Comment by noduerme
3 years ago
Two things really jump out at me..
I grew up in America which is fairly rule-obeying. Lived in Australia and New Zealand which are disgustingly, obsequiously devoted to following tiny guidelines. Spent a few weeks in Munich where I was shouted at for crossing a totally empty street against a crosswalk light.
On the plus side, I lived in Argentina and Spain for a long time where basically there is no enforcement of anything.
I will say I am proud of people there (in the Latin world) for being humans. mostly ... usually... trying not to make dumb decisions, but... well, having to make decisions, and making them. You see if you live in England or the US or Commonwealth for awhile, people have forgotten how to make any decisions if there isn't a rule for it.
And yet the freest society I ever lived in, judged on the day to day freedom of individuals violating petty laws, was Vietnam. At the same time, it was the most totalitarian place I ever lived as far as what information you could access or what you could say. Still, if you wanted to drive the wrong way down a highway with an child on the back of your motorcycle, you can do that in Vietnam.
Personally I don't like the UK / Australia model where everyone obeys some stupid rule written on the wall over their own intelligence. Of course, I also don't love the Argentinian model where everyone thinks they're smart enough to bang on the button that says "don't touch". Also, it's not cool to wantonly endanger your child while being terrified of mentioning the name of the dictator. But I am a fan of man... and I would definitely take the Turkish way of shrugging off rules when they don't suit you over the British way of following them to the point of worship.
I think I was going to get to some great conclusion here, but I don't have one.
I like when no one is watching me, but I also like when someone is watching other people.
[edit] my conclusion! privacy and freedom come at the cost of people ignoring rules. People from rule-bound countries experience a burst of freedom when going somewhere that lives as people live, not by the rule-book. People from "chaotic societies" as you said, who have a mind for all the corruption they see around them, find some relief in escaping to ordered societies. Neither is good or bad, they are both modes of existence; both modes are necessary. If either were to disappear, we would have far too much chaos or far too much order, and no one would be able to escape to where they belong.
> I would definitely take the Turkish way of shrugging off rules
Having lived most of my life in Turkey, it gets old really fast.
For one thing, there's a certain culture that is a mixture of extreme fatalism, not giving a shit about anything that doesn't immediately benefit you, low respect to other people, and the worst part of it, seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive, that is so pervasive in Turkey.
When this culture is given a lax rule structure, what you get is a chaotic, every man for himself, free-for-all place devolving further and further into a low CGI Mad Max movie. Only reason why it still hasn't completely collapsed into chaos is because people are still afraid of the punishment. If you think I'm exaggerating, next time you're there ask a restaurant owner if you can smoke, right under the no-smoking sign and pay attention to what they say: do they tell you that'd disturb other customers? or do they tell you of the ₺20k fine they got that one time and they can't let you because of that.
I can tell for you as a lived experience that significantly more people in Turkey cut in lines than people in Germany. Why do they do that I ask myself, the only explanation I could find until now is because fuck you, that's why. If you were as cunning, as manly, as bold as they are you'd be at the front of the line, but you aren't, so fuck you. They know there won't be repercussions for that action, and that's the only bar to clear for them to do it.
Maybe this way of living fits some, I myself find this despicable. I know that cutting in lines is not the most important metric for life quality in the world, but I fully believe it seeps into everything else in the society and over time makes it unlivable.
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Even in an imaginary ideal environment, if act of obeying existing rules is debatable, there'll be the problem of everyone considering themselves as a sufficient authority on making judgements with a limited context and a huge bias on interpretations that benefit them. At one point it just makes sense to ask people to use the right channels to push change instead of 80 million people making individual judgements on every issue every day and hope for the best.
First of all, this is such an excellent post, and thank you.
>>seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive
I'm sad to say that this is true everywhere I've been. The attitude is everywhere in the US... it's only that in the US people are trained to be quiet about it. My observation, everywhere I go, is that only smart, observant people do not mistake kindness for weakness.
>> because fuck you, that's why
So, this is one thing I do like about the US. The police in the US do not get involved in anything unless you pull out a gun and shoot somebody... even then, they really don't care. On the other hand, this kind of fake "manliness" you're describing is sort of self-limiting in the US; it tends to look ridiculous to us when we travel overseas or when we see new immigrants from (choose a chaotic country) act this way - because here, the guy you jump in line in front of might look like nothing but he also might have a 9mm. I say this from the perspective of someone who has seen multiple shootings at the bar around the corner from my house in the past year, for things as stupid as someone acting rudely.
Stupid, selfish, short-sighted people are the same everywhere. Being rude is really the issue; one does not need a God or a police force to avoid being rude. Being rude and taking advantage for oneself is cultural, and I actually believe it's impossible to take a culture who has been raised that way and make them - under any police regime - act differently. (I'll qualify that further by telling you that all my grandparents came from Russia in the 1920s, and spoke Russian, but they hated the criminal type of Russian scavengers who came out of that ruthless wasteland from the 1980s onward). Taking care of others outside your family requires two things: 1. a functioning rule of law, yes, but 2. a view passed to you from your parents that treating others well will cause you to flourish more than trying to take advantage of them. This cannot be enforced. It has to be internalized and understood. I really think it's better in many ways to see what kind of people you're speaking with bluntly than to listen to the sophistry of the modern version of the same avarice as it presents itself in New York or Los Angeles. I can sit and listen to the racism toward black people in the American South or toward Aboriginal people in Australia, and just openly disagree. That's better to me than listening to people who I know are racist trying to sound politically correct in Seattle.
>> I know that cutting in lines is not the most important metric for life quality in the world
I think it's the second-most important metric. Being polite. But it's worse to be somewhere everyone is polite and everyone is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is to me the most important metric.
(This is actually what my problem is with Thailand. True, no one cuts in line. But there's so much bottled-up anger that no one can admit to, and suddenly it explodes).
But not cutting in line - in my book - is representative of the best human value. So I absolutely agree with your view and don't think you should say it's not important. It's possibly the most important thing.
A shout out to the Argentines, when my ex-gf was possibly kidnapped there, people asked me to cut in line in front of them at an ATM that was running out of money, where they had been waiting for a long time, just from seeing the look on my face.
I think you are over-reaching on the effect of 2A. Most of the developed countries in the world do not have an armed population and still, people do not cut lines.
I have lived in India where lines do not generally exist and in US. I have seen the culture in India change from line cutting to following the line (generally). The biggest difference is caused by whether you believe you will get the service if you wait in the line.
If you have a service that is available for only the first 20, but you have 50 people waiting, line-cutting will happen. Railway tickets in India are a big example - when I was growing up, you rush to the beginning of the line since there were only small number of seats allocated to each station. Now, that it is computerized and you can book from anywhere to anywhere, people stay in the line since they know they will get the ticket.
Look at your last example - lack of service if you are not in the front will cause chaos.
> the worst part of it, seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive, that is so pervasive in Turkey
pervasice in Russia too. Most non-democratic societies are indivifualistic and highly cynical.
That's why I say American brain is' a prison - they think in 'Socialist countries everyone cares about each. other too much, and that why they are poor
nah, the problem with the Russian mindset was never caused by Socialism. Communist dictatorship, Putinism and Czarism were all just symptoms of it. Some people think the problem is "mysticism" but I think that gives it too much credit. Look, Finland and Sweden are next door, why does a country so rich have such a mental problem with its manliness? The problem comes from that it's nicer to tell stories that impress other people. It's like they invented tiktok but 100 years earlier. My grandfather (Russian) was one to tell stories. But he was humble. 'how much do you think I paid for these boots??' he asked everybody. And when they said $40, he laughed and said $10! It was a lie. But a humble lie. The opposite was to lie the other way and say $100.
To tell you the truth, Russia itself has always been a prison, as it is now, and the people have a prison mentality. That causes you to brag or be humble; always to scheme and never to be honest; always to look for an edge. Lying to people's faces, what is it vranyo? Just to make sure they know you're lying, and exercise power over them? No, the American brain is not a prison. Americans individually have a lot of problems understanding the world, but we do not think all other countries are the same. Also, obviously, Russia is no longer socialist in any way. Not to mention, many Americans are in fact socialists, at least on par with European socialist parties.
> Spent a few weeks in Munich where I was shouted at for crossing a totally empty street against a crosswalk light.
I don't understand this. I live near Munich, people cross against a red light all the time. Maybe you were doing it near children? That's a real social faux-pas, because they're not supposed to normalize jaywalking.
Exactly! I like to explain this kind of casual rulebreaking to US/UK people as being the German equivalent of using disgusting swearwords. Fine to do with your friends if nobody is around, or if you want to look tough or whatever, but don't do it in crowds and especially not in front of children.
I think this is strange. What is the example you're setting... that we all follow the rules? And when they find out that you don't follow the rules, will that not be a disappointment?
Here is an incident that happened the second day I got to Vietnam (long before I was ever in Germany). My girlfriend was really sick in the hotel. I was vomiting too, but I went out to find medicine. I got to the corner of a huge boulevard, maybe 8 lanes wide. There was a pharmacy on the other side. But the traffic never stopped when the light turned red. On and on the traffic just kept going, weaving around all the other cars on the cross-street. The boulevard was maybe 1 meter below the level of the sidewalk. I stood there for 5 minutes waiting for some time to step into the street.
Finally, a 6-year-old boy walked up alone, paused next to me, and started crossing the boulevard in the middle of the traffic. And all the cars and motorcycles just went around him.
I was like, well fuck, if that kid can do it then I can do it...
So what value are you teaching children? How to cross a street or how to follow orders? Crossing a street when it's possible may be illegal but it's not immoral. The idea that neglecting formalities leads to immorality can only be true if the morality isn't implanted. Worse, it implies that formalities are the only thing that holds back man's immoral nature... which should not be the lesson. If a man jaywalks, it doesn't make him more liable to commit other criminal acts.
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>> Maybe you were doing it near children?
YES that is precisely what happened. That's so funny you said this.
I was standing in heavy falling snow, at the corner of an empty boulevard, next to a woman with two little daughters and a young boy. I stood for a moment and then walked across and she started yelling at me. I suppose she was trying to teach her children to be patient and wait for the light to change. What went through my head at that moment was, I kid you not, "ah, that's how they learn to follow orders".
And this is entirely in sync with my original point above, but also personally, I loathe Munich. There's nothing like being told holocaust jokes when people don't know you're Jewish. I believe the people there would vote for Hitler in a heartbeat if he were alive and running for office.
I mean, that makes sense though, she was probably angry at you. "If you're angry at someone you yell at them" is very normal behavior, and has nothing to do with "following orders".
It sounds like you have some hangups that you are projecting onto this situation.
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You begin by sharing an anecdote where you perceived Germans as strictly law-abiding, only to have your assumption reevaluated when someone pointed out the presence of children, and the possible intention to teach them patience and safety.
However, instead of reconsidering your stance on Germans' law-abiding behavior, you reassert your bias by invoking Godwin's Law, linking a contemporary incident to the actions of Hitler.
Do you see any issue with this?
(I'm not German)
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I'm Argentinian. I love breaking the rules and I love living in a place where rules are rarely enforced. It's almost a sport for me. "Why? Why should go along with this? Fuck that"
Overall, this is why I love Argentina.
It's also why Argentina is a fucking mess, but I love it. When I'm there it feels like the people will never, ever be conquered.
This is true in a lot of countries that had a dictatorship.
Weirdly, it is not true for Chile, where everyone still acts like they're in a dictatorship.. also the US, which never had a dictatorship but created and supported dictatorships all over the world.
Haha that's true. Like you said in another post, there are benefits and drawbacks to everything. I'd personally rather have corruption and chaos than "too much order."
But, different strokes for different folks.
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I grew up overseas, moved to America and I have felt absolutely liberated by the freedom I now have when it comes to following rules. I think it's productive that people can definitely choose to follow their own gut and conscience when it comes to their own lives.
I moved to Japan. I think we’re almost at the level where I’m confortable with the level of rule following here.
Some people don’t follow the unimportant rules, but almost never when it’d inconvenience someone else.
> I grew up in America which is fairly rule-obeying.
I also grew up there. I think there’s a low level compliance with what I’d call daily/minor rules. Cigarette butts tossed wherever you are when you finish one, speed limits are barely even advisory, jaywalking widely practiced, etc.
>> jaywalking widely practiced
Depends. In NYC, jaywalking is normal. In Santa Monica, you get a ticket. Speeding is mostly enforced everywhere.
What sets the US apart from countries like Argentina, in this department, is that the cops won't just ask you for a bribe when they stop you. You actually end up with a ticket and have to deal with it.
> In NYC, jaywalking is normal
Bingo. If one hasn't spent serious time in at least 4+ states, I don't think they ever really get an idea of how differentiated American cultural norms really are. "Americans are ______" is about as descriptive a statement as "Left-handed people are _____" - there's just toooo much variance for it to be a useful observation.
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>Speeding is mostly enforced everywhere.
I disagree. Everyone I've talked to in the US considers 5 mph over the limit to be perfectly safe from tickets (enforcement), and 10 mph over to probably be safe from enforcement. The few times I've heard of people getting ticketed for 5 mph over the limit they were outraged at the injustice of it, and most people agreed with them.
Speeding is mostly enforced if you're 10+ over the speed limit, or driving a heavy vehicle.
> Speeding is mostly enforced everywhere.
MA highways are moving 75-80mph when traffic permits, regardless of whether they have a posted 55 or 65mph speed limit. NH is only a few mph less typically.
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In NYC, jaywalking is normal. In Santa Monica, you get a ticket.
In some American cities (Chicago), crossing against the light is how muggers and pickpockets tell the tourists apart from the locals.
People who live in downtown Chicago wait for the light because they know that there's very often a car ready to make a left turn right into the crosswalk. Tourists are often from places where, if there is a crosswalk, there's no traffic to worry about.
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"Lived in Australia and New Zealand which are disgustingly, obsequiously devoted to following tiny guidelines."
As someone born in, and having spent most of my life in New Zealand, I have no idea what this means. I'm not being defensive, but I just don't understand. Maybe I'm 'too close' to see it. Perhaps I'm thinking about civic rules (e.g. jay-walking, speeding) and you're thinking of, e.g. industry like construction?
As an Australian it is news to me that we are obsessed with obeying "tiny guidelines".
Fair dinkum? I've lived in Oz for many decades and travelled widely. I have never seen obedience as a common trait. In fact, rule breaking with a shrug is far more prevalent.
ehhh ok. I'll take my crack at Australia.
I spent a year there, mostly in SA and the NT. A six pack of beer and a pack of smokes will set you back $50. When it comes to road signs, the "are you feeling sleepy" every few kilometers really makes you... sleepy. Police presence is heavier than in America. There are checkpoints going into towns. Then of course there's the separate window for alcohol for Aboriginals, who line up early in the morning, the scanning of your driver's license every time you buy beer...
When I first got there, I stayed in King's Cross, Sydney, and it was fairly wild. I heard that neighborhood isn't there anymore, and hasn't been for some time.
[edit] Also, maybe this was just a rumor, but I was told by a mechanic in Adelaide that if you squeal your tires they'll fine you, and if you do it twice they'll impound your car and crush it. I was told by a roofer that his job was almost impossible because he now had to spend an hour putting on harnesses to do a simple job. I was told by an old fellow who owned a motel in Inverell that the licenses for his inn and his restaurant were putting him out of business. And everywhere I heard people complaining about licenses and fees making work harder. What I mostly saw were a lot of old folks at the ANZAC halls in small towns complaining that things weren't like they used to be, so maybe that colored my vision a bit.
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I think what you are noticing is the difference between a liberal democracy and autocracy. Where in one there exists a social construct of rules, where in the other rules require enforcement to exist, as they do not exist in the social consciousness