I have never understood why we regard the Americans as stupid. I have worked there and travelled there a lot and I find them delightful and far more generous than us to strangers. As in most things, we seem to judge on the stereotype, rather than the reality.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
I suppose the thing is, they're not really a nation as such but a collection of peoples, many of those ancestors left because they didn't agree with the cultural norms of their country of origin and passed the ideas on to their descendants. Some of these ideas and values are appropriate to the 21st Century and some are not. The people with views we find baffling tend to be the ones who make the most noise.
Funny but I thought the will uk multi cultural thing is a bit a collection of peoples too. If you think uk is that much different in being a mix of peoples look to big cities or large parts of the cities and towns of northern England with their mix of Asian cultures.
I myself am a heinz 57 mongrel with English, Welsh, Irish, Swedish, American, German and supposedly Spanish ancestry. They're just the ones we know about. Many people left their lands for a different or better life free from one negative or another. Adventurous people or desperate? Whatever the case they added to their life but to the life of the country they moved to. The idea that difference is negative and difference can't result in cohesion I think it's a difficult idea to believe in or accept.
As it said above I am partly American with an American grandad. It's where a lot of my European ancestry came from. My American ancestry dates from an early English settler. Not someone who didn't agree with cultural norms of old England at n all. He was a second son of a hugely wealthy West Country merchant. He was brought up in an environment that included hosting the monarch on his tours of the country. There's records of what the father of my first ancestor in America spent on just one of those visits by the King's Court. What food was gone through.
However all that wealth gave my ancestor was an Oxford or Cambridge education and setting up money. All money goes to first born son in those days. But that was the society he was from and there's no evidence he had a problem with it. He ended up King's surveyor in America which led him to making more money than his dad or his brother inherited. He made his money by surveying the land then paying for yeoman farmers to be brought over. He'd pay for the means to build a house and barn which then gave him rights to the land with the farmers paying rate.
It's that seeing an opportunity early enough to make real money that built America or rather willing to rush it all to make it. Very adventurous spirit. A lot of westerns are about that adventurous spirit. The wild lands, the wild people in wild times. The American dream! There's a reality to that which most Europeans probably struggle with. I mean when was the last time we had to travel two weeks for medical help? Or had to dig your way out of your house in the winter? Or had to work in conditions that kill or jobs that kill. My great, great uncle died in the forests of Michigan my great grandad looked on then had to get back to felling trees. He only got a break because it was his brother dying. Said his goodbyes and left him to die. He had to work to earn. But he earnt well enough doing it.
The Western movie, if done well, tells a lot about the struggle early Americans had. Not all were wild West but the human aspects of the struggle shown in good westerns does carry across to other areas of early American life. Its also current life in many parts of remote America. I don't think I would have understand America without the stories of my American family. It also gave me insight to westerns and pioneer Western films. Even the most macho and ridiculous Western had a little truth of day to day life then.
Sorry about my ramblings but looking outside in I reckon all nations look ridiculous if you don't look deeper you will find less that's ridiculous and more that its actually positive and good. We are not all Eton buffoons, ineffectual lefties, right wing xenophobes, etc. We have those stereotypes but we also have people like that captain who walked for charity and inspired so many others during first kickdown, or the volunteers for the vaccine testing and so on. Good, bad but mostly average getting on with it.
I heard it was a misfire of blanks not a live bullet. Mind you blanks aren't exactly safe which is why a lot of sets use CGI instead. Not sure how the actors deal with recoil though. Can you fake that? Not as important as a life though. Tough set of events for everyone and I doubt the truth comes out for some time. By then I reckon the news has moved on.
I think it'll be a while before we know actually what happened - it'll be a lot of rumour and speculation at the moment.
Most of the Americans that I've met that I don't like are my relatives. The rest of them seem really nice people. But their culture, their politics, has a blind spot when it comes to guns. The mythology of the nice guy who uses a gun (or his fists) only to defeat the bad guys is very pervasive
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Posts
I have worked there and travelled there a lot and I find them delightful and far more generous than us to strangers.
As in most things, we seem to judge on the stereotype, rather than the reality.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
I myself am a heinz 57 mongrel with English, Welsh, Irish, Swedish, American, German and supposedly Spanish ancestry. They're just the ones we know about. Many people left their lands for a different or better life free from one negative or another. Adventurous people or desperate? Whatever the case they added to their life but to the life of the country they moved to. The idea that difference is negative and difference can't result in cohesion I think it's a difficult idea to believe in or accept.
As it said above I am partly American with an American grandad. It's where a lot of my European ancestry came from. My American ancestry dates from an early English settler. Not someone who didn't agree with cultural norms of old England at n all. He was a second son of a hugely wealthy West Country merchant. He was brought up in an environment that included hosting the monarch on his tours of the country. There's records of what the father of my first ancestor in America spent on just one of those visits by the King's Court. What food was gone through.
However all that wealth gave my ancestor was an Oxford or Cambridge education and setting up money. All money goes to first born son in those days. But that was the society he was from and there's no evidence he had a problem with it. He ended up King's surveyor in America which led him to making more money than his dad or his brother inherited. He made his money by surveying the land then paying for yeoman farmers to be brought over. He'd pay for the means to build a house and barn which then gave him rights to the land with the farmers paying rate.
It's that seeing an opportunity early enough to make real money that built America or rather willing to rush it all to make it. Very adventurous spirit. A lot of westerns are about that adventurous spirit. The wild lands, the wild people in wild times. The American dream! There's a reality to that which most Europeans probably struggle with. I mean when was the last time we had to travel two weeks for medical help? Or had to dig your way out of your house in the winter? Or had to work in conditions that kill or jobs that kill. My great, great uncle died in the forests of Michigan my great grandad looked on then had to get back to felling trees. He only got a break because it was his brother dying. Said his goodbyes and left him to die. He had to work to earn. But he earnt well enough doing it.
The Western movie, if done well, tells a lot about the struggle early Americans had. Not all were wild West but the human aspects of the struggle shown in good westerns does carry across to other areas of early American life. Its also current life in many parts of remote America. I don't think I would have understand America without the stories of my American family. It also gave me insight to westerns and pioneer Western films. Even the most macho and ridiculous Western had a little truth of day to day life then.
Sorry about my ramblings but looking outside in I reckon all nations look ridiculous if you don't look deeper you will find less that's ridiculous and more that its actually positive and good. We are not all Eton buffoons, ineffectual lefties, right wing xenophobes, etc. We have those stereotypes but we also have people like that captain who walked for charity and inspired so many others during first kickdown, or the volunteers for the vaccine testing and so on. Good, bad but mostly average getting on with it.
Most of the Americans that I've met that I don't like are my relatives. The rest of them seem really nice people. But their culture, their politics, has a blind spot when it comes to guns. The mythology of the nice guy who uses a gun (or his fists) only to defeat the bad guys is very pervasive
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”