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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

There are huge variations within a country, but they are far smaller than variations between countries.

It seems to be to be a common failing in the west to underestimate just how big differences are between themselves and other cultures. The two cultures I have lived in, despite being Britain and one of its former colonies (and therefore partially anglophone, similar political system, lots of other influences) are quite substation, and noticeable even in the (heavily westernised) circles I socialise in there. The differences would be even bigger if you compare to an East Asian culture like Japan.

Things that are regarded as fundamental concepts, or universal values are often not share (some values are pretty much human, some are not).

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> There are huge variations within a country, but they are far smaller than variations between countries.

That's not true. To use the examples in the thread, a patient American kid will be much more patient than an impatient Japanese kid.

Funny you should think there are spain and finland are similar at all.

I did not actually mention either, but they are very similar viewed from a non-western perspective.

They're really not. Europe is diverse enough that you need to split it into quadrants to decide what countries are relatively similar. Like is Finland similar to Germany from an outside perspective? Yes. Is Finland similar to southern Italy? Absolutely not, you'd be better off comparing southern Italy and latin America, and Finland with Japan. Like seriously, those will have more in common with each other than Finland and southern Italy. People have told me Naples feels like Brazil... which is nothing like Finland, which has the orderliness and cultural restraint of Japan. North European,East European and South European countries are similar to other countries in those same segments of Europe. They are not similar across segments.

Lots of similarities.

"Europe is diverse enough that you need to split it into quadrants to decide what countries are relatively similar"

The same is true for South Asia, but if you look at it from a western perspective you see the similarities.

There are plenty of similarities across Europe. Shared attitudes to sex, politics, religion..... things like freedom of worship and separation of church and state (laws restricting freedom of worship even in secular democracies like India, let alone the Middle East or China), attitudes to sex and sexuality (and ideas and definitions and identities linked to them - although this is changing because of Western influence, historically the idea of people having a fixed sexual orientation is a modern western one, for example)....

I dunno how what you're saying negates my point. I was actually gonna add that the same thing can be said of Asia, which even more so needs to be split into quadrants to find clear similarities in culture.

Basically it's "roman empire vs not roman empire" :D

I mean, the same perspective that people have when they say all asians look identical? :D Then yes, sure.

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