The C2 wiki has invented a beautiful name for this concept and gathered lots of examples: American Cultural Assumption. (Do Americans realize that words like “primaries”, “cheerleaders” or “curveball” are incomprehensible to most of the world?) That said, as a Russian living in Switzerland, I’m not too worried about this sort of cultural bias. I generally don’t even notice it until someone points it out. The only case in recent memory that really made me cringe was when Google decided to remind me about something called “Father’s Day”.
I’m quite familiar with the political culture in Ireland and Britain; they don’t have primaries in anything strongly resembling the American sense. I’m willing to say the same for Germany but I’m not as sure. Actually, now that I think about it, I would be incredibly surprised if any country in Europe, east or west has primaries like in the US. After all people don’t register as members of a political party when they register as voters.
I would also be surprised if cheerleaders existed in anything approaching the way they do in the US in Europe, seeing as no team sports with long periods of no motion/play are popular in Europe.
Father’s Day is popular in some European countries, so in my eyes you’re one for three.
The French Socialist Party) (which is not socialist, but social-democratic) is the main left-wing party in France, and holds primaries sort of like in the US. Registering as a member of a party is independent from registering as a voter, and indeed fewer people do it, so the primary is much smaller.
Cheerleading is much less intense and developed here, but there’s a cheerleading club in e.g. every major engineering school. It’s not nearly as competitive, though.
Our conceptions of what the words “primary” mean are so varied that I still disagree with you right now. My disagreement would decrease if registering to vote in the socialist “primary” did not require paying membership dues. To my knowledge all of the UK and Irish political parties require candidates to be selected by the local committee of the constituency in which they wish to stand. I do not consider this a primary.
I stand behind my careful cavilling/weaselling on cheerleaders though; when I think of cheerleading I think of American Football not Bring It On
It’s noteworthy that in Italy we know about primaries (even if only half the political world employs it) and Father’s day, but we have no cheerleaders. But don’t worry: Italians being what they are, we invented plenty other ways to objectify women.
Hm. You’re technically right, but… Well, you could say that the Russian orthodox church exists in the US too. But not quite in the same way that it exists in Russia.
The C2 wiki has invented a beautiful name for this concept and gathered lots of examples: American Cultural Assumption. (Do Americans realize that words like “primaries”, “cheerleaders” or “curveball” are incomprehensible to most of the world?) That said, as a Russian living in Switzerland, I’m not too worried about this sort of cultural bias. I generally don’t even notice it until someone points it out. The only case in recent memory that really made me cringe was when Google decided to remind me about something called “Father’s Day”.
Primaries, cheerleaders and Father’s Day exist in most of Western Europe (though primaries are a recent import from the US).
I’m quite familiar with the political culture in Ireland and Britain; they don’t have primaries in anything strongly resembling the American sense. I’m willing to say the same for Germany but I’m not as sure. Actually, now that I think about it, I would be incredibly surprised if any country in Europe, east or west has primaries like in the US. After all people don’t register as members of a political party when they register as voters.
I would also be surprised if cheerleaders existed in anything approaching the way they do in the US in Europe, seeing as no team sports with long periods of no motion/play are popular in Europe.
Father’s Day is popular in some European countries, so in my eyes you’re one for three.
The French Socialist Party) (which is not socialist, but social-democratic) is the main left-wing party in France, and holds primaries sort of like in the US. Registering as a member of a party is independent from registering as a voter, and indeed fewer people do it, so the primary is much smaller.
Cheerleading is much less intense and developed here, but there’s a cheerleading club in e.g. every major engineering school. It’s not nearly as competitive, though.
Our conceptions of what the words “primary” mean are so varied that I still disagree with you right now. My disagreement would decrease if registering to vote in the socialist “primary” did not require paying membership dues. To my knowledge all of the UK and Irish political parties require candidates to be selected by the local committee of the constituency in which they wish to stand. I do not consider this a primary.
I stand behind my careful cavilling/weaselling on cheerleaders though; when I think of cheerleading I think of American Football not Bring It On
It’s noteworthy that in Italy we know about primaries (even if only half the political world employs it) and Father’s day, but we have no cheerleaders. But don’t worry: Italians being what they are, we invented plenty other ways to objectify women.
Hm. You’re technically right, but… Well, you could say that the Russian orthodox church exists in the US too. But not quite in the same way that it exists in Russia.
(comment retracted because I don’t want to argue)
I realized that references to “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” would be America-centric, but then I saw you do this.