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The issue I have with posts like these is that when you compare and contrast anglo/american culture with "other" cultures, you handwave away specific examples of "others".

"The majority of people" is a pretty broad group here, from Portugal to the Russian far east, Namibia to Papua New Guinea, Chile to Mexico. So when you say:

The majority of people don't actually have Facebook feeds from people they haven't seen in 35 years. Their friendships are based in the communities they live in - the people they trade with for food, clothing, and other necessities. There's a much greater sense of mutual interdependence, not so much the concept of isolated individual success followed by what, retreat to a gated community?

Does that really apply to all non-anglo/american cultures? You would have to be extraordinarily knowledgeable of near thousands of human cultures to know this.

it's rather startling how class-stratified and wealth-stratified American society has become, very similar to the posh/prole divide in imperial Britain.

It'd be a challenge to claim that the "prole/posh divide" in Imperial Britain was anywhere near as strong as some of its contemporaries - say the Qing Dynasty or Ottoman Empire.

> Does that really apply to all non-anglo/american cultures? You would have to be extraordinarily knowledgeable of near thousands of human cultures to know this.

Or you could find out how many users facebook has, and subtract it from the world population. If you're left with "the majority of people," you've easily proved it.

The ironic thing is that, as discussed in this thread, the article is really focused on upwardly mobile college graduates who have transitioned into marriage / kids.

This fits me and my friend group to a T, but the bits about Facebook don't land because me and all of my friends have abandoned that platform.

Even simpler proof: majority of people in the world are under 35.

I've been subscribing to The Atlantic for years. It is entirely targeted at upperclass, liberal, college-educated whites. Which is exactly why I read it. Why would I read a magazine targeted at a culture I don't understand or am not a part of? I do expect The Atlantic to explain these culture groups to me in a language I understand, but any periodical simply targets its own audience for profitability reasons.

This sounds like a nice way to keep yourself trapped in an information bubble. I live thousands of miles away from the nearest English-speaking country in a society pretty different to what you'd see in England or the US, yet spend most of my time in the English-speaking section of the internet precisely because of that (reading pretty much anything that comes by, targeted at as diverse groups as possible).

> This sounds like a nice way to keep yourself trapped in an information bubble.

Not from a good source. As GP put it:

> I do expect The Atlantic to explain these culture groups to me in a language I understand

Because it’s valuable to try to understand groups other than your own? Maybe even learn from them? Honestly I’m baffled that you hold this opinion with some pride.

I ascended to that class from a working class family (and no college) and y’all have just as many problems as any other social group.

I don't think you understand my opinion very well.

At no point did I say I do not wish to understand other people's opinions. But I don't speak in their culture, so I need it explained to me. That's literally what liberal humanities are all about, from the Renaissance on: trying to understand the world around you.

Are you somehow assuming, for example, that to truly understand Russia I should only read Russian newspapers and talk to Russians and speak Russian? I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we are.

> y’all have just as many problems as any other social group

I never said we didn't. Don't put your shit on me.

> I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we are.

You might think it's absurd, but that's precisely how you obtain deep knowledge of another culture - you learn the language or, at the very least, listen to first-hand accounts of people belonging to that culture who speak your language.

Otherwise you're essentially asking to dumb it down for you.

This is especially valid in the case of Russia.

You will miss quite a lot about Russia that way. Namely, the way their believes actually plays out abroad.

You will also miss large parts of Russian history, because it was nit sage to talk about historical stuff like purges in there for years.

That's not a concern, since I have reliable sources for that.

What I usually don't have at hand is insight regarding what's the current mindset and attitudes - the most revealing conversation I had about that was with a Russian who moved out of the countery and her reasons behind this decision (not money since she was from Moscow).

The most striking is always what a person considers normal.

> Otherwise you're essentially asking to dumb it down for you.

I wonder if you are exempt from the judgment you put on others.

While I agree that one can obtain a deeper understanding of a culture by exploring it thoroughly, your suggestion that any translation is "dumbing it down" is as absurd as your first argument, and an insult to every teacher.

This purity argument is destructive, as it reflects a powerfully deep elitism that is so exclusive, it appears to be an obvious volley against truth. I also wonder if you are capable of that kind of deep cynicism, or are just blathering.

(In anticipation, one easy argument against this purity is that people who speak English, live in America, went to college in America, got degrees in America ... STILL do not understand incredibly large parts of American culture until it is explained to them in their mode and register, and not even then in many cases. As my citations I'll simply point to our elections. So, yes, one can obtain deeper knowledge by full immersion--which is the point of deeper intellectual understanding--but ultimately that is an approximation, and even full assimilation does not bring enlightenment. Unless you are the thing, you are speaking through translation suited to your cultural comprehension.)

> your suggestion that any translation is "dumbing it down" is as absurd as your first argument, and an insult to every teacher.

I didn't suggest that, otherwise I wouldn't mention first-hand accounts of people who speak your language.

I'm eastern European and I've seen my share of people trying to explain Russia to others without an appropriate understanding of the topic.

They're often hilariously off the mark and I'm surprised anyone would prefer them over sources closer to the matter.

> In anticipation, one easy argument against this purity is that people who speak English, live in America, went to college in America, got degrees in America ... STILL do not understand incredibly large parts of American culture until it is explained to them in their mode and register, and not even then in many cases.

Do you consider yourself such a person? I mean, that's real some self-awareness, but at the same time you're condemning yourself to reliance on people who may or may not know what they're talking about.

> Are you somehow assuming, for example, that to truly understand Russia I should only read Russian newspapers and talk to Russians and speak Russian? I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we are.

This attitude is so toxic and the reason why many Americans feel as if the 'elites' are talking down to them. Why do you presume the Atlantic, owned by Steve Job's widow, has any incentive to accurately portray these foreign cultures or even domestic subcultures? What a wild belief.

Where do you get this impression? The article was clearly written for American audiences, and the sociologist Rawlins clearly focuses on American society.

You make it sound like they are just talking out of their rear end, making things up based on their own privileged and unrepresentative personal experience, but my impression is that their opinion is formed by their own research, which might be a couple decades old, but is probably still relevant.

If there's anything to complain about here, is that Americans tend to forget that there is a world outside of the USA.

> Americans tend to forget that there is a world outside of the USA

Reinforced by the apparent reality that mostly what people outside the USA want to talk about is the USA. Even on HN, where we have a large contingent of Europeans participating, we don't hear too much about Europe. It's almost always about the US.

There are plenty of articles about EU regulations or Amsterdam roads on here. But the US has the biggest single audience. Most websites have like 60% Americans but only 10% British or Germans, so anything about the US has it about six times easier to relate than something about Germany

Which makes sense, because the UK has the population of California + Texas, and Germany has the population of California + Texas + Illinois.

Of course this is a US-focused site to some extent, but the US just has a big contiguous language community. It's comparable to all of Europe, not individual countries.

> Reinforced by the apparent reality that mostly what people outside the USA want to talk about is the USA.

I'm from Europe and sure, one of the main reasons why I come to this US-based site with a majority of US readership is to find American viewpoints on issues, and engage in discussions about the USA.

This doesn't mean that I spend my life wanting to talk about the USA, though. I talk much more about my own country but it's on sites with readership from that country (and in real life, of course) so you're not aware of it.

And many of my compatriots don't talk about the USA at all, you just don't see them because they don't hang out in sites like this at all.

(Maybe this is already what you meant, that when an American interacts with someone from outside, they often want to talk about the USA -which is not the same as saying that people from outside often talk about the USA in general-. But it's not clear from your wording).

If I want to get perspectives from Europeans and from other parts of the world, what are the best sites to go to in order to see them?

Talking and hearing about the US is fun but I mainly come here for the tech news.

Because hardly anybody in European countries writes about their country using English language. Posting Polish article here would make no sense, since hardly anybody would be able to read it, thus only news which reported internationally get any attention. And since USA is quite big and eventful country English-speaking country, we naturally gravitate toward discussions about it.

Americans also tend to forget there is a world inside of the USA that isn't upper middle class, college educated, work all day, annual vacation people posting on social media.

The sense of community and day to day lives are very different and much more enjoyable. The only problem is that due to exploitation by distant corporate actors that community is played with violence, obesity and drug addiction.

> much more enjoyable

?

> played with obesity

plagued maybe. but also, no, corpos don't make people fat, and crime rates per pop are not as us/them as one might expect: https://i.redd.it/zzbhmc3gd4u31.png

> Where do you get this impression?

The article itself talks of life stages in terms of how things change, with college life being a case study as a small aside in the middle of the article. It's written as though these insights apply to everyone, even mentioning the "International Association of Relationship Researchers" at the beginning.

It's a very common problem in sociology-type sciences, where they study college students because they're easy access, then extrapolate to the entire population.

This is true. Also true that because something isn’t of universal applicability that doesn’t mean it isn’t of merit for a specific group. I don’t think the Atlantic pretends it’s readership isn’t overwhelming upper middle class+ highly educated center-left Americans. There is a balance isn’t there between acknowledging differences exist and only writing things of universal relevance which is mostly to say nothing at all.

Was about to write the exact same thing. Having grown up around multigenerational immigrant families in a working class environment in a Western country that is, the article already sounds foreign to me, and I'm not even that far off the target demographic compared to some other places in the world.

And still now as an adult in my early thirties who moved to Tokyo a few years ago, socially my environment is dominanted by friendships, which is true for many people my age. The article points to friendships being voluntary as one key distinction between say marriage and friends, but statistics will tell everyone that many of those marriages nowadays aren't that permanent.

Article sounds a little bit like it was written by someone who lives in American Beauty still.

Stratification of American society is largely due to people fleeing violent and property crime, especially once they have children. There is considerable hysteresis so it’s not as simple as lining up cost of living and crime stats, but a “nice neighborhood with good schools” will be considerably more expensive all else being equal.

> Stratification of American society is largely due to people fleeing violent and property crime, especially once they have children.

Claim made without evidence, and there is plenty of evidence that there are other larger factors at play.

> largely due to people fleeing violent and property crime, especially once they have children.

If I have to guess, what I think you're actually talking about is

1) after middle-class suburban kids leave home to go to college, then

2) graduate and move into gentrifying areas to take internships/jobs in big cities, then

3) get married during that period in their 20s while their income is rising into six figures, and

4) they purchase their starter house in the latest gentrifying neighborhood, then

5) get pregnant and get a dog at the same time, so

6) muggings and property crimes in their new neighborhood turn them extremely reactionary, then

7) they move to a massive palace in the suburbs either shortly before or shortly after the kid pops out.

i.e. the universal American experience.

>i.e. the universal American experience.

How is this consistent with #3? $100k incomes are 80th percentile.

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

Median household is $70K, $100K is 62nd percentile. So if both partners are working, which is common before children, it’s fairly likely.

Eh, I would be willing to bet the steps outlined in pessimizer’s post are experienced by 20% of young adults (let’s say 25 to 35 years old).

All others are renting or not moving into a “massive place” after their initial purchase, which itself was probably barely affordable.