E017 Foreign Attitudes

Passionately Wrong Podcast Episode E017

Foreign Attitudes

Key takeaway: It helps to keep an open mind when visiting other countries or talking with people about your country. There is always a history and context to every topic, and if something seems obviously wrong to you, you are well served to question whether you’re missing something. Also, it’s common (and OK) for people to have different opinions and disagree.

Topics covered in this video: 

• People are quick to form impressions from little things
• Headlines usually give a narrow picture
• There’s a history behind every country’s attitudes and systems
• Lancero Commando School - why different tactics are needed
• Why challenging your assumptions is necessary
• What to do when you join a new organization and see strange things
• How the typical tourist comes across to locals
• Is it so bad to have quick initial impressions that are likely wrong?
• Every country has rules the locals are not happy with 
• Don’t be quick to assume you understand, don’t be quick to criticize, and don’t assume you have to fix a problem because people’s opinions differ
• Things foreigners question about America (Roe v. Wade)
• Summary of advice

Transcript

Randy: 0:00

I think the way you address like American generalizations, you're like, ah, there's more to the story, man. And if you wanna know about it, I'd be glad to talk about it. But basically we have different rules and different laws and that's just the way it works.

James: 0:16

Greetings, friends. I'm James.

Randy: 0:18

And I'm Randy. You're listening to The Passionately Wrong podcast where we challenge your assumptions, offer some different perspectives, and hopefully help you make better decisions. hello everyone. Thanks for joining us again today. James and I are going to discuss foreign attitudes, uh, for Americans traveling over broad like the attitudes of the actual other countries towards Americans and. Kind of James and, and my experiences from all hard travels and living in these countries and, and what we've kind of learned as far as how to, uh, how to acknowledge these situations, adapt and kind of realize that whatever, um, Wrong images that other countries have of us. A lot of times we have the same or, or, or wrong images of the other countries as well, just because of what we've heard in the news or a a, a compelling headline or just something we heard when we were growing up in school. Yeah,

James: 1:23

I'll start with that, Randy, and I would say it is surprising. Impressive and depressing all at the same time. How little information we need to form an opinion. It really can be as simple as a comment you heard at the dinner table or an interaction you had with one person or something you read in the newspaper. And I think this is just a human trait. We are quick to form opinions and we can do so on very little information, and those opinions are sticky. Uh, Even if you get lots more information later, your initial impression, you know, we talk about first impressions. So people make first impressions about countries and people from those countries all the time, and yeah, those impressions are reinforced. You know, if you're in Russia right now, you've got a pretty dismal view of Ukraine and the, the war that's being fought there, because that's what you're hearing nonstop in the state media and. I dunno if that's the best example to use, but what I wanna say is there's impressions that are. By accident, by little random things and impressions that are formed by a concentrated effort, but we should not fool ourselves. Uh, the beliefs we have about pretty much everything and everyone are the result of sometimes insignificant things. I saw this when I was a, uh, mostly when I was working. I noticed it more because I would encounter people professionally and then, uh, The discussion over lunch or at, uh, in a, in a negotiation would veer from the professional topic and into some ridiculous personal thing. Like how come you Americans are so caught up with sexual issues, you know, what's the big deal about Clinton getting a blowjob in the Oval Office and how did that become a national scandal and get him impeached? You know, if you're talking to a French person, like what's the big deal? You know, you expect him to have a couple of mistresses. Uh, and I would think, wow, you know, this person has a very. Limited view about the US and it's been formed based on a story or a headline. It took me many more years to realize that my own views were similarly skewed. But um, I was struck by that and it was most often US politics that got people excited. Uh, did you notice it when you were growing up or when you were working and living in other countries? Yeah, I

Randy: 3:35

mean, I, I noticed it the same way you did. You know, it's always the big headlines and they're like, you Americans are so stupid because of this, or, I can't believe this is such a big deal. And like, why do you have so many serial killers in the United States? And I'm like, I mean, or mass shootings or Yeah, exactly. Or mass shootings. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. How of, you guys are all racist That's right. Um, and, and I think I, I so twisting that around when you look at other countries, when I go to other countries, you know, I'm, I only know what I know before I get there. And so what I see is going on, I'm immediately making, um, kind of conclusions like, oh, the, the French believe this, or whatever country I'm in Africa, that this is the rule. And I don't understand like a history for this role. Like no one under understands the history and the, the legislation behind owning a gun in the United States completely except for Americans, and mostly Americans don't either. So when, when they, when people in Europe or other countries spout their opinions about this, It's a lot deeper than just saying, Hey, let's just take everyone's weapons away. Well, there's more weapons than people in the United States. That's not so easy to do, and they're worth a lot of money. And there's a, something in, call it the Constitution and the Second Amendment. And so there's, it's more complicated than just the president's SA President doesn't even have the, the, uh, the power to do that. So you have to, it's a, it's a little, it's a lot more complicated than that. And no one seems to understand that. I've found very little people understand outside the United States that the states in a lot of ways are autonomous. They're like their own little countries. They have their own governments. They make their own laws in some cases. Now, the federal laws, the, there's the standard for the most part, unless they don't want federal funding in some cases, but not always. Um, but, but each state kind of makes their own, just like the, the law and. It's still against federal law, but we have states that allow it becau and they don't get federal funding for something because they, they, they're going against the federal law. And that's the way, that's the way our system works, and no one said it's perfect. In some ways, it's better, in some ways it's worse. I, I think the best example that I have of not being aware of how a country works and making criticisms about it, what came from my military training down in Columbia. So when I first became a Green Beret, I volunteered to go to Lance Zero course. I think we may have talked about this before. The Lance Zero course in Columbia was a commando course that we helped set up to stop to help them fight the war on drugs on our behalf, and we're helping to train their, their, their soldiers to be better soldiers. I already knew a lot about how we did tactics and when we made the school, I'm sure we implemented a lot of this stuff in here, but they added stuff. For some reason, some of these things, I'm like, why the hell are we doing that? You know that, that sounds so tactically insane. Why would you do that? And, and put yourself at risk? And eventually I had to, I came to the understanding that they have laws in their government. We, if we're in, uh, if we're in a war, cuz the United States military fights outside the mili outside the United States. And when we're fighting outside the United States, we're fighting against enemies. And if the Army's fighting, it's usually a established war that Congress has said We're at war. Um, so we have rules of engagement, but if we're doing a, if we're, if we're in a, in combat and we're, we're advancing, we have a, we have, we have a, we have some rules where we're like, if we pass a body, we double tap it as we pass it by to make sure it's dead so that that guy won't get up behind us and mow everyone down. That's how we fight the war. Now, after the battle's over, then we take prisoners. If someone's alive, we won't double shoot'em, but when we're in the middle of the battle, It obviously doesn't make sense to leave wounded people or people who are faking death behind us so that they can overwhelm us and win the battle. And so we have these rules that are very nuanced. You know, Hey, we're in the battle, we're moving forward. We're taking the, the, the battle to the enemy. We gotta get the, all the people to stop firing. Once they stop firing, then we can go back and take prisoners from the wounded and stuff like that. Now, when we try to implement that in, in, so I went to this course, I learned that they have these laws in place that they, they don't do that because their military's fighting within their country. Mm. And so they have, they may have civilians on there as opposed to the farc, you know, and the FARC may look like the civilians, and they're hard to tell apart, but they, they don't, and they always, they always, because of the military, they're almost always the overwhelming force. So they, they, it's e it's easy to to, to ki to die down the shooting, the thele shoot and run. And there's no reason to like, you know, shoot everyone on the battlefield because the battle's over before it starts usually. And if they realize this and so their judicial system's like, Hey, no, we're not authorizing that tactic. And so when I first got there and I'm like, well, and, and they. And they just thought I knew the tactic or they taught it to me in Spanish and I wasn't listening, paying attention to that piece of it because I'd been trained my whole career that we, when you're, when you're assaulting, you double tap everyone to make sure they're dead. And when I was doing this, like it was blanks, but I was doing it. I was reprimanded. And I'm like, what is going on? Why are you guys, what, what's your problem? And they're like, da, da, da, you can't do this. And, and so I had to learn their, their law, their judicial system that was influenced how their tactics were done. And it made sense to me once I figured it out, once they explained it to me, I. Fast forward four years. I'm back in Columbia for Planned Columbia in 2000. In 2019, we, you know, was, it was the most money in the United States had ever put in a country before, before nine 11 happened. And they're putting millions and millions of dollars. And one of it was to have Dream Parade teams go down and train their military. I had my team, I was the only one who'd ever been to this school. We're getting down there and they're planning on teaching these tactics, our military tactics. And I and I, and I stood. And for everyone is like, Hey, this isn't the way they do it. we gotta change our tactics the way we're teaching it, because, you know, it'll break their laws. And you know, one guy got up like, Hey, they need to learn the right way to do things. And I was like, except they have laws against this. to teach the privates to do something against their law, they're gonna get in trouble and go to jail. For, for doing something they're not supposed to be doing. So that doesn't make sense. That's not why we're there. We're there to help them. We're not there to, to make them get more complicated with the politics. And I had, and it was a fight initially, and then I sat down with my, my supervisor. So I'm like, Hey, look. This is gonna be caused serious problems. And if you're trying to help them, we're not doing it. If we don't teach them within their laws, d does that make sense or not? And they're like, yeah, you're right. So then I, I put a presentation together and I was teaching large, large amounts of people in the Green Berets. Like, Hey, when you go to Columbia, this is the law and this is how you gotta teach stuff. But it was, it was just a little nuanced thing that we thought was, this is the way we thought things were done because our military. Is one of the only military, I mean a lot of Western European too, but, but most of the militaries in the world, they're involved within their country and ours is always involved outside of our country, at least for the last a hundred years or so. I.

James: 11:05

So this brings up, uh, an important point about what we advise people to do in the Passionately Wrong podcast, Randy, which is Challenge your assumptions. Challenge your assumptions, what you know absolutely is the right way to do it. And works might or might not be. That's really hard to do cuz you don't know which assumptions to challenge. Um, what I would say is when you come into an organization, you're always coming into it with, uh, its existing history and. Background intact. If you don't know it, uh, here's a, here's a, a warning sign. And I would say, here's a reason for you to be very careful in your assumptions. If you come into a situation or an organization, and it seems like they're doing something ridiculously stupid and wrong. You might wanna stop before you raise your hand and say, oh, this is ridiculously stupid and wrong. And say, what am I missing here? It's possible I don't have all the facts. I can't tell you how many new people joined our organization. And in the space of two weeks, we're able to identify 500 things that were wrong about everything that we were doing. And you know what? They were right about a lot of them. But the piece that they didn't do was say, what am I missing? Why are they doing it this way? There's always a reason. It may be a good reason, it may be a bad reason, but there's a reason. And until you understand the context, why do they not do this thing that is so obvious to me? Why don't they do the double tap or the equivalent of that in the corporate world, which I can't come up with an analogy, but why don't they do it? And. Only then, only then when you have the context, can you then potentially say, all right, well, does this still make sense? Could we modify it? Does it, you know, is there a reason to change what we're doing? And having just that little bit of humility, and maybe even that's the trigger when there's a thing that looks to be obviously wrong to you, ask yourself this question, is it really possible that I'm the only person who's noticed this? Or is it that the organization is aware of it and accepts it? They're doing so for a reason That goes a long way towards potentially helping you from being passionately wrong about what you assume you know and understand about another country. When you go to another place and you see everybody behaving a certain way and say, that's so dumb, I can't believe they do that. Well, you might just be missing some part of the context necessary, and that's the criticism or the complaint that we would have about when we're interacting with someone overseas and they say, oh, you Americans are so dumb. You do X, Y, or Z. Just, we gave a couple of examples at the beginning. The, the response to that is, yeah, you're missing some context. We may not be happy with that outcome, but there's a reason for why it works the way that it does. And your, you know, the second piece of this is how do you. Is there a anything to change and does your solution make any sense? It can't be, as you were saying before, well just take away everyone's guns, then you wouldn't have a problem. Uh, no. That's not really a very good solution for all sorts of reasons. So, yeah, challenging your assumptions and one of the ways that, you know, you might need to challenge your assumptions if something seems glaringly obvious to you, maybe it's obvious because you're not seeing the whole picture.

Randy: 14:08

You know, I, one of the most best examples comes from. Tourist tourists. Right. So, when I used to live in Holland or Netherlands, and, and in Britain, American tourists would come and they'd come in, you know, small groups, you know, maybe two or three people and they'd be on public transportation. And they'd be talking really loudly about all the things they saw or whatever, and everyone else is going to work or school and they're reading the newspaper or reading a book or, or doing whatever they're doing their daily life. And the tourists are all like, excited about being there and they're all loud and everything and all. You know, I, you spoke probably a little bit of Dutch said as I did and, and we did it and, and of course I spoke English when I was in the uk. and you'd hear you, you'd always hear the Dutch or the Amer, the British. They'd always complain how loud the Americans were, how they were just really obnoxious and, and just assume that all Americans were like that. Not knowing that I was an American. Cause I was quiet and watching it, watching it too. And it it, funny enough though, after about five years riding public transportation in, in the Netherlands, I, I started getting annoyed with the Americans too. I was like, geez, you're so loud. What is going on? Convert con, uh, you know, in the same, in the same form when you're in the United States and you have a f a group of foreigners. That are tourists. They also are very loud because they're tourists and they're not doing their daily activities, and they're not, they're not going to work in school and they're, and they're kind of on like the, you know, the high of life for the moment while they're, and they wanna talk about everything and they're talking about everything right there in front of you because they're tourists and that's what they're doing. And so, just kind of going back to what you said, you know, kind of putting everything in perspective. And say and, and putting yourself in their shoes and trying to understand, you know, why they're that way. I mean, I'm sure there's some allowed Americans, no matter where they are. I've met some, but, but I'm sure every tourist isn't allowed American. They're just excited sometimes.

James: 16:16

Yeah. You know, it's, it's a good point. I hadn't thought about it to the same extent that it's just a function of tourism more than a function of Americanism. I would. I probably have a deeply held prejudice just because I've observed it for so long, and also I observed in the last,

Randy: 16:32

but you observed it in a foreign country,

James: 16:34

Well, not only that, I've observed it here. That's what I was just gonna say for the last year and a bit since we've been back. You know, still have a little bit that quiet observer mode from being in foreign countries for so long where you don't try to stand out immediately. You just observe what's going on. And so back here in the US we observe a lot. How do people interact in restaurants and in public? And boy, they seem pretty loud here too,

Randy: 16:56

But that's, but, but people, people are allowed in restaurants, period. I mean, the Germans are always allowed. I, I mean, if you're in a restaurant, you're in free time. I, I, I think most people. my observation, when Americans were the loudest were there, it was, it was in normal day-to-day activities when everyone else was like in there, I'm doing my daily thing, I'm just going to work, going to school, doing whatever. And the Americans are like, it's Monday morning, 10 o'clock, and they're like, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know? And, and yes they are because they're not, they're on vacation. And, and so I, I, I think that that's, I think, I think my, my point is, is I've seen it. I've seen it, so I, I still stand by that. But, but I, I do, you know, when you're in restaurants, you're kinda letting your hair down too. When you're at a bar. Same thing. The, the British and the Germans are, are very obnoxious in bars, just like Americans are just like, pretty much everyone is.

James: 17:53

So I've been asking myself, is there a way to make assumptions less frequently? And I think it's. If I travel to a country, you know, I'm going to Japan. I haven't been there in 20 years and I haven't thought much about it, I'm gonna go there next month for a week and, uh, could I do a week's worth of research in advance to try and understand culture and history and learn some phrases and really get ready to be a culturally sensitive. Tourist, I could, but I'm not gonna because it's too much time and I don't wanna invest that time. And so what does that mean? It means I'm gonna go there with a completely wrong impression of what I think I understand about Japan. Cuz I've seen a movie with a bullet train in it and I read a newspaper headline about, you know, I mean, it's stupid, silly stuff and I'm, I'm gonna be wrong about a lot of things. And part of me knows that and part of me says, eh, I don't care. Because of what we discussed in an earlier episode, which is that people are busy. They got 500 things competing for their attention. Does it hurt me in any way or in any consequential way to have grossly stereotyped and almost certainly wrong views about Japan and the Japanese before I go there? I'm not sure. Right. So, so maybe the question back to you, Randy, is, is it so bad that we create quick and probably wrong impressions about people based on limited information and we don't adjust those impressions? Is that such a big deal? If you really are just going there for a week as a tourist,

Randy: 19:29

I mean, As long as you're not insulting the whole country based on your observations. I think it's fine to make observations and you, you don't, in a way, you don't really have to understand why they do it that way. You can just say, Hey, you know, in the UK they drive on the wrong side of the road. Kind of weird. You know, I've met Americans that think all of Europe drive on the wrong side of the. And, and been and been passionately wrong about that. And I'm like, what are you talking about, man? Uh, but uh, but you know, well, I don't know. Go ahead.

James: 20:01

No, you raise a good point actually, which is if you don't. Go through the effort to correct potentially or get a bigger perspective. Correct. Your misapprehensions fine. You don't have to, but then you don't also need to go the further step of trying to tell the entire country why they're doing it wrong. Right. So I, I like that distinction. You, you can be ignorant, but then keep it to yourself.

Randy: 20:23

Yeah. And I, I mean, I think for the purposes of this episode, you know, How do you address when other people are making generalizations about way Americans act and you know, Most people don't care, like do I? I mean, if I'm having a one-on-one conversation over a beer with the guy next to me, like, why are you driving on the wrong side of the street? And he's gonna explain it to me, then I'll have some knowledge there. But in general, I mean, I'm not gonna say, this is stupid. Why I'm not gonna go walk around town going, why do they drive on the side of the wrong side of the road? This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm just gonna rant down the road and have British people look at me like you're dumb. And I, I, I don't, yeah, there's noth there, like you said, there's no reason to raise that up. And, and, uh, I, I think the way you address like American generalizations, you're like, ah, there's more to the story, man. And if you wanna know about it, I'd be glad to talk about it. But basically we have different rules and different laws and that's just the way it works.

James: 21:25

Yeah. Maybe. Trying to get them to analogize to a hot button issue in their own country and say, look, you know, you guys are concerned about this. And you know, there's no one sentence answer that explains that whole issue is there. There's a really important views on both sides and that's the reason you haven't solved it in 20 years of trying. So maybe just to getting people to accept that it is nuanced or complicated.

Randy: 21:49

And I think, I think most people. Aren't happy with all the rules in their own country either. Hmm. You know, so, so I know, I know a lot of people that are frustrated with, you know, renting laws in France, for instance. And, and they're, they're there for different reasons because historically they've, they've, uh, raised to a level where they're protecting, they're trying to protect the landlords and the tenants by mandate mandating a three year lease and. Which is impossible to get out of for the landlord. So he, if he doesn't get paid, he gets to lose, they lose money. But the renter has to have his mother sign a permission form that if he doesn't pay the rent, his mom, his parents are gonna pay the rent or something like that, which is, which is one of the requirements. And I found out, so, uh, I was really offended that I had to get my mom to sign a note and she didn't even qualify cause she doesn't live in France. Um, and then I had to pay a different service, a guarantor agency. And I had to pay an additional 10% of my rent to them every month for them to guarantee that they would pay my rent if I, if I fault, if I didn't pay the rent during my three year lease. And, uh, and, uh, and then they, they did a, just a deep dive. You know, I want to, you know, up my ass, fucking look at my finances. Sorry, I swore a lot there, but I was really offended by the whole thing and it hurt. And then it took'em a month to approve me and they said, yeah, yeah, we'll take your 10%. And I was just like, but anyway, but that's, but so I'm really offended by that. But there's a deep history of. Landlords taking advantage of tenants and tenants taking advantage of landlords. So they have this really complicated system that's not fun for anyone to go through, including French people.

James: 23:36

Right? So if you can think of, and you don't even need to know the specific examples to be able to ask the question, Hey, well, are there any things, uh, anything about the rules in your own country that you're not totally happy with? And, you know, it, it, there's a history to that, right? And there's a reason why it developed the way that it did, or why it's hard to change. I guess the takeaways would be a little bit so far. Uh, don't be too quick to assume that you, uh, understand why things are the way they are in another country, and as a result, don't be so quick to criticize and it's maybe not necessarily constructive to try and change people's minds about something or to fix the problem.

Randy: 24:20

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. That doesn't mean you should be afraid to discuss it. And you may find that the people from that country agree with you. They're like, yeah, it's a messed up system, that it's our system.

James: 24:31

Yeah. And you know, if you discuss a controversial topic, then if you come with a fixed mind, you're gonna have just as a. Appropriate and helpful. A discussion as you would hear, talking with someone whose mind is also made up, right? So people whose minds are made up aren't really discussing an issue, they're just trying to. Uh, proselytize for their issue or convince someone else that they're wrong. And that's not a discussion as far as I'm concerned. A discussion is. Let's talk about it. I'll keep an open mind, but yeah, so a little bit of sensitivity to the broader perspective and to the fact that people's opinions do differ, especially on controversial topics. People's opinions differ. Uh, it goes a long way towards providing you with a way to deal with awkward conversations at home or abroad. I.

Randy: 25:16

Yeah. No, no. I, I mean, I think the, the key is what you said, open-mindedness. You know, you need to be aware that every country specifically has their own history. Has had their own issues and problems and they dealt with it a, a specific way. And that evolved into, I mean, our rules are really complicated too. It's really hard for a lot of people to understand'em. And just like similarly, a lot of these countries have more, a lot more history than we do anyway, and their rules developed in a different way.

James: 25:48

So you're saying that the American way is not the only way or the right way, Randy only.

Randy: 25:54

America. Heck yeah. I would never say that.

James: 25:58

No, I understand. Nor would I

Randy: 26:02

but yeah, may I mean, but it might be the right way for our country, just cuz the way everything's working now. And I'm not saying that we can't change stuff and make stuff better. It would have to be encapsulated in the understanding of our, all our laws and how they came to be and what's what, what works for everybody over there, which is different than France, Germany, Spain, because of their history and the things they've gone through and the revolutions they've gone through, and the people they've overthrown and they had to make rules to, to check those. We have rules on our books that are old as hell that make no sense, uh, that no one has taken off the books. And, and some people are like, why is this still there?

James: 26:41

Yeah, and that probably is the. The key point for why such misunderstandings can arise is because people, uh, it's not just countries, right? People grow up in a culture that makes them think differently about issues, and it's hard to take yourself out of how you grew up, and maybe that's why it's possible for you and I to see this with a little bit of perspective. I'm not suggesting we can see things from outside the way we grew up, but because we grew up in several different countries, we say, oh, I see. There's different histories. There's different perspectives. And the reason for that is everything you just said, and people grow up differently as well. Um,

Randy: 27:18

I can't, I can't count how many times since I've been in Italy and now in Romania, how I've had conversations like exactly what we're talking about where, and even with my girlfriend, like, what the hell are you guys thinking? You know, shooting down Roe versus Wade. And I was, I mean, I just don't think it's a Supreme Court function. And they're like, it, the, the rule in the country should be this. I was like, that's fine. But that's not what the Supreme Court does. it defi it decides if things are constitutional or not. If it doesn't have anything to do with the Constitution, probably shouldn't be involved with the Supreme Court. And it's my, in my opinion, and that's Mo, that's the way it was formed. And he is like, I don't understand. It's like, I'll, if you got a couple hours, I'll explain it to you. But I mean, that's just the way our system was put into place for a variety of reasons when the founding fathers made it, and now it's now, in my opinion, and I'm not, I don't, not everyone shares his opinion that's out with the states to make those decisions and they're gonna make the decisions based on who, who they want to vote for Congress and the Senate. And we'll see in the next four or eight years how that's all gonna pan out. Maybe we already saw it in the last one. I don't know. But, uh, but that is, that, that's just the way our system works. And if you, it's all different. I don't understand all this stuff in Romania either. I don't understand why Andrew Tate got arrested. Just kidding. I kind of do

James: 28:45

So a little bit of humility and not being quick to judge, I think is a useful attitude to bring with you and to have as a general rule. Yeah. All right.

Randy: 28:54

I don't, I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it's anything to sling fists over.

James: 28:59

No, I agree with you, Randy.

Randy: 29:02

All right. Well, I hope, uh, this helped a little bit, kind of give you some, uh, kind of open your eyes a little bit to how other countries can differ from ours and, and, uh, just from James and mine experiences over there kind of, uh, give you some tools to, to adjust your own mind and maybe not be passionately wrong about something that's not as significant as you think.

James: 29:26

Nice summary. All right. Talk to you guys next time. Thanks. All right. Bye.