Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a bait or any kind of bad-faith devaluing or stereotyping. This is only based on my experience, hearing similar stories from others and wanting to understand. I’m aware that there are good and bad people everywhere.
So I’m European and starting on a good note I always admired America for many things like the freedom, diversity and cool movies.
But after more experience with meeting real Americans I noticed this personality type that I and I think many other non-Americans would describe as arrogant.
Like I stated before I’m not saying every American is like that and I know there are many very nice Americans. But I often saw that some Americans seem to only be nice on the surface (if at all) but actually seem to have this attitude of “I don’t give a f about you”. And I know that America is a very individualistic culture that focuses on the self and the belief that everyone can achieve anything on their own.
But I still think having a sense of empathy and sensitivity towards others is a very important core human quality that everyone should have. And from personal experience and also from a very prevalent notion of others both in every day life and when looking it up online it’s clear that many non-Americans perceive many Americans to cross a line there.
For example there’s a prevalent observation of Americans visiting other countries and acting like they own the place by being very loud, demanding and not accepting if things aren’t the same way as they are in America.
We know that Americans have very big issues with divisiveness and social injustice and it seams like there’s also this sort of “ghetto” personality including trash-talking, lots of vulgar slang and slurs and bragging.
And a general perception of money playing a big role as if many Americans judge someone’s worth by money and this attitude of not feeling like needing to help someone. I think there’s this famous description of a person lying in the middle of the ground in a public city and people just walk around the person not feeling the need to help.
It almost feels like they’re very entitled and put their ego up way higher than it actually is and lacking the quality of making themselves smaller/putting themselves second to treat others with more dignity.
I’m a Canadian who has lived and worked in the US, so I’ve got some familiarity with it.
There is a pervading sense of exceptionalism buried deep in the American zeitgeist. It runs so deep that most people don’t even notice it - even on the outer edges.
Case in point: My closest friends down there were staunch leftists. In a land of gun owners and meat lovers, they were vegetarians and pacifists who marched in protests against the government. Most of the time they were quiet, charming, soft-spoken, but firm in their beliefs. Pretty much the polar opposite of the “loudmouth American tourist abroad” stereotype.
And yet if you asked them if the US was the greatest country on earth, they’d say “well yeah, which is why we have to fight for it.” An admirable sentiment, but the “well yeah” speaks volumes for how the country sees itself.
The protest singers who lived through McCarthy are the same. Woody Guthrie and his son Arlo would probably say that for all of its flaws and horror, the US is still the best nation we’ve got so far.
When you know deep in your soul that you’re the best, it’s hard not to let some subconscious arrogance show through.
I think you mean American psyche. Zeitgeist means the spirit of the times. It usually refers to the present way of thinking or the way things were at one time.
The American psyche is much more of a timeless thing, stretching all the way back to the attitudes and beliefs of the founding fathers when they drafted the Declaration of Independence. Norman Rockwell’s paintings, Robert Frost’s poems, John Steinbeck’s books, the games of baseball and (gridiron) football. These are just some of the cultural artifacts said to be part of the American psyche.