Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

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From an European POV: America has a cultural problem with violence and generally the concept of them showing dominance over others, plain and simple.

Guns, the amazing fact that bare nipples in a TV show can cause a national scandal while it's no big deal at all if a kids show like the Simpsons can contain absolutely ridiculous amounts of violence, gore and other highly problematic behavior, not just bending but outright stomping over rules being commonplace in virtually all major police (e.g. Law & Order, NCIS, Cold Case) and medical (e.g. Dr. House) shows and movies, "rolling coal" on bicyclists and road rage in general being a thing...

Torture being accepted so widely as well also ties in with what makes the US penal system so unique among Western ones - everyone else has switched their penal system to rehabilitation and prevention (i.e. try your best to make sure that felons don't commit more crimes in the future), whereas in the US you don't just have stuff like ridiculous prison times or being released with no assets, no help, no nothing after a lengthy prison stay, it's widely accepted to the point of being the butt of jokes that you get raped in prison ("don't drop a soap bar") or that you have to deal with massive overcrowding, roaches, mold in food... in any civilized society, the courts would intervene immediately for such reports, but in the US? Nothing has changed there in decades, partially of course because the US political system is dysfunctional, but IMHO more because people accept inhumane treatment of people who "have done something wrong, so deserve it".

And to add on the 9/11 thing: the US is already a deeply traumatized nation at its core. Stuff like MKULTRA, the Vietnam war or the 1st Iraq war never got addressed and dealt with as a country in a healthy way - and completely forget about the even older stuff like slavery or the discrimination of e.g. Japanese-Americans during WW2, there's more than enough politicians in power who do everything they can to repress even teaching about that! 9/11, Afghanistan and the 2nd Iraq War, the multitude of financial crises since then - that also didn't get dealt with.

How can anyone expect healthy attitudes from a society that never allowed itself to heal from its past?

“From a European POV”?

This is incredibly hypocritical considering what Europe has done over the last 500 years in latam, Africa, Asia, etc. You need to check yourself.

King Leopold II established his brutal fiefdom in the "Congo Free State" in 1885 .. school shootings in the US and mass shootings from Las Vegas Hotels, etc are all rather this decade.

You have a stale point, Europe has moved on from colonialism and hasn't engaged in the home soil atrocities to the extent embraced by the US.

> home soil atrocities

I'm not sure what I think about it, but I have heard the statement that "Hitler didn't do anything that the Empire[0,1] hadn't done before him; his mistake was in not realising one was supposed to limit that kind of activity to brown people".

[0] or others: let's give Leopold a hand, everyone.

[1] Having been reminded by the recent unfortunate fall of an imperial cosplayer: I have lost an image that was floating around the innrnetz, of a stormtrooper in a locker room, half in (or is it half out?) of uniform, sitting dejected on a bench with their hands facing us and I M P E clearly tattooed on one set of knuckles, with the other set reading R I A L.

I’m sorry but this is rather stupid. Europe has done incredible damage to the world that persists to this day. Until they address this damage, it absolutely is not a stale point. Assuming you are European, do not attempt to weasel your way out of your debt to the world.

I get what you’re getting at but you’re engaging in whataboutism. Just because parts of Europe also did damage to the world does not mean we get to ignore or dismiss what this person is saying especially when it’s pretty on the nose. Firthermore (and I don’t really think it matters regardless), this comment or could be from some small European country that did nothing major and you’re accusing them of a cognitive dissonance that may not exist.

With the exception of the Brits (whose deconstruction from its Empire days keeps fucking stuff up to this day, just look at Israel/Palestine or Pakistan/India), we have learned from our mistakes.

I'm not foolish enough to claim we're perfect - far from it, especially when it comes to restitution towards former colonies and looted art from there - but at least we recognized how and where we fucked up, and we're teaching our children about that in school. We don't skip over the horrors of WW1, we don't skip over WW2 and what led up to it, we don't skip over the various genocides committed on European soil. We acknowledge and own the stuff that our ancestors did.

In contrast, as I mentioned, more and more American schools outright ban books and teaching about its problematic past, or (like MKULTRA) it isn't taught about at all.

So what mistakes do you believe you have learned from? From here, it appears you have very much retained your paternalistic European attitude toward other cultures which you deem to be less learned or morally inclined.

While you scratch around for an answer, you might also like to remind yourself that European countries maintain undue influence in their former colonies to this very day.

Look, they are comparing Europe to the US, the current hegemon, and criticise that the US does not include it's history of violence and abuse in its curriculum to the same extend as they do in Europe.

I honestly don't think your comment addresses this criticism at all. You seem to look for reasons why the US shouldn't be criticised to start with, which sort of strengthens the point op made.

> From here, it appears you have very much retained your paternalistic European attitude toward other cultures which you deem to be less learned or morally inclined.

Well, the current issues that the US face are so large they are hardly to ignore here. Y'all's regular occurrence of mass shootings even makes national headlines in our media, and we see the cultural issues seeping from US-made media (both entertainment and social media) into our societies. We don't have a real answer to that other than regulation though.

> While you scratch around for an answer, you might also like to remind yourself that European countries maintain undue influence in their former colonies to this very day.

Fair point, France does have its issues in Africa, but at least the colonies are their own independent nations (and do exercise that right, as we've seen the last few months).

What a great cop out. Fuck up the colony, then give them independence so you can wash your hands of the blood and tears.

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