Individualism in USA
Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:52 am
I am trying to understand or gain a better insight on this. I understand this question may not survive the moderation by the Admins and eventually I may get banned, but if both of us survive, all I am trying to gain is an insight into the culture and nothing else.
I am an expat who lived in US for quite some time and moved on. This is just my perspective and not to hurt anyone, some will surely feel very different about my own home country's (India) social fabric and that is perfectly natural and to be accepted by me. May be I missed or not aware of the wonderful relationships that US offers in a family setting, by not being related to anyone in the US. So with all these declared before hand, the crux of the matter is,
For someone brought up in India where everything is almost always community driven, I felt US gave more preference to individualism. In this "developed" country, people did not know what their neighbour is upto and never cross well defined boundaries in interactions. I felt the social interactions and the interactions at work were always hollow and so much shallow in US than where I came from.
Not to mention, Indian urban population in aping this same culture, but the rural India still retains the way it has been for centuries. Indian villagers always have a close knit relationship and know each other in and out. I believe this applies to most (if not all) of the rural settlements across the globe since they are small in numbers in a relatively remote location (read villages) at Nature's will and have to be united for good. One of my well travelled managers, born and raised in US who at one point, became a very close friend outside of work, revealed she wanted to move to Europe to feel more connected to society and neighbours. At that point, I felt oh, so it is just not me and it is felt by others who were brought up in a very different environment than mine. May be the experience I had was with the urban population and may be totally misguided to stereotype the whole culture. I just do not know. I am so sorry to be blunt, the social fabric of the people I have interacted is always warm, but still objective and to the point. In one of the "What will you do" series episodes, I heard someone said, American Indians need to talk "more" in a social setting and make more interactions. So, may be I did not make more social interactions?
In my limited travels road tripping the length and the breadth of this huge country couple of times, I felt the American South/South East is lot closer to what I wanted in terms of bonding/ relationship, but I never had a chance to work and live there, only visit for experiencing the hospitality of the Southerners. May be the hospitality I experienced is limited to rural towns/villages of Tennesse (am I correct to say TN is south east?), but they made an indelible ink in my heart. I felt right at home (sans the different accent of English) with some of the rural folks in Tennesse. I would love to move there anyday for the warm heartedness of people there, oh my goodness, my heart melts and my eyes tear up due to overwhelming emotion typing these lines just thinking about my experiences and the people I met there.
Someone on this forum experienced either the reverse or felt like the manager in the above statements when visiting other countries? I like to have a constructive conversation about the above thoughts than getting to nasty side. A great characteristic of the American culture which I truly cherised is accepting someone as they are and what they think, so hopefully my above thoughts will be accepted and drive an open conversation.
I am an expat who lived in US for quite some time and moved on. This is just my perspective and not to hurt anyone, some will surely feel very different about my own home country's (India) social fabric and that is perfectly natural and to be accepted by me. May be I missed or not aware of the wonderful relationships that US offers in a family setting, by not being related to anyone in the US. So with all these declared before hand, the crux of the matter is,
For someone brought up in India where everything is almost always community driven, I felt US gave more preference to individualism. In this "developed" country, people did not know what their neighbour is upto and never cross well defined boundaries in interactions. I felt the social interactions and the interactions at work were always hollow and so much shallow in US than where I came from.
Not to mention, Indian urban population in aping this same culture, but the rural India still retains the way it has been for centuries. Indian villagers always have a close knit relationship and know each other in and out. I believe this applies to most (if not all) of the rural settlements across the globe since they are small in numbers in a relatively remote location (read villages) at Nature's will and have to be united for good. One of my well travelled managers, born and raised in US who at one point, became a very close friend outside of work, revealed she wanted to move to Europe to feel more connected to society and neighbours. At that point, I felt oh, so it is just not me and it is felt by others who were brought up in a very different environment than mine. May be the experience I had was with the urban population and may be totally misguided to stereotype the whole culture. I just do not know. I am so sorry to be blunt, the social fabric of the people I have interacted is always warm, but still objective and to the point. In one of the "What will you do" series episodes, I heard someone said, American Indians need to talk "more" in a social setting and make more interactions. So, may be I did not make more social interactions?
In my limited travels road tripping the length and the breadth of this huge country couple of times, I felt the American South/South East is lot closer to what I wanted in terms of bonding/ relationship, but I never had a chance to work and live there, only visit for experiencing the hospitality of the Southerners. May be the hospitality I experienced is limited to rural towns/villages of Tennesse (am I correct to say TN is south east?), but they made an indelible ink in my heart. I felt right at home (sans the different accent of English) with some of the rural folks in Tennesse. I would love to move there anyday for the warm heartedness of people there, oh my goodness, my heart melts and my eyes tear up due to overwhelming emotion typing these lines just thinking about my experiences and the people I met there.
Someone on this forum experienced either the reverse or felt like the manager in the above statements when visiting other countries? I like to have a constructive conversation about the above thoughts than getting to nasty side. A great characteristic of the American culture which I truly cherised is accepting someone as they are and what they think, so hopefully my above thoughts will be accepted and drive an open conversation.