I think morlockabove meant that thanks to the size of the US, the density of different cultures in many orders of magnitude higher in Europe than the US. Th cultural difference between Texans, Washingtonians and a New Hampshireite is minuscule compared to France and Germany, let alone France and somewhere like Estonia.
I believe it misses the fact that there are very different cultures within Washington or Texas. For example, Austin is very different from Houston and even north Houston is very different from south Houston.
Eastern Washington is completely different culturally than western Washington(Seattle etc).
No where else in the world has the massive amount of diversity that the US does at the scale of the US. It’s not even close anywhere else so it is difficult for both US residents and people of other countries to fully comprehend.
>No where else in the world has the massive amount of diversity that the US does at the scale of the US. It’s not even close anywhere else so it is difficult for both US residents and people of other countries to fully comprehend.
I honestly feel as though this is a lack of awareness of other regions and the differences inside of them. I don't know how you can make sweeping statements like that. A cursory look at a linguistic diversity map should immediately hint at a different reality, and that's just one metric. There are places in Africa where you have genetic lines that are distant by tends of thousands of years from surrounding villages as measured by their Y chromosomes.
The European Union has the scale of the US and arguably more diversity given there are a few more languages spoken and each one is associated with a different culture. And that's only a part of one continent, and there are more continents.
I completely believe there are differences, but are they really that different compared to areas of similar size in Europe, where you might go through a dozen different languages, different religions, massively varying political party support? And if you look at India or Indonesia, the cultural diversity becomes even more again.
Yes. Significantly different. Do you realize that metropolitan areas in US are not even 50% white or Christian or likely any of the other stereotypes people have of the US outside of the US.
Many cities in the US provide documentation in often 4 or more languages. Schools employ large teams of specialists for teaching English as there are significant amounts of schools where less than half of the student population is a native English speaker.
Cable TV in most areas offers packages of programming in many different languages. In the US, network television is broadcast with a simultaneous Spanish language audio.
This homogeneous white, English speaking, Christian view of the US may have been true in the 1960s, but outside of the rural US, this is no longer valid.
Coming from India, the dominant flavour of Europe is some sort of white, Christian group, possibly with a dash of Islamic influence, but mostly monotheistic branches of the same family. There is some variety in languages, and food depending on the climate.
The US doesn't have all that much diversity comparitively. There is more diversity in skin colour, but the major cultural groups are far closer to each other than European ones.
You don't see how homogenous the culture is because you are so close to it.
I grew up in Africa. It's interesting that so many US citizens of African descent expect to go back to "The Old Country," and "just fit in." Lot like the Italians and Irish.
As far as Africans go, there's not a whole ton of difference between white Americans and black Americans. I think that, like in Europe, there's entrepreneurs, setting up "Return to Your Roots" tours for diasporans.
Europe probably has more experience with Africans than the US. When I have met black folk in Europe, they have frequently been first- or second-generation Africans, as opposed to the US, where most black folks I know come from families that have lived here for many generations. I think the UK has a similar culture.
I lived in Uganda, when Idi Amin threw out all the Ugandans of Indian descent. These were true Ugandans, who had lived there for generations. It was devastating; both to the people that were thrown out, and the nation, itself. The infrastructure of the nation collapsed, almost overnight.
It's pretty much impossible to "un-mix" a mixed society. That's not for want of trying, though. History is full of "ethnic cleansing" boneyards. It never seems to end well, but we seem to be a bit thick, in learning the lesson.
>Coming from India, the dominant flavour of Europe is some sort of white, Christian group, possibly with a dash of Islamic influence, but mostly monotheistic branches of the same family. There is some variety in languages, and food depending on the climate.
I'd say that this is the same reductive view that Europeans have of India, for comparison.
And from that distance, they are closer to being right.
Wikipedia (not the greatest source, but reasonable for a HN discussion) says in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Europe that linguistic minorities in Europe are about 14% of the population, while only about 3% are diasporas of non European origin.
Christianity (51% of the population) in Europe is written into the law, so even if you grow up atheist in Europe, you are still culturally Christian.
India is ethnically a bit less homogenous, with three major linguistic groups (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Iranian). Religiously, monotheistic groups are about 20% of the population, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_India , and a majority of laws aren't based on a single dominant religious philosophy (the Modi government is working on changing that). There is variation in food based on region, climate, and religious subgroup. The dominant flavour would be some sort of brown, polytheistic groups, strongly influenced by other polytheistic groups and with very strong monotheistic influences from Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.
This is the 10000m view, rather than the 3000m view which would show more detail.
That seems incredibly unlikely. So unlikely that I'm going to say it's not true. There are certainly cultural differences across the US but you'll have a very hard time convincing people that these differences are greater than those that exist between Finland and Italy, say. Or between Cameroon and Kenya.
