Self-Criticism Thread

[Adrian II]

@Ajax, Don, Lemur, Odin

We, the Dutch, have all those shortcomings as well. But we don't have the power to turn them into serious errors with repercussions for the entire world.

Exhibit A
We have short memory spans too.
Trouble is we have nothing worthwhile to forget.

Exhibit B
We would love to occupy some country that did us wrong.
Trouble is our armed forces are, um, tied up somewhere in Afghanistan (which is the real deal, in which we have no say whatsoever).

Exhibit C
The only people who hate us are the Belgians.
Trouble is they don't really hate us.

Etcetera

[Geoffrey S]

In Holland, no-one seems to like British food. I never understood that.

[Beirut]

We have no intestinal fortitude when it comes to protecting our culture.

Our Prime Minister's nose is inseparable from the backside of the president of the US.

We changed our beer bottles from stubbies to long necks. Utter disaster.

We are as corrupt, inefficient, and apathetic as any nation on Earth.

Our legal system is a sad joke. You can serve more time for public mischief than for murder. (True and documented.)

We'll let any war criminal into the country, then provide him with money, food, and shelter while he consults his fleet of government provided lawyers to fight deportation.

We're for sale.

[mightilyoats]

South Africa:

Our government tends to the corrupt side (and sometimes, the VERY corrupt). Recently there has also been alot of cases of abuse of power.

Our citizens are very scared of individualism. Displaying any characteristics of your own culture may label you as a racist (There are alot of different cultures in this country)

The police and government can do nothing about our dangerously climbing crime rate. I am not even sure they are trying anymore.

Because of the crime (of violent nature) we are losing alot of our skilled people to countries like Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Since 1995 more than 1 million professionally qualified (white) people emigrated to foreign countries.

Some of the gripes mentioned about the USA is also relevant here. e.g. we have a massive impoverished population, a strong number of elite (very rich - 1% of the population) and a middle class that is shrinking at an alarming rate. (I blame this on Capitalism, but that is not for this thread.)

There's more, but for me, those are the serious ones.

[HoreTore]

Why Norway is a horrible place to live:

1. Our cuisine is horrible. Nothing tastes good.
2. We like to think that we have the best food in the world.
3. In fact, we like to think that we have the best of everything.
4. We do not have the best of anything...
5. We haven't had a political discussion on something actually important in years.
6. We're horrible at football.
7. We're rude.
8. We like to get horribly drunk, and thus even ruder.
9. Our public transportation is horrible in most of the country.
10. It's way to cold here.
11. Our national pride is cross-country skiing. 'Nuff said.
12. Our dialects are so different we can't understand each other.
13. We invented Akevitt.
14. We don't make good music.
15. We think we are the best peacekeepers and negotiators in the world.
16. We think the rest of the world cares about what we say.
17. We have way too many racists.
18. We dislike people who don't like rolling around in a ditch drunk.
19. Our road network is inferior.
20. There are too few inhabitants here.
21. Things cost way too much.
22. We don't have a single good national newspaper.
23. The films we make are horrible.
24. We gossip. Way too much.
25. We are technologically inferior.
26. No tourists wants to go here.
27. We don't even want to spend our holidays here ourselves.
28. We believe we have the moral high ground on any issue.
29. We do not.
30. We lack any sense of proportion.

I wish I was french...

[Adrian II]

In Holland, no-one seems to like British food. I never understood that.

They don't know what it is. It's that simple. They think British food is fish 'n chips. Once you've tasted a good Sunday roast, a meat and game pie, Irish stew, Cornish pasty or onion and chutney pie, you don't look down on British cuisine anymore.

[Kagemusha]

Finland leads pretty much all the statistics when it comes to suicides. I think that shows that all is not quit as well here,like we are trying to show that things are. I think that is the problem itself. Our culture is not adapted on the modern world. We have a culture of silence when it comes to emotions or facing problems. The traditional way for facing problems in our culture is to just shut up and "take it".
When we have mixed that kind of problem solving mechanics with a tradition of endorsing heavy drinking, the disaster is ready. While we are not relatively high on crime statistics,that also have some cultural reasons. We also have a tradition that police shouldnt be bothered by "minor things" and these pretty much include many forms of drunken violence both domestic and other. I think that these issues are the hardest we have to face and im not going to go into counting other issues we have in here.

[Geoffrey S]

They don't know what it is. It's that simple. They think British food is fish 'n chips. Once you've tasted a good Sunday roast, a meat and game pie, Irish stew, Cornish pasty or onion and chutney pie, you don't look down on British cuisine anymore.

I did win over friends to Cornish pasties when in London, even if they were a pale shade of the real deal. I guess there is hope, then.

[PanzerJaeger]

Americans cannot take casualties anymore. The first gulf war spoiled the populace on extremely low casualties, and now American leaders are hamstrung by the media and an unrealistic expectation of casualty numbers when trying to prosecute a war.

[Odin]

@Ajax, Don, Lemur, Odin

We, the Dutch, have all those shortcomings as well. But we don't have the power to turn them into serious errors with repercussions for the entire world.

Yet again Adrian I find myself nodding in agreement. That really is the concept that americans must face up to, when our government makes serious errors, a great deal of the world is impacted. Continually putting in an american perspective devalues the other parties concerned.

Power without responsibility leads to alienation.

[macsen rufus]

Hmmm, what's wrong with Britain?

* educational standards seem to be in free-fall and youngsters today seem to be profoundly uneducated (of course that could just be me getting old )
* we are incredibly poor at learning foreign languages, the stereotype of the Englishman abroad just speaking more slowly and louder when the natives don't undertsand is regrettably true. I'm far from multi-lingual myself, but I can get by in French, Spanish and German (probably Spanish being the easiest as it's my most recent acquisition, the other two are getting very rusty)
* we have problems dealing with alcohol -- a lot of binge-drinking and violence associated with it -- especially when abroad, which is even worse
* community spirit seems to be dissolving, probably because people are more mobile and footloose these days, and society is increasingly atomised
* teenage hoodlums
* the population is too apathetic about politics/governance, or else they're partisan zealots and extremists
* citizens (sorry, SUBJECTS) are increasingly treated as and behaving as CONSUMERS first and foremost, leading to selfishness, impatience and self-importance
* we don't shoot people who use the phrases "Am I bothered?" and "Not my problem"
* too much willingness to shoot people we can't stand.....

Agh, there's so much more but I've suddenly lost the will to keep breathing (okay I've got a mild hangover and am not up to scratch today )

[Lord Winter]

The bigist arguement against America is a five minute talk with the average voter. With appoligies to Churchill

We focus more on Retoric then data and logic.

The two party system limits us to two veiws and dosn't fully repersent the wants of the states by limiting every state to these two veiws. It also throws out good chairpeople for senate commites not because they are not the most qualified but because they belong to the other party.

Corpreate lobbyism is two big.

A tendiacy to want everything to fix it self intstead of dealing with the problems.

[Soulforged]

We're arrogants in general, but not in the snobby kind of arrogant, it's more like a typical harborman arrogance. The typical "porteño" feels like he's on the top of the world while he's still carrying boxes or jobless and drinking on a bar (this is at least true for the "harborman", that's the person (not necesarily male) who lives by the docks of Buenos Aires). But, worst of all, we're proud of that image...

For that many of us tend to take advantage of tourists, while it's also true that we take advantage of natives.

We tend to make a cult of certain people, usually people who are famous, they don't really need to do anything special. This is derived from a general superstition and fanatism of the ignorant part of the population (wich sadly is also the poorest part). And by fanatism I mean religious fanatism or national fanatism.

This poor people will tend to remain poor because, if the education system on the US is bad, ours is ten times that. Some public schools cannot even remain standing without the patronage of someone. The requisites for universities is very low, and some teachers don't even care about teaching anymore (I suppose this is universal though). Some of them, even if they've the highest income of all in their State, will reclaim better salaries anyway.

People do tend to reclaim better salaries in general with disregard of the rest.

We're usually very extremistic in our behavior. In that context is a good thing that we don't have a very strong sense of democratic rights as a nation.

Perón remains the most important politic figure of all times here, wich leads to every president to seek for a comparision with him. This is serious it actually leads to break ups between members of a same front, party or even those who uphold a similar ideology in general.

For some reason or another (usually corruption) almost every national enterprise ends in failure, this is most certain with little industries wich want to grow up.

Even after all the strikes it has received, the farming sector remains as a nearly aristocratic field, and we usually find some landowners with real politic power. This has been changing though, but for the worst. Now we've two or three persons owning almost all the important national companies (farming or otherwise), or at least managing them. This leads to an oligarchy, sometimes cartels (mainly on the petro-oil field), and many times monopoly.

Many of us only feel that we belong to a nation only when the football team plays. And while this can be good sometimes (the lack of nationalism) it also can lead to self-destructive behavior as a nation.

In general we treat bolivians, peruvians and paraguayans like crap. And for what I've heard we're treated in the same way overseas, wich is kind of ironic. This is pure racism, to the point that those three nationals don't feel like belonging to Argentina in most cases. All of this while some of them also enter this country illegally.

And finally (at least for now)... we don't really have a nation...

[Lemur]

We're arrogants in general, but not in the snobby kind of arrogant, it's more like a typical harborman arrogance.

I always wondered about that. One of my best friends in High School was from Colombia, and whenever someone would behave haughtily or with arrogance, he would mutter, "There's a little bit of Argentina in everyone." I never really understood the reference.

[rotorgun]

As for the United States I could elaborate a large list that would probably bore everyone to death, so I'll sum it up with one description: EGO-CENTRIZM.

[Soulforged]

I always wondered about that. One of my best friends in High School was from Colombia, and whenever someone would behave haughtily or with arrogance, he would mutter, "There's a little bit of Argentina in everyone." I never really understood the reference.

Yep. The arrogance appears more strong when you talk about it. But it's always the harborman, it's not an attitude you'll find on other provinces. However the man will not deny his arrogance, he'll usually spit something like "Así somos" (We're like that) or "Bienvenido a Argentina" (Welcome to Argentina), he'll even seem proud, there's no wish to change this attitude at all, and the problem is that it has become a culture, sometimes a man born in the capital believes that he has to be like that. It's also true that people from outside and inside always forget that the Federal Capital in Buenos Aires is not all of Argentina, even if almost all commerce and job opportunities (and therefore, people) are concentrated in that tiny space. And again is not any kind of arrogance. We usually don't think we're superior to anyone (as a individual or a nation), even more we recognize sometimes that we're the worst, but that makes some of us feel proud in the "I-will-blackmail-you" kind of way...

EDIT: To understand better the idea I can post a frase that's typical here wich illustrates the kind of arrogance I'm talking about- "Cuando vos fuiste, yo ya fui y volví mil veces"- Wich can be translated as "When you went, I already went and came back a thousand times". I think that the meaning is pretty patent.