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Comment by Dewie3 | Hacker News Reader

It's funny, I guess, to read about the WSJ referring to European culture. There is no European culture that I know of. Maybe if you look across from the other side of the ocean, contrast your own culture with Europe as a whole, you note the differences and contrasts and then conclude that what you are looking at is tight-knit enough to be called a culture. Maybe like someone travelling from one part of Eurasia to another side, noting how people look and behave and contrast them with the things that are different to their own, and then concluding "this is a distinct culture/group".

Now watch a European disagree with me just to be contrarian.

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I disagree with yo not to be contrarian, but because you're wrong.

Firstly, inner-European differences are almost by definition smaller than, say, those between Europeans and Asians. Of course there are still cultural differences between Greeks and Irish. But to deny similarities is equally misguided.

Secondly, these differences are getting smaller and smaller. Timothy G. Ash calls it "The Easyjet Generation": young university students, used to cheap airline travel, are creating a unified European culture. I know young people from almost every European country and I feel more connected to them to, say, my 50-year old working class neighbours.

> I know young people from almost every European country and I feel more connected to them to, say, my 50-year old working class neighbours.

I'm sure you do, in certain ways. But, for example, perhaps some of your friends have 50-year old neighbours, who work in a lower paid job, and yet it would simply never occur to them that they were a different "class" and therefore not to be associated with. That's part of your culture.

Erasmus is also pretty good at this. I highly recommend it. It's kind of amazing. Which is something I can say without being hyperbolic.

I feel more connected to them to, say, my 50-year old working class neighbours

.. and vice versa, I'm sure, which is why some of them are voting for anti-Europe parties.

> Firstly, inner-European differences are almost by definition smaller than, say, those between Europeans and Asians.

To say that the differences are smaller is one thing. To call them one culture is an entirely other.

> I know young people from almost every European country and I feel more connected to them to, say, my 50-year old working class neighbours

Yes, I bet you feel very connected to the English-speaking, or German-speaking, or whatever common language-speaking friends you have who have the inclination, interest and time to learn these common languages and to travel to several countries in order to meet new people (not just to go on a vacation and/or "meet new people while getting wasted"). But is that really such a big group that you would call them something relating to a generation? That's a big word to throw around.

> I disagree with yo not to be contrarian, but because you're wrong.

You're wrong about him being wrong. He said there's no one European culture, and you even agree with him:

> Of course there are still cultural differences between Greeks and Irish.

Totally disagree. I think you can easily compare European Culture, Asian Culture, North American Culture... they are clearly represented.

Brits, Italians, Polish, Icelandic and Germans clearly form a homogeneous group. A Mexican, New Yorker and Alaskan clearly form another one. And who could disagree that a Chinese, Australian, Indonesian, Indian and Japanese might as well be the same person?

</extreme sarcasm tags>

Exactly.

What the cultural diversity does though, is it makes it harder for startups to serve one big market - that's where US startups have it easier.

Are they "tougher" because of that? I don't think so.

I don't think the WSJ is claiming that all of Europe shares the same food and language. The notion of a culture can be contextually scoped and only include commonalities across that scope. You could talk about a US culture. You could talk about a Southern US culture. You could drill down further to talk about a Louisiana culture.

One could say that the EU and its laws embody commonalities across Europe that create the outlines of a culture.

I am a Brit living in Switzerland who lived most of his life in America or Asia. Qualify as European? Agree, lots of diversity in Europe and lots of great entrepreneurs as well as resistance to change.

There used to be a lot of resistance in various traditional European business circles (taking meetings, intros, etc.) to working with outsiders, whereas in SV, there is often much less resistance. The other challenge in most countries is dealing with potential customers, staff, partners and other stakeholders that are title, formality, bureaucracy, analysis paralysis and business theater people that can't deal with the reality and uncertainty of nimble, effective action. The latter get the job done, while the former waste time on minimal value-generating activities.

It is easy to make mistakes painting with the broad brush of generalizations, however there are some qualitative patterns which emerge when dealing businesspeople from say Argentina or Japan, but there are always exceptions. (Just be sure to know the expected traditions and test out the other parties to see how cool are they.)

> ...and then conclude that what you are looking at is tight-knit enough to be called a culture.

There is no such qulaificiation on what constitutes a culture. You're making the common mistake of thinking that "culture" reffers to some sort of exclusive club, as though you're either in one or another.

Of course there is a European culture, as well as German, French, Britsh, and other national cultures, as well as local city, town, neighborhood, and even unique internal family cultures. It all overlaps for each of us in our own way.

There is almost certainly a human culture as well, we just lack sufficient comparisons to define it properly at the moment.

It's called 'Western culture'.

Edit: a.k.a. occident

I could give you a very simple example of cultural similarity across Europe. Religion. Pretty much the majority of European countries are Christians.

IMHO there are more similarities between European countries than between US States.

You can definitely cherry pick some examples for that to be the case, particularly for historical reasons and/or very close cultural ties. From an outsiders perspective, Austria and Germany are extremely similar (though neither Austrians or Germans would tend to agree!)

Whilst cultural differences in the US do undoubtedly exist, in Europe simply travelling a hundred miles can take you across 3 countries with 3 languages and 3 distinct cultures. There's plenty of diversity to be found.

>> Pretty much the majority of European countries are Christians.

Source? I doubt this. Secularism is quite high in Europe and I think their is also quite a high muslim population.

>> IMHO there are more similarities between European countries than between US States.

I can't believe you actually believe this. Different languages in most European countries. Different customs and traditions. Vastly different tastes in cuisine. Vastly varying levels of wealth/poverty. etc.

72% of Europeans are Christians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_European_Union

Languages, yes. They are different. Cuisine? Not so much. Mediterranean diet is more or less the same across southern Europe. Italians, Greeks and Spanish for example have a diet based on olive oil.

Other similarities. Legislation. Most laws passed from the EU are sooner or later adopted by member states. Sports. Football is prevalent all over Europe. Architecture. Neoclassic movement is all over the place. Music, see how many similarities exist between composers of classical music during centuries. Science, CERN is the largest collaboration of scientists in the world. And the list goes on.

In US if you go from New York to Texas you're in a different universe altogether.

>> I could give you a very simple example of cultural similarity across Europe. Religion. Pretty much the majority of European countries are Christians.

>> 72% of Europeans are Christians.

There are no "Christians" in Europe. You actually have Catholics, Protestants, Orthodoxs and a bunch of others. And those guys have been killing each other for very long time. The "Christianity-Version" of each region is actually a very fundamental property explaining those many differences (political parties, welfare systems, work ethics etc.) in Europe (which you claim don't exist).

>> "72% of Europeans are Christians"

Using the link you provided there is also this quote:

>> "Eurostat's Eurobarometer opinion polls showed in 2010 that 49% of EU citizens did not believe in God."

> I could give you a very simple example of cultural similarity across Europe. Religion. Pretty much the majority of European countries are Christians.

Christianity is kind of a big religion. The Americas (note the 's') could be said to be Christian. So I guess the Americas is one culture. At least Euorope also has the Orthodox branch. Not to mention the muslims in the Balkans.

> IMHO there are more similarities between European countries than between US States.

It genuinly blows my mind that some people actually believe this.

Having lived in Belgium, Sweden, and now in France - 3 different EU countries in 3 years- I can 100% confirm the parent commenter's almost comical ignorance about the heterogeneity of European life and mores.

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