Thread: Expatriates and Culture

Originally Posted by DAAR84

Would someone be willing to provide current examples of culture in the west that are prominent on a day to day basis outside of common norms such as language, food, and flags?

LOL @ the two replies. Especially "Belize Time".

Originally Posted by garza

Writ-with-Hand - I am a liberal. I am, in fact, a socialist and an atheist, partly as an inheritance from my grandfather, partly because of a good university liberal arts education, partly from my experiences living in various parts of the world among various kinds of people, all of whom I came to know and respect, but mostly because that's the way I'm made; that's me. Obviously I offend you, and for that I apologise.

I do not apologise for my beliefs which you should know by now if you've been reading my posts. Other than that I cannot answer you.

I don't know how you got "I offend you" from my post number 30?

I swear to God atheists (and New Yorkers) are the most overly sensitive people I've ever come across when someone is critical about them (or their city in the case of New Yorkers).

Being liberal or conservative means a whole lot of nothing to me. I don't like most conservatives either. Some of them are "good" people (like some liberals) but most of them are agenda filled scoundrels. I don't care if they're Catholic, Protestant, mulatto, or look sexy like me. But it's currently liberals in the Western world that have declared "holy" jihad on the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. And my fidelity is to Christ and his Mother before any nation, flag, or political party. Hence, Al Qaida is not an enemy of mine. And they'll become my friends whenever liberals in the U.K. and U.S. make moves to arrest the pope and confiscate Vatican and Catholic property around the world. On that day I don't give a ____ about the U.S. stock market. And that's all aside from the fact I think members of the Church of Satan have infiltrated the Democratic Party and run it now.

So, I realize some liberals are well intentioned, charitable, fair, and "good" people. But I can't mention every single liberal on earth no more than you can every North American (whom piss you off when ever they come to Belize). So, I generalize like you do and like social scientists do.

Originally Posted by Writ-with-Hand

The same liberal, feminist that came out against a Protestant minister burning a relative few copies of the Koran...The U.S. constitution does not explicitly state "separation of church and state." People infer that from it. What it does say is that the state shall not set one religion above another. One can infer from that protecting Islam from privately funded blasphemy, and supporting publicly funded blaspheming of Christianity or Catholicism is in fact a constitutional violation.

Following your arguments is a bit like herding cats, but here we go...

I think you are mixing both your personal feelings about catholicism (your arguments nearly always refer to it, even when discussing Islam) and support for maintaining the legality of the right of freedom of speech

You said "Hundreds if not millions of liberal came out to support this (guess separation of Church and State be damned)." but they were not supporting that "The Virgin Mary and Jesus have been attacked", they were supporting a system that allows the freedom to express yourself regardless of race, religion or colour. They were, in fact, demonstrating against the people that would have censored the exhibition you refer to. That is a completely different complexion than you have put.

On one hand you are saying that the state is supporting anti-religionism. But the reality is that a cadre of people were demonstrating against freedom of expression, freedom of speech and a bunch of freedom-loving Americans decided that upholding the law was something they were going to take a stand on.

You have equated that support with a state-sponsored attack on catholicism. That is just not true. Similarly, the church leader that decided publicly burning the Qur'an was a cool, christian thing to do is seriously in need of getting in touch with his own religion. clinton is an extremely religious person. Not so much in public as the mealy-mouthed GOP devout who would sell their souls for another million in campaign funds, but it is well known that privately she is a devout person.

And here in the U.S. and in the U.K. as well, I notice liberals often use the word "Muslim" to be synonymous with "non-whites."

I have never found this to be the case, ever. Not one single example in all my years in both the US and UK. That represents such a total disconnect with reality I suspect the people you are associating with are seriously in need of mental health attention and you shouldn't be taking their perspective seriously.

I've been told flat-out more than once online by atheist and Christian liberals that "racist" and "Christians" don't like "Muslims" because they're (Muslims) are not white.

Bigots find any number of reasons to justify their hatred. Don't try and reason with them or to understand their logic. They are just fu**ed-up by ignorance and hate. There are just as many ignorant and biased people that identify themselves as liberal or atheist as there are among the right and pious. They just have different camouflage.

What I know is the Catholic world was "multicultural" before that became vogue among you liberals in the U.S. and U.K.

You liberals? Who would that be, then? Did I send you a breakdown of my political affiliations and beliefs without knowing it? Blanket statements purporting to know me and making assumptions about my politics or my religion means that further discussion can get unstuck.

We Catholics don't have "the Black Church" which is hard for the millions of nit wits in liberalism to understand.

Where are you going with this? The discussion was about expatriates and maintaining their culture - unless I am mistaken, you are neither and nowhere did the subject veer off to a discussion of the merits of catholicism. And condemnation of liberals as well. So far you have attacked different political affiliations almost as much as you have defended catholicism - funnily enough, neither of those areas were under discussion. I understand it is a hobby-horse of yours, but constantly derailing every subject to further proselytise on catholicism gets a bit tiring, and I have only been here a week.

I would have appreciated furthering the topic of on open discussion in Islam, but you have taken over that thread and made it all about you.

Originally Posted by Writ-with-Hand

However, the reality is that in today's United States and United Kingdom Christianity is free to attack in public discussion and it is "politically incorrect" to do so about other religions.

I wonder where you get your information on the UK. Is it first-hand? Because that doesn't equate to my first-hand experience where there is robust discussion on other religions, notably Islam, and criticism is levelled at least as much, if not more, than at Christianity. But... it doesn't make for big headlines and to call a spade a spade, US news reporting is utter crap. What you get fed as news is hysterical, jingoistic pabulum designed not to inform, but to raise outrage - because then the TV station will have 'won' the viewer.

There is nothing like the BBC or UK regional television in the US. Nothing.

I will cede that many racist people in the U.S. and U.K. publicly hate on Islam and anyone that looks Arab (to them "Muslim"). That has a lot to do with white racists in the U.S. and U.K. typically being Christian - or at minimum coming from a Christianized background.

As I said before - ignorance and bigotry are everywhere. You just need to be vigilant and to nip it in the bud as soon as you see it.

Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another. To that affect most humans on earth are affected by racism. You see that colorism in Black-America and throughout Latin America. It exists in the Hindu and Islamic Arab worlds too.

And a lot of what we see labelled as racism is just plain old bigotry and ignorance. Regardless of the place in the dictionary you find it, the effect is the same.

That said... some European ideas or traits have proven more successful and or "civilized" than some African or Amerindian. That's my opinion.

And I would say that Taoist and Buddhist ideas from Asia have proven even more successful again, but have been ignored or worse, discarded, by the 'successful' Europeans.

I think a lot of that success has been of the 'might is right' variety rather than the natural percolation of superior ideas.

Originally Posted by DAAR84

Maybe you haven't given this much thought - and i'll understand if you haven't ...
...I mean, seriously, do I have to explain this here on the forum? Is this a test of some sort? A joke maybe? A plot in some passive aggressive debating strategy?
...Having to explain to an adult what is meant by and who is referred to as the 'ruling elite' is akin to describing sesame street to a child. Again - if this is some sort of passive aggressive bait tactic used for debating i'm not biting.

Wow! Could you be any more patronising?

Actually, judging by what you posted, I am pretty confident you could.

@Zoo : Can you tell us how many Islamic countries have the death penalty for choosing the wrong religion.
And you talk about intolerance......

Dunno - can you cite some statutes or are you just going from 'common' knowledge?

Could people please go back and read the OP, then get this thread back on topic.

Warning: Those that have been persistently warned for derailing threads recently may find themselves getting infractions if they ignore this post.

I'm half nordic and half greek, literally, spartan viking.

I was born in south africa and feel a great connection to the country as a home.

I cherish all three cultures and identify heavily with both my viking and spartan ancestry and heritage and try to maintain practises.

Do I think it's really that important? On a small scale, no, on a large scale yes.

I just have two of the most badass genes in my body, so why wouldn't I try to celebrate it .

Originally Posted by candid petunia

Are people who move out of their countries beginning to forget or disregard their nation's culture?

I'm American, my nation doesn't have a culture.

How patriotic do we remain to our country if we settle in another?

Zero. If you're truly patriotic to your country, you don't settle in another.

Looking at the OP it mainly struck me that culture is not a constant, it is continuously mutable. Most people know the quotation about the past being another country, they do things differently there. Most people, however, seem to think the past starts way back before they were born, it doesn't, it is anything before now. I distinctly remember meeting ex-pats in Spain in my youth who felt they were holding on to British culture, they were holding on to the culture they had grown up in in the 1940's and 50's. During the early 60's, when I lived in Spain, British culture changed almost beyond recognition, British people who had not lived through that change were out of synch with the rest of us. Not only that, for all their 'holding on' to their ways and values they had subtly changed themselves.

The other thing that struck me was the way that those who come into a culture change it themselves. I grew up in a family that was not biased by race or colour, however that was not the norm in 1950's Britain, I can remember the Notting Hill riots for example, and people really did believe that West Indian people were different in ways that went beyond skin colour and culture. Nowadays I meet young people who have grown up and gone to school with friends from completely different backgrounds, but they have no trouble recognising each other as being just like them in the sense of their basic human qualities, that works both ways and changes both cultures.

It is those who are immutable that get lost. Values should not be jettisoned, but they do need questioning, even within the most rigid social forms, people like the American Shakers and Quakers, or traditional Jewish cults, there is change, they may read the same book of law they did a hundred or a thousand years ago, and abide by those laws, but their attitude and interpretation is continuously going through subtle changes.

Good post, Olly.