Article Notes: 10 Things Americans Don't Know About America

Notes and comments and responses to
"10 Things Americans Don't Know About America"
https://markmanson.net/america

As Americans, we’re brought up our entire lives being taught that we’re the best, we did everything first and that the
rest of the world follows our lead. Not only is this not true, but people get irritated when you bring it to their country

with you.

(And as a patriotic American, your first and only gut reaction is to feel an overwhelming emotion 'No!' and throw as much bible verses and lies and slander at the truth to make it go away.)

most people in the world don’t really think about us or care about us.

(But *I* think about *ME* all the time! So how could this be true? My emotions tell me this observation is wrong and that's all the counter-evidence I need.)

Remember that immature girl in high school, how every little thing that happened to her meant that someone either
hated her or was obsessed with her; who thought every teacher who ever gave her a bad grade was being totally

unfair and everything good that happened to her was because of how amazing she was? Yeah, we’re that immature

high school girl.

(That girl in my class was distinctly American, and not how I was raised. How we raise our children is a clear reflection of ourselves, our own behavior.)

For all of our talk about being global leaders and how everyone follows us, we don’t seem to know much about our

supposed “followers.

(Americans don't really understand leadership. They act as if when you are a leader, your followers don't matter. But by definition to lead you must have followers. Followers are not people on Facebook who give you a "like" and boost your popularity. Check in to get a cheap laugh. That's not real leadership. 

Americans think of 'leader' as 'IM THE BEST' so every American considers himself to be a leader, because his culture teaches him that he is the best. So being a leader to an American simply means, "I am better than you and this truth is inherent and doing the things I do only validates that truth, not that I actually have to do things in order to be better than you, doing things only shows you i'm better, and even if I did nothing at all I would still be the best and that fact is indisputable". 

This flawed concept of leadership has nothing to do with actually LEADING anyone ANYWHERE for ANY PURPOSE or for ANYONE ELSE'S SAKE. 

A real leader is not just popular or well-liked... his actions need to benefit his group not just himself and he needs to set an example for others to aspire to their own goals. A good leader cares about his followers and puts their interests first.

Just like we rarely think about the people in Bolivia or Mongolia, most people don’t

think about us much. They have jobs, kids, house payments — you know, those things called lives — to worry

about. Kind of like us.

(I thought people in other countries just gathered around bible burning, women-raping, freedom-hating, decapitating, firing AK-47 in the air, putting white sheets on their heads. Or creepy weirdo admirers who spent their entire lives watching their American counterparts with cheek pressed to the Television screen, caressing their electrostatic faces and murmuring their affections. Well except for the rest of the world being aboriginal savages dying to malaria.

No wait, book burning, lynching, gun toting, white hooded men sounds more like Americans. Coed raping sounds like our college athletes. Freedom hating like our corporate empire of Walmarts, McDonald's, and our everywhere-identical selection of minimum wage retail stores. )

It’s not all about us. The world is more complicated.

In our social
lives we don’t say what we mean and we don’t mean what we

say.

Feelings are almost never
shared openly and freely. Consumer culture has cheapened our language of gratitude. Something like, “It’s so good

to see you” is empty now because it’s expected and heard from everybody.

(Americans are fake as fuck. They will say, I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings and lie to that person's face, then not answer their phone or show up to an event with that person. They don't care how the other person feels. They care how they themselves feel if that person reacts unhappily by saying them saying no.

Americans compliments and words of affection mean jack shit. Calling your significant other 'honey' all the time. Saying 'I love you' after every conversation. Motions. So you don't *seem like a bad person* is all that is. Lying is more than acceptable; it is encouraged. Americans think it's better to lie remorselessly than to tell an unpleasant truth.)

In dating, when I find a woman attractive, I almost always walk right up to her and tell her that a) I wanted to meet
her, and b) she’s beautiful. In America, women usually get incredibly nervous and confused when I do this. They’ll

make jokes to defuse the situation... they get a bit disoriented when I’m so blunt with my interest.
Whereas, in almost every other culture approaching women this way is met with a confident smile and a “Thank

you.”

(Tell the plain truth to an American and he'll think less of you for being simple.)

If you’re extremely talented or intelligent, the US is probably the best place in the world to live. The system is

stacked heavily

(for the top 1% corporate tycoons and the 'trickle down wealth' keyword being 'trickle' so disproportionately to tools and those with special talents to make their wealth worthwhile.)

The problem with the US is that everyone thinks they are of talent and advantage. As John Steinbeck famously said,
the problem with poor Americans is that “they don’t believe they’re poor, but rather temporarily embarrassed

millionaires.” It’s this culture of self-delusion that allows America to continue

...  But this shared delusion also unfortunately keeps perpetuating large social

inequalities and the quality of life for the average citizen lower

(American Dream and God is what the bottom 99% get, that convinces them they would be in the top 1% if it only weren't for illegal aliens and gay marriage.)

American people on average work more hours with less

vacation, spend more time commuting every day, and are saddled with over $10,000 of debt.

(Debt is what fuels the American economy. It is a giant pyramid scheme of people all over the world buying into the American Dream. Well, debt plus our largest military budget in the world.)

As Americans, we have this naïve assumption that people all over the world are struggling and way behind us.

They’re not.

almost every place I’ve visited

(especially in Asia and South America) is much nicer and safer than I expected it to be.

(Technology has made leaps and bounds in Shanghai, Japan, Europe. There the resources of an entire nation have been put to use for better infrastructure. But our leadership does not come from the state. We are driven by money for the top 1%. Not for the nation's best interest. If it doesn't make the top 1% money, we don't do it - so we don't have mag-lev trains because we want consumers to buy cars and gasoline or undertake massive country-scale civil engineering projects like Three-Gorges Dam - not since Eerie canal which was initiated by private enterprise, demanded by companies making money out west, and finally pushed through allowed by the government. We don't care what type of value we create for our society, as long as it makes money. We build new football stadiums.

Like in this past election showed, people don't care what our country is investing our resources FOR. All they care about is that there are JOBS (not what the PURPOSE of the work is) and having MONEY. )

In the US, security trumps everything, even liberty. We’re paranoid.

You don’t have to watch Fox News or CNN for more than 10 minutes to hear about how our drinking water
is going to kill us, our neighbor is going to rape our children, some terrorist in Yemen is going to kill us because wedidn’t torture him, Mexicans are going to kill us, or some virus from a bird is going to kill us. There’s a reason we

have nearly as many guns as people

I’ve probably been to 10 countries now that friends and family back home told me explicitly not to go because
someone was going to kill me, kidnap me, stab me, rob me, rape me, sell me into sex trade, give me HIV, or

whatever else. None of that has happened. I’ve never been robbed and I’ve walked through some of the shittiest

parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

(Even in America, people are afraid of leaving the city or walking bad neighborhoods. Sleeping in cities outside at night on my bicycle trip across America made me realize this is an irrational fear. Look, the days of bandits roaming the countryside killing for a living are gone. People have little to no interest in doing you in for no reason. They are slaves to their jobs concerned for their own survival.)

In countries like Russia, Colombia or Guatemala, people were so
honest and open with me, it actually scared me. Some stranger in a bar would invite me to his house for a barbeque
with his family, a random person on the street would offer to show me around and give me directions to a store I was

trying to find.  My American instincts were always that, “Wait, this guy is going to try to rob me or kill me,” but they

never did. They were just insanely friendly

(An Italian friend said if you complimented something in their house as a guest, they'd give it to you as a gift when you left. In China there used to be that custom too. Material goods are not as important in other cultures as relationships. It's common for good business relations and personal friends to exchange materials of high value, whereas Americans despite being the richest nation in the world we express our token good esteem with gift cards at holiday time and regifted junk that WE don't want, not what the other person wants.)

[

the way we Americans communicate is usually designed to create a lot of attention and hype.
Again, I think this is a product of our consumer culture: the belief that something isn’t worthwhile or important unless
it’s perceived to be the best (BEST EVER!!!) or unless it gets a lot of attention (see: every reality-television show

ever made).

This is why Americans have a peculiar habit of thinking everything is “totally awesome,” and even the most mundane
activities were “the best thing ever!” It’s the unconscious drive we share for importance and significance, this

unmentioned belief, socially beaten into us since birth that if we’re not the best at something, then we don’t matter.

]

(I love this description. Consumer culture - we ADVERTISE ourselves constantly for VALIDATION of our cultural delusion that WE ARE THE BEST
I would rephrase it: we have a

 belief, socially beaten into us since birth that we're the best at something, and that is what gives us importance and significance.

when actually, being "First!" one to comment or going to the "best show ever" doesn't have any connection to our worth as human beings)

"My MBA is better than your MBA"
Because I drive an Audi.

We’re status-obsessed...

attempting to out-do one another has infiltrated our social relationships as well. Who can

slam the most beers first? Who can get reservations at the best restaurant? Who knows the promoter to the club?
Who dated a girl on the cheerleading squad? Socializing becomes objectified and turned into a competition. And if

you’re not winning, the implication is that you are not important and no one will like you.

(Again, I love this description. There is a subconscious understanding ingrained from teenage years that you have to WIN at socializing, or NO ONE likes you.

It's not about having friends because there are people you want to spend time with. It's about winning AT having friends (being friends with the best, the coolest, the most popular) so you don't  get left out and have no one to talk to.)

Our food is killing us. I’m not going to go crazy with
the details, but we eat chemically-laced crap because it’s cheaper and tastes better (profit, profit). Our portion sizes
are absurd (more profit). And we’re by far the most prescribed nation in the world AND our drugs cost five to ten

times more than they do even in Canada (ohhhhhhh, profit, you sexy bitch).

(not to mention soda and beer, the all but the only two choices of beverage, which are both not healthy.)

Americans believe it’s your responsibility to take care of yourself and make

something of yourself, not the state’s, not your community’s, not even your friend’s or family’s

Comfort is easy. It requires no effort and no work. Happiness takes effort. It

requires being proactive, confronting fears, facing difficult situations, and having unpleasant conversations. 

Comfort sells easier than happiness. We’ve been sold comfort for generations, and for generations we bought bigger houses,

separated further and further out into the suburbs, along with bigger TV’s, more movies, and take-out. The American

public is becoming docile and complacent. We’re obese and entitled.

we look for giant hotels that

will insulate us and pamper us

[rather than]  challenge our perspectives or

help us grow as individuals.

(INSULATE us is the key observation. We as Americans are fearful of the outside world, and afraid of difficulty, pain, hardships, and like a nation going into decline... we want to think everything is GREAT inside and keep things the way they were and lalalala clap our ears to the CHANGES happening around us.)

Depression and anxiety disorders are soaring within the US. Our inability to confront anything unpleasant around us
has not only created a national sense of entitlement, but it’s disconnected us from what actually drives happiness:

relationships, unique experiences, feeling self-validated, achieving personal goals.

(People don't want to ACHIEVE anything. They don't want to work through the completion of a goal, they just want the anticipated reward. They claw through, and scathe an "education" to earn a high salary. They don't care about the actual, stated purpose - to foster their mind, develop their intellectual capabilities, enrich their awareness of life.

They want drugs and superficial 'happiness' (that amounts to artificial sweetner pleasure - all the taste, none of the calories!), and don't want a HARD time getting it. Whiny types of 'depressed' people who didn't have the good luck or good looks of their entitled, BEST EVER, peers are beside themselves at how life is SO UNFAIR, that they didn't get the entitled things they deserve - but infuriatingly enough, don't reject the crooked belief system. They're not mad that the culture emphasizes social inequality, they are petulant that others are on top because they wish they were and are not. They don't deserve sympathy. Hate the game, not the player!

Relationships are in decline. People don't put effort into other people, they put effort into things, and entertainment, and status.

This environment of unfulfilling pursuits fosters depression - because the chasers of consumer culture don't look for substance and they are empty and unhappy and people who *are* looking for substance have their voices drowned out by chasers - (remember, chasers are ADVERTISEMENTs walking billboards creating lots of ATTENTION and HYPE), and have to go against the current, so they have a hard time connecting with others and finding it - if they are strong enough to resist becoming a quiet passive chaser themselves)

we’re able to avoid the necessary emotional

struggles of life and instead indulge in easy, superficial pleasures.

every dominant civilization eventually collapsed because it became TOO successful. What

made it powerful and unique grows out of proportion and consumes its society.

We’re complacent, entitled and unhealthy. My generation is the first generation of Americans who will be

worse off than their parents, economically, physically and emotionally.

And this is not due to a lack of resources, to a
lack of education or to a lack of ingenuity. It’s corruption and complacency. The corruption from the massive

industries that control our government’s policies, and the fat complacency of the people

the

greatest flaw of American culture is our blind self-absorption

in hopes [America]’ll give up his wayward ways. I imagine it’ll fall on deaf ears, but it’s the most I can do for

now. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some funny cat pictures to look at.

 i can has Merica?