The vices of nations

[Reader]

America is very charitable.

Not on a personal level to each other. Just drive here sometime. People can barely fake it as they leave church.

Americans give more money to charity than any other nation.
The left Europe alone after WW2 to rebuild itself when they could have very easily made a lot of vassal states out of all of the countries that had worked with the Nazis.
In my experience of Americans, and I have visited all of the 50 states since 1987, they are not an uncharitable bunch of people.  In fact they are definitely in the top 5 percent of the places I have visited.
Iran and Georgia (the country) would be right up there too.

Americans like to help in grandiose ways, but can't be bothered to do the simplest thing to actually be decent to the human right in front of them. Exceptions seem to be made mainly along generational lines, probably since older Americans weren't raised in such a narcissistic, cold society. Heck, even in my 50-some years, it's obvious we've become an ever-larger selfish mess.

I think we may have to agree to disagree about Americans.

[drummerboy]

America is very charitable.

Not on a personal level to each other. Just drive here sometime. People can barely fake it as they leave church.

Americans give more money to charity than any other nation.
The left Europe alone after WW2 to rebuild itself when they could have very easily made a lot of vassal states out of all of the countries that had worked with the Nazis.
In my experience of Americans, and I have visited all of the 50 states since 1987, they are not an uncharitable bunch of people.  In fact they are definitely in the top 5 percent of the places I have visited.
Iran and Georgia (the country) would be right up there too.

I believe America is infected with that curious syndrome mentioned in Screwtape Letters, where the devil should try to instill charity towards our neighbor, say, loving the nazis bombing your city but really an abstract, but showing coldness to the bus driver who is a concrete reality, if I paraphrase him correctly.  Americans do indeed love to feel good about giving to causes far away, but are too often selfish, materialistic, and self-entitled to their immediate neighbor.

[Greg]

America is very charitable.

Not on a personal level to each other. Just drive here sometime. People can barely fake it as they leave church.

Americans give more money to charity than any other nation.
The left Europe alone after WW2 to rebuild itself when they could have very easily made a lot of vassal states out of all of the countries that had worked with the Nazis.
In my experience of Americans, and I have visited all of the 50 states since 1987, they are not an uncharitable bunch of people.  In fact they are definitely in the top 5 percent of the places I have visited.
Iran and Georgia (the country) would be right up there too.

Americans like to help in grandiose ways, but can't be bothered to do the simplest thing to actually be decent to the human right in front of them. Exceptions seem to be made mainly along generational lines, probably since older Americans weren't raised in such a narcissistic, cold society. Heck, even in my 50-some years, it's obvious we've become an ever-larger selfish mess.

I think we may have to agree to disagree about Americans.

I kinda sorta know what you are saying but even young Americans are much more generous on go fund me, than young Europeans are.  If anything I would say Americans are naive and unthinking in their charity and donate money to any cause with enough likes and re-tweets.

I think comparing charity is hard.  I'm generous with people I feel deserve it such as young people with drive and purpose who I give a lot of time and help to.  I also help out old people who have lived productive and good lives and need my help and assistance (and cash).  I am hard and never give money to drug-addicted beggars or street alcoholics.  I guess we all help the people we think are most deserving of our help and who will appreciate it.

I fully admit I find it very hard to see Christ in the drug-addicted London beggar living on the streets who can beg $500 per week but lives on the streets because he does not want to pay rent for a small room and would rather spend what he begs on illegal drugs.  Why?  1.  Because Christ was not a junky beggar.   2.  Because I like a smidgen of appreciation.

[Greg]

Americans give more money to charity than any other nation.
The left Europe alone after WW2 to rebuild itself when they could have very easily made a lot of vassal states out of all of the countries that had worked with the Nazis.

What about those rubbish ships they sold us during world war II that we only finished paying off a few years ago?

A deal is a deal.  We bought them.  Why should we not pay for them?

Since WW2 poor Americans have paid through their teeth in taxes to put their military all over the world and keep the peace.  They pay higher taxes than me and onto of that have to pay for their healthcare.  I have about 4 times more holiday than a typical yank too and get all sorts of government benefits like child benefit, and REALLY high quality free schooling that you could never get in the USA, without going fully private and paying school fees of $30-40k per year per child.

That Brits were not nuked by the Soviets is probably down to the American taxpayer over the last 50-60 years.

[A. W. Pugin]

Americans like to help in grandiose ways, but can't be bothered to do the simplest thing to actually be decent to the human right in front of them. Exceptions seem to be made mainly along generational lines, probably since older Americans weren't raised in such a narcissistic, cold society. Heck, even in my 50-some years, it's obvious we've become an ever-larger selfish mess.

I think we may have to agree to disagree about Americans.

There is a name for this in the clinical literature: 'communal narcissism'. This type of narcissism is not as apparent as 'overt' or classical narcissism, but the underlying complex is exactly the same.

Folk such as these are like a caricature of a charitable and self-giving person, but something is off about them. They make a big show about their charitable works, often on social media, but they do this merely to get narcissistic validation. It is not charity at all. We all know someone like this. I did, and funnily enough, she was an American.

[TradGranny]

Here in the US, greed feeds the murder of the unborn, so also do selfishness and a lack of charity.

Would you add narcissism to that list?

Yes. I have actually heard women give "losing their figure" as a reason for getting an abortion.

[Reader]

America is very charitable.

Not on a personal level to each other. Just drive here sometime. People can barely fake it as they leave church.

Americans give more money to charity than any other nation.
The left Europe alone after WW2 to rebuild itself when they could have very easily made a lot of vassal states out of all of the countries that had worked with the Nazis.
In my experience of Americans, and I have visited all of the 50 states since 1987, they are not an uncharitable bunch of people.  In fact they are definitely in the top 5 percent of the places I have visited.
Iran and Georgia (the country) would be right up there too.

Americans like to help in grandiose ways, but can't be bothered to do the simplest thing to actually be decent to the human right in front of them. Exceptions seem to be made mainly along generational lines, probably since older Americans weren't raised in such a narcissistic, cold society. Heck, even in my 50-some years, it's obvious we've become an ever-larger selfish mess.

I think we may have to agree to disagree about Americans.

I kinda sorta know what you are saying but even young Americans are much more generous on go fund me, than young Europeans are.  If anything I would say Americans are naive and unthinking in their charity and donate money to any cause with enough likes and re-tweets.

I think comparing charity is hard.  I'm generous with people I feel deserve it such as young people with drive and purpose who I give a lot of time and help to.  I also help out old people who have lived productive and good lives and need my help and assistance (and cash).  I am hard and never give money to drug-addicted beggars or street alcoholics.  I guess we all help the people we think are most deserving of our help and who will appreciate it.

I fully admit I find it very hard to see Christ in the drug-addicted London beggar living on the streets who can beg $500 per week but lives on the streets because he does not want to pay rent for a small room and would rather spend what he begs on illegal drugs.  Why?  1.  Because Christ was not a junky beggar.   2.  Because I like a smidgen of appreciation.

Fair points all, and I would agree with everything you've said. But I would add that most Americans I encounter like their charitable acts easy. Not surprising really; our society expects everything this way. I guess it's better than nothing, but throwing a little money this way or that while taking very little interest in how you treat those you actually encounter in person isn't really all that charitable.

I hope I'm not becoming a grumpy old man, but I think Americans were once better than this when I was younger.

[Greg]

I like everything easy.  Meals, washing machines, flushing toilets, refridgerators, jet airplanes.  So do 99.9% of people.  The 20th Century was all about life being easier to live.

Give money away for most people is a proxy for giving time away.  Because they had to work to earn that money, plus pay 40% tax on it.  Unless a person won the lottery or inherited a large sum and the giving is purely a small change in a number in their bank account and makes no difference to what they want to do, that day, week, year.

If you are time rich it is easier to give away time.  If cash rich easier to give cash.  And most charities like cash.  They don't make volunteering for them easy to do.  I have offered to help collect litter locally for tidy charities and they have not even written back to me.

America also has what I believe is the highest amount of volunteerism in the world, far higher than Britain or most of Europe.

From an outside looking in perspective I just don't see America as guilty of that.

[Reader]

I like everything easy.  Meals, washing machines, flushing toilets, refridgerators, jet airplanes.  So do 99.9% of people.  The 20th Century was all about life being easier to live.

Give money away for most people is a proxy for giving time away.  Because they had to work to earn that money, plus pay 40% tax on it.  Unless a person won the lottery or inherited a large sum and the giving is purely a small change in a number in their bank account and makes no difference to what they want to do, that day, week, year.

If you are time rich it is easier to give away time.  If cash rich easier to give cash.  And most charities like cash.  They don't make volunteering for them easy to do.  I have offered to help collect litter locally for tidy charities and they have not even written back to me.

America also has what I believe is the highest amount of volunteerism in the world, far higher than Britain or most of Europe.

From an outside looking in perspective I just don't see America as guilty of that.

Again, no real argument with anything you've said. But so many of the Americans I encounter couldn't do some of the simplest things to be decent to the everyday people right in front of them.

[Greg]

That is true of people in every first world country.

[Reader]

That is true of people in every first world country.

Exactly. Which makes Americans nothing exceptional. Our notorious generosity is almost always out of our over-abundance; a "feel good" thing that seems to work for most of us. At least we do it, but it hardly makes up for the selfish way so many Americans treat each other daily, even in the simplest things.

[A. W. Pugin]

In my country, Scotland, the Catholics are among the most petty, vindictive, grudge-bearing, insular, cliquish, po-faced, puritan, and tribal you will find anywhere in the world.

In total contrast to English and Irish Catholics. Don't make the mistake that the three countries are at all similar. They're not.

[Michael Wilson]

In my country, Scotland, the Catholics are among the most petty, vindictive, grudge-bearing, insular, cliquish, po-faced, puritan, and tribal you will find anywhere in the world.

In total contrast to English and Irish Catholics. Don't make the mistake that the three countries are at all similar. They're not.

There is an old Catholic saying: "In becoming corrupt, the best become the worst". It stands to reason that those who despise all the graces that God has given them of the Catholic faith, and turn their backs on God, will become the most wretched and abject of men.

[John Lamb]

Great Britain: "Snobbery"
France: "Obnoxiousness"
Germany: "Bossiness"
Spain: "Speaking loudly and too quickly"
Italy: "Excessive hand and body language"; "making people disappear"; "using too much garlic"; etc.
Russia: "Drinking"
China: "Plotting"

I think a nation's typical vices are the downside of its virtues. The vices exist parasitically on the virtues, as a corruption of them. British snobbery is a corruption of British politeness. French obnoxiousness is a corruption of French sincerity/outspokenness. German bossiness is a corruption of German order and efficiency. And so on.

[Greg]

Most British people are not snobs.

Foreigners like to believe that everyone in Britain is some sort of character from Downton Abbey but nothing could be further from the truth.  Those people are few and far between.  If they exist today they are generally cash poor, asset rich trying to repair the lead roof on their stately home and dressed in their grandfather's Harris tweed suits.

The modal average Brit is someone who is tolerant to a point, pro-divorce, accepting of abortion but not radically in favour of it, (sees it as a necessary evil), wants 2 children, 3 at the most, aspires to change their car every 3 years, does not like neighbours who have an untidy garden, tolerates homosexuals and most other weirdness, and is ambivalent about the Royal family except when there is a wedding or important Jubilee celebration of the Queen.

Brits on the whole would never visit a royal palace or desire to see The Queen in person.  Only school children and people from remote communities would do that (when she came to their town).

In reality this is Britain today.  A fumbling bumbling state, overcast, melancholic and well represented by Boris Johnson the late middle aged duffer.



These people land on the Kent beaches every freaking day and everyone just moans about it.

The video below is my local beach where I take my wife and children every fortnight, St. Margaret at Cliffe.