Does America have more paranoids than average?

[notyou2]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average (when compared with other western nations) amount of gun toting paranoid people? Judging from TV and what I see on here, I think it does. There seems to be an awful lot of Americans spewing rhetoric with gun in hand. It doesn't matter what the rhetoric is, although racist groups and christian sects seem to be the most common.

Does anyone else get this impression?

[saxitoxin]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average amount of gun toting paranoid people?

You should be more specific than "the culture of the US." The most popular films, music, books and TV shows in the US are the most popular films, music, books and TV shows in Canada. The US and Canada compete in the same professional sports leagues. The US and Canada both speak English.

Basically, we need to know what actual differences there are between US and Canadian culture before we can analyze the question further, because they're not exactly obvious to the outside observer.

[nietzsche]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average amount of gun toting paranoid people?

You should be more specific than "the culture of the US." The most popular films, music, books and TV shows in the US are the most popular films, music, books and TV shows in Canada. The US and Canada compete in the same professional sports leagues. The US and Canada both speak English.

Basically, we need to know what actual differences there are between US and Canadian culture before we can analyze the question further, because they're not exactly obvious to the outside observer.

Yes, but Canadians react very differently at the same tv shows. There's some sort of .. how can I say it.. I don't know they sort of stay in real life more.. they know one thing is tv and other thing is every day life. Americans seem not to. (I'm talking in general).

Disclaimer: I lived for a very short period of time in Canada and in the US. I always make generalizations that are bound to upset people and I don't always have a quote to a book that says so, I'm sharing what I perceive.

[xeno]

Stopped reading when I saw that you were drawing generalizations from what you saw on TELEVISION. ie the idiot box

[notyou2]

Stopped reading when I saw that you were drawing generalizations from what you saw on TELEVISION. ie the idiot box

TV is very much a part of American culture and has a huge influence whether you like it or not.

[notyou2]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average amount of gun toting paranoid people?

You should be more specific than "the culture of the US." The most popular films, music, books and TV shows in the US are the most popular films, music, books and TV shows in Canada. The US and Canada compete in the same professional sports leagues. The US and Canada both speak English.

Basically, we need to know what actual differences there are between US and Canadian culture before we can analyze the question further, because they're not exactly obvious to the outside observer.

The cultures are very similar but not identical.

Canada basically has very close to 10% of the US population. Therefore if all things were equal, we should experience about 10% of the mass killings experienced in the US, but I don't believe that is the case. The gun laws are an obvious difference although there are more and more guns available in Canada now that there were say 20 years ago.

[saxitoxin]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average amount of gun toting paranoid people?

You should be more specific than "the culture of the US." The most popular films, music, books and TV shows in the US are the most popular films, music, books and TV shows in Canada. The US and Canada compete in the same professional sports leagues. The US and Canada both speak English.

Basically, we need to know what actual differences there are between US and Canadian culture before we can analyze the question further, because they're not exactly obvious to the outside observer.

The cultures are very similar but not identical.

Canada basically has very close to 10% of the US population. Therefore if all things were equal, we should experience about 10% of the mass killings experienced in the US, but I don't believe that is the case. The gun laws are an obvious difference although there are more and more guns available in Canada now that there were say 20 years ago.

So are you talking about the legal system, or the culture?

[notyou2]

The culture in the fact that I believe it breeds an above average amount of crazies toting guns and using them. There are numerous armed anti-government groups, religious groups and hate groups. They have individuals going on rampages as well as armed standoffs and worse against armed groups.

Why does this appear to be more prevalent in America than the rest of the western world?

[saxitoxin]

The culture in the fact that I believe it breeds an above average amount of crazies toting guns and using them.

You should be more specific than "the culture." The most popular films, music, books and TV shows in the US are the most popular films, music, books and TV shows in Canada. The US and Canada compete in the same professional sports leagues. The US and Canada both speak English.

Basically, we need to know what actual cultural differences there are between the US and Canada before we can analyze the question further, because they're not exactly obvious to the outside observer.

[BigBallinStalin]

Although saxi may seem annoying, his point is correct and relevant.


Why do we see more gun-toting paranoid types (or Columbine-esque killings) in the US on average compared to Canada?

Step 1: Answer the following: how much do the legal systems, politics, cultural attitudes, economic institutions, or even cognitive bias/selective perception each explain the discrepancy?

Step 2: After separating all these influences, we can isolate culture (somehow).

Step 3: Since culture is not homogenous, we then have to examine the subcultures and separate them from the other influences from step 1.

Step 4: Now treat each subculture as homogenous, then...

Step 4: ????

Step 5: PROFIT

_____________________________________________________________


The problem with the question is that it's approaching this method holistically by treating culture as a homogenous blob. Methodological individualism is an opposite approach which focuses on individuals, their influence on institutions (political, legal, social, economic)., and the influence of institutions on the individual.*


*(Off-shoots on this approach are post-classical political economy, new institutional economics, etc. These and others can be applied to the other social sciences.)

[Juan_Bottom]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average (when compared with other western nations) amount of gun toting paranoid people? Judging from TV and what I see on here, I think it does. There seems to be an awful lot of Americans spewing rhetoric with gun in hand. It doesn't matter what the rhetoric is, although racist groups and christian sects seem to be the most common.

Does anyone else get this impression?

I absolutely do.
It gets you asking yourself what it means to be an American or what Patriotism really is.

[saxitoxin]

Basically, the 10 bestselling books in Canada right now are all written by U.S. authors, the 10 most popular TV shows in Canada are produced in the U.S. with U.S. actors, the 10 highest grossing films in Canadian history were produced by U.S. studios, 6 of the 10 most popular songs in Canada this week are by U.S. musicians and Canada's biggest and most popular sports league (the NHL) is run by Americans from a U.S. city. (Neither the U.S. nor Canada has a notable culinary culture so we can avoid a comparison there.)

Therefore, since Canadian culture is simply a carbon copy of U.S. culture - we can objectively state that the answer to the question "[does] the culture of the US breeds an above average amount of gun toting paranoid people?" is "no."

[Phatscotty]

I am wondering if the culture of the US breeds an above average (when compared with other western nations) amount of gun toting paranoid people? Judging from TV and what I see on here, I think it does. There seems to be an awful lot of Americans spewing rhetoric with gun in hand. It doesn't matter what the rhetoric is, although racist groups and christian sects seem to be the most common.

Does anyone else get this impression?

Paranoid, prepared, worried, aware, viglant....whatever you Communists need to call "it".

The price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance

AS per your racist groups and Christians sects reference. This is the 21st century, and you seem to be living in the 1800's. Feel free to join us anytime.

[saxitoxin]

.....

[Phatscotty]

Stopped reading when I saw that you were drawing generalizations from what you saw on TELEVISION. ie the idiot box

TV is very much a part of American culture and has a huge influence whether you like it or not.

TV culture is not the same as real culture. Yes TV is trying to influence American culture, and it does to a certain extent.

But to judge an entire country based on what you see on a television who's industry is controlled by liberals and Jews is pretty asinine......but I would not expect any other assumption and I have my own unique theories about TV culture.
Such as....why gays and minorities are severely over-represented.

[nietzsche]

You might be underestimating TV influence. I strongly believe that TV, specially American TV and Hollywood are shaping our minds more than anything. Also video games.

However, every culture takes it differently. And it's not directly as some seem to think, we are social animals and we use prestige imitation as a tool to get ahead, and since we watch a lot of tv, we are starting to imitate the prestige we perceive in characters on TV and movies, instead of real life prestige. Fortunately writers are often smart persons, and have read a lot, so we learn a lot, become somehow smarter in some maters, but the downside is that we perceive we should try to achieve the wealth and power of TV characters, after all Nietzsche was right and called it 100 years ago: each one of us is god. This is not realistic, and leave us very confused.

For some, those "dreams" can come true, after all we are goal-achieving machines, but it's not for everyone. This more of a critiscim is a description really, though I believe that if we spent more time in real life we'd learn to be happier.

I have a bunch of cousins-nephews that are between 25-18, and they are totally lost, and I don't mean drugs, we are not that kind of family, but they are lost about what they want to do or what they want out of life, and it cannot be normal, since most of my extended family, those who could, worked, went to school, got their degree in the normal time and worked their ass off. But now the sons don't want to, they want everything easy, they have no clue how things are done, and they are not what you call stupid, they are just confused. Is it a coincidence that they were the first generation born with cable tv in Mexico? (When I was a kid and later a teen, only 1 tv in the house had cable, and you had to fight for your right to watch it, so I gave that up, and went out to play, later went out to get drunk and smoke.. in fact, when I was living by myself in college, it was until my last year that I got cable tv, now I can't fucking live without satellite and dvr..)

I guess when the time arrives we move on with our lives, forget all those unrealistic dreams and obsessions, but some have trouble abandoning those obsessions and implode taking others with them.

I really believe that the loser/successful thing prevalent in American schools that cause too much psychological damage to kids is part the tv influence. That didn't exist while I was going to school in Mexico, I'm not sure about it today although I've been hearing a lot about in the news lately.

I'm not saying TV is bad, I'm saying is tremendously influential.

[xeno]

Well I don't even pay for cable anymore. Just high speed internet, but it could be said the internet is making just as stupid

[Juan_Bottom]

Our television crap isn't the problem here. It's the politics. It's history.

In the 1850s the politicians in the South had lost their ability to bargain with North. This was because the North didn't need to rely on Southern Plantations to sell their goods to anymore. And of course the South refused to adapt to the changed relationship. With their new economic freedom, the Northerners used their political power to pressure the South to abandon slavery. Unable to match the North's representative influence in their government, the Southern politicians used lies and propaganda to turn Southern opinion away from the Union. Northern politicians responded by hammering anti-slavery legislation through that the South had no say in. Then John Brown raided the armory and the war was on.
The same thing is happening today. The New Republican party is a fringe party, and they cannot match the political strength of the Democrats. As a result, they're using lies and propaganda to turn conservative opinion against the Democrats. They're also using dirty tricks like Voter I.D. to stop minorities from voting against them. So the Democrats are ignoring them as well, and hammering legislation through that the New Republicans have no say in. The Democrats respond to the New Republican lies with contempt. It's a thick cloud of mutual-visible contempt.
For whatever reason, American manners also have us thinking that it's impolite to challenge someone's beliefs. For example, you're not supposed to say negative things about religion. You're not supposed to talk about anything that offends anyone in your conversation. If they hate tambourines, you can't discuss tambourines. For a time you weren't supposed to discuss politics with a stranger either, but with all the hate it's all kinda gone out the window.
Well, you're still not supposed to talk about religion though.
This is why we have so many nutters building shelters and hoarding ammunition. It's because our politics has bred a climate of fear and contempt. The New Republicans are forced to flame their bases' worst fears, just to maintain their second party status.

[Phatscotty]

It could even be the staggering amount of people who do not know history, and even many of those who think they do know history have been intentionally misled and can have their history severely twisted.

And voter ID is not a trick It's a crystal clear example of common sense. See what I mean about how twisted people can be? I'm pretty sure that is as large part of our problem.

[Juan_Bottom]

Well when we talked about voter ID before, I did make mention to the fact that I can barely find any examples of any actual voter fraud, while studys on both sides show that the laws would disenfranchise millions of democratic voters. Voter ID was even created as a way to stop blacks from voting.
Basically your laws would stop the less-than-40 illegal votes spread out over a period of years, while eliminating millions of legal minority votes.

[xeno]

But let's face it do any of us really want teh blacks voting?

[Phatscotty]

Well when we talked about voter ID before, I did make mention to the fact that I can barely find any examples of any actual voter fraud, while studys on both sides show that the laws would disenfranchise millions of democratic voters. Voter ID was even created as a way to stop blacks from voting.
Basically your laws would stop the less-than-40 illegal votes spread out over a period of years, while eliminating millions of legal minority votes.

63% of blacks support voter ID. Why do you say it will prevent blacks from voting?

Just because voter fraud is almost impossible to prove does not mean it doesn't exist. How many examples are there of people buying a bag of weed? Does that mean it never happens?

None of those excuses (true or false) change the fact that voter ID is a common sense issue, and American's are united on this more than anything else.

[nietzsche]

And just like that, another thread became Republicans vs Democrats.

[Phatscotty]

And just like that, another thread became Republicans vs Democrats.

Yeah Juan, yah butt. Way to make it political 9 hours ago and 7 posts up

[SirSebstar]

How can you be paranoid if everybody wants to kill you?