Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
No, it isn't. How exactly is someone supposed to have a robust debate about personal taste? Someone says they like or don't like something, we hear them, we move on. They go on a weird and negative rant and no one knows what they're talking about, people get annoyed. It has nothing to do with us; you're trying to invent something that just isn't there.
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This was a boilerplate Old-New World cultural clash. You don't know that because you're a North American who has been conditioned to expect that American culture is normative everywhere and at all times, so you're not aware of it. This is actually one of my pet peeves, and why I hate the typical American persona instead of just being able to ignore it the way I ignore Lithuania. Americans are awful for barging into places with a sense of entitlement bigger than their guts, and don't take kindly to bumping up against these kinds of differences. You see it everywhere, but you don't realize how idiosyncratic it is when you're in the American rabbit hole. Which we as Canadians obviously are.
I'm not meaning to suggest you're boorish or anything. It's just that you're extrapolating very specific American behavioural norms as if they were universal. And hey, we live here, so this is how things are done here. So when mousquet shows up acting all French and such-like, we either tell him to F-off for being so strange, or we wilt under the strain of his strong opinions.
Look at your question. An Englishman or Frenchman would be frankly flabbergasted at it, and might not even understand exactly what you mean because it sounds so outlandish. Because it's very easy and normal to have a discussion/debate about personal taste on what is, note one of the key words in this term, a "discussion" forum.
Here's how the stereotype works in North America:
A: I really like X!
B: X blows. X is totally ridiculous.
A: Shut up you troll, you can't argue with personal taste.
And in more robust societies:
A: I really like X!
B: X blows. X is totally ridiculous.
A: So are you in that hat, but we don't say anything because it might upset your mother. X had a hat like that once, but that was before his balls dropped.
B: Heh, my mother made me wear that hat until I was 14! I probably associate it with X. Or maybe X and mothers who torture their children with certain hats just go together. What a minute: You're not actually my mother, are you?
Go to the UK skybar on SSC sometime to see how it's done. We're verbally impoverished snowflakes in North America by comparison. The world is quite American in places and at times, but sometimes we forget that most of it really isn't.
And yeah, we're in North America, and this is simply a fundamental part of the American temperament, so I'm essentially railing against the sky with this, I know. Still, though, we had a visitor from another part of the world here, and sure, he didn't do the "When in Rome" thing, but then we stupidly and ignorantly ascribed egregiousness to his mannerisms instead of cultural uniqueness because we figured that everyone everywhere acts like Americans.
Like acting like a dick/penis without realizing it, essentially.
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