American Behavior Or NT Behavior?

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That is so interesting.

Unfortunately I didn't get to Atlanta.

On my first visit to the USA I arrived via Hawaii into San Francisco. This was in 1976. I stayed for a week in that city and met friendly, helpful and generous strangers. It made a tremendous impression on me, and American manners in those years were delightful. The only annoyances were the Moonies hanging around Fisherman's Wharf!

My last visit was in 2007. (I had been to the States between my first and last visit). How things had changed - though the world had changed too. In cities like Savannah, New Orleans and others in the South I found those old-time manners still existed and other places here and there. However once I crossed the state line into California, that almost completely disappeared (in 2007).. Las Vegas (Nevada) and Los Angeles - in particular could be declared manner-free zones? Except for the people paid to be polite, of course, like doorman at expensive hotels. I was shocked at how much it had changed, and some service and reception people literally snarled when they spoke to you, as though you were imposing on them. Even in a small town in Southern California I ran into this attitude. What happened?

Well, regarding the article / OP, the item that stuck-out at me the most was the one about us being rude----and, I'm sorry to say that it's totally true. Americans have a very horrible "I deserve" attitude. I can remember living / traveling overseas and being ashamed of my own people. I once actually told someone I was Canadian----then, I was so ashamed of MYSELF that I never did it again. As for whether this behavior is American or NT, I'd like to think it's NT----and that way, not ALL Americans are like that.

As usual, B19, and TTRSage, I really enjoyed reading your posts. B19: When you said something about gun-totin' / flag wavin' people (MY words, not yours), I thought sure you were speaking of the south, and I was LMAO (I'm Southern, I can laugh at my own people); but, then you said Texas people were good----I was really surprised because from what I know of Texans (I've only been to one city, and, for the life of me, I can't remember which one), they are NOT accepting of people who are "different" (now that I think about it, maybe TTRSage said that). Anyway, regarding Atlanta: I went in the early 80s, and the people were fine----I went in the early 90s, and people were different (like, just starting to seem mean, or whatever). I've had more than one person say to me that the people in Baltimore are WORSE THAN ANY OTHER MAJOR METROPOLITAN CITY----they cited, in their exclamation: NYC, Atlanta, Chicago, and..... I can't think of the other one, right now----I'm thinking it was Detroit----no, actually, I don't think it was Detroit because I remember saying I had been to all the cities they mentioned, except Chicago; and, unfortunately, I had to agree with them.

It hurts me (like, this article) to see Americans being thought-of as rude, loud, demanding, bullies, etc.----but, the fact is, generally speaking, WE ARE----and it's good that people say it, cuz maybe we'll start changing it!!

At least part of the problem is that we sometimes have to be loud and demanding to prevent other Americans from taking advantage of us. So maybe we kind of get used to that and take the behavior abroad.

I'm American, and I used to live in a touristy area of Ireland. Tourists from EVERY country are annoying. They roam in packs, talk too loud, say stupid things, don't know where they're going, block the sidewalks taking group photos, etc. The Italians like to talk nonstop in loud voices. The Asians like to travel in large groups with matching outfits. The Americans like to wear shirts with their own flag on them, and tell everyone that America is the greatest. Tourists are annoying, no matter from whence they hail. And "townies" all over the world complain about them.

Camping Cat, my first introduction to Texas was staying in a large gated community in East Texas. Oh my goodness, I felt like a cross between an anthropologist and Louis Theroux. Guns and flags everywhere, though that didn't surprise me, I had been warned about that by my previous, very generous host, a retired republican in St Petersburg. You couldn't have dragged him back to Texas even if you tied him up to wild horses. They did hold a big lunch for me, and after this I was invited to private homes for dinner (excellent cooks, I must say). What struck me was that this was life in an inward-looking microcosm, which regarded itself as a macrocosm... highlights for me: I saw my first in its own habitat snake there - by a stream in a bird sanctuary (a water moccasin) and the food... They were polite to me in their own way, though this sometimes included a rudeness of which they were unaware - I was a curiosity, they knew appalling little about New Zealand (some assumed I lived in Australia, near the desert). (To be fair, I didn't know all that much about Texas apart from the oilwells, Enron, LBJ, the Bushes and the Kennedy assassination..) One woman said, quite haughtily, there was no point in travelling to other countries, because America had the best of everything anyway... and looked at me as if I was some kind of exotic insect! The limits of their minds, in this community (which was not super-wealthy but well-off) seemed to have contracted.

So I left hoping that the rest of Texas (I travelled all over it in the next two weeks) wasn't the same but fearing that it was. It was good to discover that Texas is much more diverse than that. The icecream was excellent - almost as good as ours!! ! West Texas is one of the biggest travelling mistakes I have ever made, I got tired of the one horse towns (some were one goat towns, and wretched animals they were in that bleak un-verdant landscape).

Austin and San Antonio were interesting, in their own ways, and very very different in almost every way.
I wouldn't go back to Texas, though I am glad I did see it, and remain grateful for the hospitality that was extended to me. I didn't, though, experience those "delightful manners" in the Texas part of my stay. They were polite in their kind of way, which wasn't that old South way at all.

But not all of us are....there are lots of people like that and it even seems to be a problem/product of the society. The people here that care already aren't like that, the ones who do behave like that likely don't care enough to change just because foreigners take them to represent us all and then get a bad impression. Not sure people here can make them change either.

Can you provide an example of this? Just don't know I have ran into this or not so some clarification would help.

B-19: Yep, we Southerners can cook-up-a-storm, and have great hospitality. Now, "haughty" sounds like Texas to me. I'm surprised, though, that they DIDN'T have those "Southern Manners"! ! I've also found it very interesting when areas almost totally separate themselves from each other----like you said "East Texas", and "West Texas"----Tennessee does it, TOO----and even here, in Baltimore, no one wants to go to "The East Side". Lots of other states / cities do it, as well----I've always found it fascinating.

Sweetleaf: I'm not really sure I got the point you were trying to make.

Re: Southern manners, I live in rural Georgia and find that manners vary quite a lot from one neighborhood to another. Most of the time though people are very friendly with visitors, except during football season, as in that case wearing the wrong colors in a college town may nearly put your life at risk. lol

Anyway as for areas considering themselves separate from each other...it's long been said that there are two Georgias, one being the greater metro Atlanta area and suburbs, and the other being the rest of the state.

With my statement above I should have added that with "hot-bed for memetic evolution" comes the assumption of high levels of aggression, competition, and uncertainty, which are basically angles of the same thing, - a driving force for the evolutionary selection process. It is a dominance and expansion seeking group of algorithms.

What I describe here is basically the opposite of friendly.
Friendly would be a more static niche seeking algorithm.

A flu virus is an example of an aggressive algorithm.
A highly specialized tropical orchid is an example of a niche seeking algorithm (friendly).

Like when you go into a business and the employees won't do their jobs until you threaten to tell the supervisor. Or when people are bothering you and they don't take you seriously when you say stop until you start yelling and cursing.

Ahh, yes----I remember a time when I didn't consider Georgia----or Florida, for that matter----"Southern", because all I knew of Georgia, was Atlanta----and all I knew of Florida, was retirement communities and Disney World. I've since learned differently and understand that there's rural areas ("Southern") in BOTH states. I DEFINITELY understand why there's a separation between Atlanta and the rest of the state!! I would think the "Southern Manners" would be in the rural areas?? I DEFINITELY know y'all can COOK!!

Well the US is a big diverse place... and this sounds like simply the behaviour of certain sections of NT, no, human behaviour.

Howdy neighbor... I have to agree about the two Georgias description and I have lived in both. Born in rural GA (Mudville as we referred to the old capital), lived much longer in the metro area, spent more time overseas, but claim both Georgias.