h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't usually generalize like this, (Okay, I do it all the time, only not like /this/) but I think the reason other cultures find Americans so off-putting all the time is that they (Americans) treat every interaction with someone as though it were a battle. See, in America, open, passionate debate is encouraged, and expected as a matter of course. So, if ever someone voices their opinion about something, Americans feel a compulsory need to voice their own opinion and convince you why they're right and you're wrong. We're used to this. But this morning it occurred to me that most other people might not be, so if ever you wondered why we're so "rudely" forthright, that's why.

Oddly, I've seen some people saying exactly the opposite, that Americans don't argue over dinner, while the British do.

TRiG.

Can't speak for British, but I know from my own experience that Americans DO argue over dinner. Those I've had dinner with, anyway.

This is the post I was thinking of.

http://www.transformation45.com/2008/08/the-lost-art-of-argument/

TRiG.

Ah, I see. Well I disagree. For the original post there's the poster's own admission that most of them are religious fanatics. And certainly I would have to agree with the assessment that fanatics (of any group, but religion especially) are going to make a bunch of insults rather than really argue the point, particularly on the internet. Real people who actually debate things apparently don't frequent that website, but that doesn't indicate that they don't exist at all. So I think in that case it's a sampling bias.


And then in regard to Stephen Fry's blog: it seems to me that it's a difference of HOW Americans argue compared to British, rather than that Americans don't argue properly at all. I can see how saying that someone's opinion is "rubbish" might offend somebody because rather than be interperated as a disagreement about the idea itself, it's instead interperated as an insult to that person's intelligence for believing such "obvious nonsense." In other words, the British method may simply be too agressive for most Americans' liking. So I'd say that it's simply mistaking conversational cues.