like if you look at opinions and rhetoric post-9/11, the overwhelming majority of people supported Bush and it was common to talk about nuking random countries in the Middle East. Back then we were a bit less mask off in that Bush wasn’t as blunt and explicit about things as Trump is, but the bodies were just as dead. Trump realized that the facade of politeness had become vestigal and didn’t actually matter. As for American liberals, the thing to understand is that they only compare themselves to Republicans and so as long as they are 5% more proper and 5% kinder, 5% more intellectual, etc, they see themselves as having all of those qualities, but from the outside, to someone who has reference points outside of American politics, the differences often seem pretty marginal. So for example, “I can excuse indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, but I draw the line at torture” and within the context of American politics that’s reasonable and even left-leaning but in a broader context, it’s like, "You can excuse what?"
40+ years ago the Republicans started a war against education and intellectualism. They won.
And it’s all at the direction of The Federalist Society. Reagan signed 2/3 of their Project 1985 into law, dramatically lowering the corporate and top personal tax brackets and removing the restrictions of local and national limits on network and local affiliate TV and radio ownership. Their lackey then spent decades creating enormous propoganda networks to pump the view that the wealthy are the best of us and should never be challenged. Plus, those networks constantly pump identity politics issues to polarize the popu Ace even more.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
- LBJ
From my perspective, they’ve always been there, but now they’re louder. They’ve been emboldened by the public perception that it’s okay to be terrible and hateful and selfish. It used to be that those people kept more quiet.
