Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

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Why are all the French so ashamed to be French all the time?

I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when a Le Pen won something somewhere. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when an anti piracy group pirates a logo. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when some president felt the need to compensate for something by blowing up a nuclear bomb in the pacific.

Somehow, anecdotally, being ashamed to be born somewhere is a particularly French phenomenon. Why?

France has all the above things, but also a great healthcare system, nice people, a somewhat functional democracy, and many other great things.

There's 60 million Frenchmen. Are you going to be ashamed every time one of them does something wrong? Do you expect them to be ashamed every time you do something wrong?

Instead of shame, maybe it would be more constructive to organize and do something about it. The ivory tower of the French political elite is notorious, but not unsurmountable.

This is not a French phenomenon. There is a difference between political affairs, such as extreme rights winning elections and a nuclear bomb explosion, than your neighbor being an asshole. Being ashamed of something means people you consider in the same group as you do things you find not acceptable (it could be a country, as it's the case here, but also a community, a football team or whatever). In fact, being ashamed shows you'd prefer this entity to react differently to make you and the group you're considering better.

Yes, we should be ashamed when someone does something wrong. In fact, we shouldn't be ashamed to be ashamed of some dumb decision. Being ashamed doesn't mean we are not doing anything else about it. You've seen Frenchmen being ashamed to be French, and that's OK. It means they're not thinking their country is the best, but they can also learn from their mistakes. And I am proud of this, as a French person, too, though I am ashamed of LeBonCoin's strategy.

Americans are ashamed of being American, Australians are ashamed of being Australian, the French are ashamed of being French.

It's a pretty common thing across every culture where people attribute the bad things that happen around them to the geography or culture when in reality, there are crappy drivers all over the world.

Might be just me, but I've never seen Americans be ashamed of being American in situations like these. Their standard reaction seems to be "boo! call your representative!"

You might have a point. Imagine that I am ashamed at having been ashamed, and I'm often ashamed at french being ashamed for random reasons. Maybe we have too high expectations.

Because we were once a great nation, so we have high expectations about how we are perceived in the world.

I agree there's nothing to be ashamed here, especially as leboncoin position is quite understandable (and their tone not that menacing).

It would be a pointless anyway to be ashamed to be French because of leboncoin.fr as the stuff is based on a Swedish technology

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