Not feeling very American, or European

Originally published on Tumblr.

After 13 years, I’m back in America, but I’m not feeling very American this evening. The Super Bowl is on, and I’m not watching it.

I’m also not feeling very European. Yesterday I wrote a blog post that offended my colleagues there, and I’m still trying to figure out why.

In fact, the post managed to upset people on both continents.

It compared how people from various cultures clean up after themselves. I asked some colleagues to review it, and the reaction was resoundingly negative. One colleague politely said": “I think that’s pretty out there. You should ask someone else what they think.” Another suggested I not publish it and wrote: “I’m afraid it would offend people here.” Later he added: “I just got a second opinion on it and the guy went into a rage.”

What did I write to cause such a reaction?

I wrote that Americans are more likely to clean up after themselves than Europeans.

McDonald’s tables in America are typically spotless, without any help from the restaurant’s staff. The inverse is often true in other cultures. In the Philippines, for example, no one would think of clearing their table in a fast food restaurant. My post discussed my various theories to explain the differences. The one that made the most sense to me was income disparity.

In countries with high income disparity, the upper and middle classes have servants. People with servants don’t clean up after themselves. In fact, I think it takes a few generations without staff to unlearn that behavior. America has been a low income disparity country for a long time. Today, the Philippines are a high income disparity country. The wealthiest people in the Philippines have servants and don’t clean up after themselves, while Americans today rarely have servants, and almost always clean up after themselves. I think this pattern can last for several generations beyond a change in circumstances, i.e., the grandchildren of people with servants act differently than the grandchildren of people without servants.

In the abstract it’s unlikely that anyone would find this idea upsetting. But when it’s used to explain why an office kitchen in one place is messy, while an office kitchen in another place is clean, it causes a bit of tension.

Americans, it turns out, don’t like being told they’re neat freaks. And Europeans don’t like being told they’re messy because their grandparents had butlers, and cooks, and maids.

I happen to come from both sides of that coin and find it hard to be offended by any of it. That’s no surprise to anyone who knows me. I’m still trying to figure out whether or not it’s OK to like Downton Abbey. Probably best to pretend I’ve never watched it.

And as I push “publish”, I wonder how those Seahawks did.