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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Here are a few hints for reading these things:

1) Nothing is homogeneous. Even a single static object is not 100% the same now compared to how it was 10 days ago. But in order to make any observation, one has to generalize to the point that has statistical significance.

2) Despite saying Europeans and Americans such articles don't mean ALL Europeans and ALL Americans. For Europeans they mostly mean Western Europe: Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, etc. For Americans they mostly mean the stereotypical middle class suburban American, not a Manhattanite yuppie, nor some Idaho farmer, or "white trash".

3) The idea is not to see if the article's observations hold 100%, but whether they hold more often than not.

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> For Europeans they mostly mean Western Europe:

Western Europe includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and UK, too. As soon as I read the title, I thought to children in my country (Italy) and I saw the enormous gap.

>Western Europe includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and UK, too.

It does, but there's also the North/South division (even within a single country, like Italy, but even more so generally).

South Europe is not really "Western" in this sense (and in other senses, e.g. with respect to religious heritage and ethics, catholicism and orthodoxy vs protestants, etc).

What? Italy is not "Western"? Well, your definition of Western Europe is very weird. Italy is one of the foundations of Western Europe.

What you wrote about religious heritage is also weird... Protestant Austria? France?

What you're meaning is just Germanic countries (except France).

His definition of Western Europe would also be my definition. Western European states have a high standard of living, low levels of corruption compared to Italy, well maintained and developed infrastructure, low levels of unemployment, and discipline. Compare and contrast with Italy, Spain, or Portugal.

Those comments sound a little stereotypical and xenophobic

He does, but I don't think name calling will change his mind. Besides, let's be honest, his ideas are already there in most people's minds.

To the grandparent: Luxembourg's dirty secret is corruption. France has high unemployment. Standards of living are actually pretty nice under the sun, and outside of the high-pay but nerve-wracking shitty weather of "the north". I agree on the more discipline part, but only when it comes to public behaviour.

Where in western Europe have you lived?

Thanks, I will rephrase it to not sound so harsh

Stereotypes exist for a reason, although people try to drown them out in public because they think that makes them look better. I'm just not being a hypochrite in this particular instance, that's all. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Yap, and Southern European people is lazy, Jews are greedy and Arabs are terrorists. Because stereotypes exist for a reason.

Oh, you are right and I am so wrong: for instance, people from the South of Europe are famous throughout the world for being as hardworking as the Japanese.

If you ever meet anyone from Dalmatia, ask them what their word "fjaka" means, then ask them why they have it...

And of course, terrorist is simply nothing more than a stereotype, because there is no pattern at all which could possibly correlate the string of terror acts. Those terrorists are actually Buddhists from Tibet, that's what those are!

How could I have been so wrong??? Horrible, deplorable.

It's not that weird:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme_for_E...

Most everybody does not include Italy in "Western" Europe. Italy is "South Europe", along with Spain, Portugal, Greece etc. Heck, even the European Commission divides Europe into West (fr, be, nl, uk, de), North (se, no, fi, baltics), South (es, it, pt, gr, cy) and East (the rest) in many of their policy studies. I have never been involved in any policy work where Italy was considered 'Western Europe' (part of 'the West', yes, but that's from a global perspective).

Western Europe as per Wikipedia definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe

There are multiple definitions. Western is not merely a geographic term. DDR wasn't a part of Western Europe either, and it was located pretty west.

Already we were discussing here the original article, which used a more restrictive definition -- and explained that.

>What? Italy is not "Western"? Well, your definition of Western Europe is very weird. Italy is one of the foundations of Western Europe.

Being a foundation in 17th century doesn't mean it hasn't floundered since. But that's not the point either.

To quote WIkipedia:

"Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of the European continent. There may be differences between the geopolitical and purely geographic definitions of the term."

> South Europe is not really "Western"

What?

Because

  {
    (South != West) && (!Discipline != Discipline) && (SouthEuropeanMentality != WesternEuropeanMentality) && (SouthEuropeanValues != WesternEuropeanValues);
  }

Western Europe is a well established geographical and historical reality, and vague, a-historical concepts like "Discipline" and "Mentality" have no value, at all. Italy, France or Spain are the cradle of Western Europe, along with a bunch of other countries.

I lived in 4 different countries in continental Europe (France, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands) and while, of course, there are differences, it is staggering the quantity of shared things, in the daily life…

But we were not discussing whether those three countries were the cradles of European civilization (undisputedly so) but what Western Europe is in contemporary times.

No amount of calling bullshit is going to change the fact that Spain and Italy are mired by corruption scandals. The root cause of that is the mentality, the way of thinking, and lack of discipline: "to hell with everyone else as long as I have plenty to eat, guzzle, and screw". The results speak for themselves. For instance, what is the unemployment rate in Spain, especially among the younger generation? Why?

And the more you write, the more you define yourself

I'm from an excluded from this definition country too.

It's not about wanting your home country to be part of "Western Europe", or whether it was its cradle, or whether it is "worth" it to be.

It's about whether it fits certain modern socio-economic criteria for a SPECIFIC definition of western europe.

To quote Wikipedia:

"Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of the European continent. There may be differences between the geopolitical and purely geographic definitions of the term."

Check: United Nations Statistics Division geoscheme for Western Europe (hint: no Italy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe#Modern_division...

Or others...

What has to do your answer with the things the OP was writing?

I am sorry for you, you are just thinking along stereotypes here. That's way of thinking says much more about you than it doesn't say about reality...

> No amount of calling bullshit is going to change the fact that Spain and Italy are mired by corruption scandals.

Germany, for example, in the last years has been known for VW, Deutsche Bank and Siemens scandals, showing links between corrupt business and political power. BER international airport is another example, and there are countless of other examples. And those were huge examples of corruption. Corruption is a systemic problem, and thinking that in central Europe there is no corruption is just a very dangerous mindset.

> "to hell with everyone else as long as I have plenty to eat, guzzle, and screw".

...

> The results speak for themselves. For instance, what is the unemployment rate in Spain, especially among the younger generation? Why?

The reasons are complex, Spain no more than 10 years ago showed fantastic grow rates, very low public debt, very low unemployment. Essentializing the problems of Spain as a problem of "mentality" just shows ignorance.

> Germany, for example, in the last years has been known for VW, Deutsche Bank and Siemens scandals,

In Germany, the courts function and there will be consequences. In Italy or Spain, not so much.

Catholic religion has been the founding religion of the medieval Europe . I hope that I don't have to remind you that , in ancient times, kings were crowned by Popes in France and UK. All other variations of Christian religions were created as a result of struggle powers. In the 14-15th centuries Italians were leading innovators and bankers from Florence were lending money to England and France kings. Back in that time the most common Language in business Europe was a derivation of Italian. Italy is one of the foundation of Western Europe, both historically and culturally. Denying this is ignoring history.

P.S: I guess that children in Italy were running and screaming quite a lot also at the time...

>Catholic religion has been the founding religion of the medieval Europe

Yes. And then the reformation happened -- and the power has since long been gone from the catholic europe.

> For Europeans they mostly mean Western Europe

It's much more accurate to divide Europe between the Northern, Germanic (Germany, UK, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Austria), the Southern, Latin (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) and the Eastern, Slavic. Of course the separations aren't so clear-cut, but I am under the impression that when I read something about "Why are the Europeans so much better" it often matches the Northern category.

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