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Comment by taki1 | Hacker News Reader

It is true in American culture. It is not true in European (not sure about Asian) culture. Try putting your shoes on the table in Europe at the same time claiming credit for someone's else work in Paris or Berlin.

The difference is a cultural one. Americans don't complain when they see or experience injustice or poor behavior. Nobody will talk to a jerk like this in Europe.Or actually he will hear something. Like: "Can you take your shoes from the table Mr. Important? You are not at home! BTW, Jane did this work, not you, why are you claiming credit for her work?" I can't imagine someone telling something like this to a jerk in the US. At the same time I can't imagine someone not telling something like this to a jerk in Europe.

Also, never have seen so much politics and self-praise as in the US.

But then again, maybe a strict culture that puts everyone in their respective place, is the reason why we don't get Steve Jobs or Bill Gates success stories.

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It's not about American or European. Assuming these jerks are of higher rank, few people have the balls to stand up to their boss short of quitting. If they're lower or equal rank, then we don't have much to talk about unless the person is just a masochist that enjoys being a doormat.

In the West, we have some laws to deal with these problems.

In Japan and Korea, it wasn't that long ago that it was totally acceptable for your boss to smack you in the face. And you have to take it because no company will hire you if you quit.

It's still pretty bad in South Korea and China, just look up Korea Airline nut rage scandal.

The strong always oppress the weak. The weak gets angry and revolt, then they become the strong and proceed to oppress those weaker than them. This is the summary of human society and history.

As a so called 'European', I'm kind of shocked/dubious that this would also be acceptable in American culture.

My guess is most people would agree that if you put your feet on the table and take credit where it isn't due then you're probably an ahole. But this is a stereotype of the typical 'jerk'.

It's the jerks that 'play the game' and aren't necessarily blatant that do (perhaps unfairly) well.

As an American who has spend a good amount of time in Europe, I've noticed a cultural difference that may be relevant.

Almost universally, Europeans take their shoes off when entering a home. As a guest, it is expected, and failing to do so unless specifically instructed not to is rude. A majority of Americans I know do not take their shoes off at home and guests are not expected to unless specifically asked or given some cue.

Feet on a desk in an office would be considered rude in both Europe and the US, however, I have a suspicion it's considerably more rude in Europe.

> Almost universally, Europeans take their shoes off when entering a home.

Utter bullshit.

I'm sorry, but I have no more subtle response to such clueless arrogant pontificating prefaced with the typical "as an American who has spend a good amount of time in Europe".

If you had bothered to even superficially explore a single small country on the continent, you wouldn't have such a naive uninformed notion of European cultural diversity.

For you information: any such very, very, specific cultural habit, from taking of your shoes to how you have dinner, is almost certainly nowhere near "universally" true within any given European country (which historically tend to contain multiple cultures), let alone the entire continent.

I am not a fan of the way you phrased all this, no need to be that defensive and insulting at the same time.

That being said, I second the content, Europe is way too heterogeneous an entity to draw any continent-wide cultural conclusion.

We mix Southern Spaniards, Sicilians, Ukrainians and Bulgarians with people from the Faroe Islands, Austrians and Scots, this is a wide gamut bunch.

I dunno, there's a good moral argument for giving a fairly mild ration of shit to somebody who insists on using a little experience to draw sweeping conclusions. It happens so commonly and so persistently that I do think a little bit of applied loss of face might be helpful. Hot stoves and all that.

I understand the sentiment but isn't the web confrontational enough already? I always think of the people on the sidelines who might be lurkers, interested in engaging the community, contributing, whatever and who read those kinds of comments, thinking: "There's no room for error, those people are really aggressive". It's just computers, nothing life-threatening so I like it when we keep it as civil as possible.

I lived for a substantial amount of time in Ireland and France, and absolutely no indication that this is the case, at all. More prevalent in SF than Dublin or Paris.

I criticized the article below, but I'd like to note that the study about the café was done by Dutch researchers, not Americans.

Right, American culture (or the lack of it) definitely represents a tradeoff. Strong culture has an effect of reducing anxieties; you know your place by participating. You probably won't do too well, but not too bad either. In contrast, American culture almost prides itself on not participating, and "forging your own path", non-conformity is the new conformity, etc.

The results are that it will be easier to do thing like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but at the same time easier to miss the mark even more and shoot up schools (Not saying that is an exclusively American phenomenon though).

I personally think the tradeoff is worth it. It's like being given a piano versus a "make music automatically!" iPad app. I will take the piano despite the much greater possibility of making mistakes, for the chance to make something that sounds much better.

Although this weak culture leads to some other problems, like the not complaining when they see injustice. It's that it is more difficult to develop your instincts for dealing with injustive when you don't know the expectations and rituals of the group(s) in which you are participating.

>In contrast, American culture almost prides itself on not participating, and "forging your own path", non-conformity is the new conformity, etc.

IMHO, this is mostly a presentation of non-conformity. In my experience, having lived half my life in the US and half of it elsewhere, non-conformity is punished much more severely here than in western europe. You even get ostracized here for having a different concept of what non-conformity involves.

The US has a very limited concept of individualism, which seems to overlap significantly with "success" defined purely in financial terms, or as some form of force projection - either charismatic and persuasive, seductive, violent, or all three.

If you look at the US media, there's almost no coverage at all of other ethical systems and other forms of individuality.

The closest thing to a break was the drop-out culture of the late 1960s. But even that burned itself out and turned into a business opportunity.

It's so incredibly pervasive, it possibly seems like the only possible world view - even though it isn't.

The drop-out culture occurred because, for the first time in history, the adult children of the middle class were able to be supported by their boomer parents, for a time.

I wonder if, and it is a long if, we are able to throw off the shackles of our financial masters, we might see a similar, only larger, cultural explosion.

Americans have a culture. To say otherwise is just snobbish xenophobia.

Speaking for GP: The problem with the word 'culture' is that it has an evaluating component (more culture = good), which I don't think is what GP meant. Maybe a better term would be "amount of hard rules in society", i.e. how many rules do you have to follow as a member to be accepted. In those terms, from personal experience, I'm pretty sure that Japan >> Western Europe > USA - correct me if you think otherwise.

Edit: I recommend watching the making of "Aliens" [1]. Young American (J. Cameron) goes to England to direct a British film crew, experiences surprisingly big cultural clash and the whole project almost ends in chaos, even though everyone was working at a very high quality level.

Edit2: Just to preempt here, yes I know Cameron is Canadian, but he clearly comes out of American movie making culture, so I took a shortcut there.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V--gH9ayR-o

Actually, Europeans can be jerks and aholes as much as Americans. I'm speaking from personal experience. Given half a chance, as they were on the project that I'm working on, the Europeans behaved identically, perhaps worse, to Americans. If the stakes are right (promotion and $$$) and the opportunity presents itself, just about anybody can be a jerk and get away with it. Sorry if the truth hurts.

Try putting your shoes on the table in Europe

Don't confuse the specific action for the intent behind it. Specific actions such as putting your shoes on the table have a high degree of cultural context surrounding them. The message they send is completely dependent on the culture of the person performing them.

All of that doesn't mean there aren't equivalent forms of aggressiveness in other cultures. Look at Hitler, for example.

The practice of beheading put a damper on bad public behavior several centuries ago, but the jerks are still alive and well in Europe.

I'm European and once put my feet on the table when talking to a collegue on the phone. I did it because I was curious of people's reaction. Another colleague saw it and she was stunned to say that least. I quickly apologized, but that's a heck of a cultural difference spanning across the pond.

Also not read to the end, right? The article's second half discusses how it's not about jerk or not but about showing confidence and stealing for the group. Just fighting for yourself gets you nowhere.

I don't think these generalizations about Americans are valid at all.

American here, and I can relate to your comments somewhat. Your summary captures a lot of what I dislike about the business side of business in the US.

I don't even think that it's true in American culture, except perhaps in Silicon Valley, which is a toxic outlier, and in a small sliver of Wall Street that still has the excessive 1980s culture. (Most Wall Street jobs are in professional environments, these days.)

Try putting your shoes on the table in Europe at the same time claiming credit for someone's else work in Paris or Berlin.

Taking credit is a dick move anywhere, and if you get called on it, no one will respect you. The credit-takers who get away with it are the ones who do it in a way hat they won't get called out.

Feet on the desk or table would definitely make a person disliked in most companies. Again, Silicon Valley is an outlier, and the obnoxious Wall Street culture is pretty much extinct because most of the "alpha trader" jobs have been automated.

Also, never have seen so much politics and self-praise as in the US.

There is more tolerance (if not requirement, to some degree) for self-promotion in the US, and that's especially true of Silicon Valley. It's fairly regional, to tell the truth. The sort of person who gets funded in the Valley would be considered an overconfident tool in New York and be actively disliked in Chicago (as in, presumably, most of Europe).

That said, I know some people who've worked at Rocket Internet companies and the Samwers seem to take the stereotypically American boorishness to a whole new level.

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