Are Americans viewed as selfish by the rest of the world?

I think we have lost a lot of shine as a people thanks to eight years of George Bush. As to the capitalist joke, no, I don’t think that’s the problem.

If it were, so many people would not want to come here.

Of course! Mostly because of people like this.

I think America is a huge joke and I am an American, so I can only assume that the rest of the world is having laugh after laugh at our expense. Especially in light of this financial nightmare that our selfishness and capitalistic ideals has gotten us into. I’d be laughing my ass off if I weren’t living in the middle of this shitstorm…

Yup, they are. And a lot of other, much worse things too. Part of it I guess is that the typical image of “american” for most of the world is GWBush. Which is about as right as thinking all Germans are like Hitler (who btw was Austrian).

As far as the economy is concerned, well, it is a pretty big flop, isn’t it? You spend 50 years proving to those evil Commies that Capitalism RULEZZ! and another 20 controlling most of the world’s resources, and all of a sudden your own economy collapses! Yes, most people think there must be a flaw somewhere.

I think Europeans view Americans as politically naive and immature. If we are a joke in any way, it is because we always sweat the small stuff and often don’t pay attention to really important matters.

Europeans may also make jokes to take there minds off how scary it can be when the US acts like a giant teenager kicking countries around because they don’t do what we want and then grabbing the credit card and run up trillion $$ in debt.

Absolutely. I lived overseas and heard the comments first hand. Americans, are overweight, uneducated, lazy, gun toting, spenders. They showed “Cops!” on Japanese TV. Talk about embarrassing! Good thing “Maury” wasn’t televised in Japanese. I would have been kicked out of the country. Who da baby daddy!

I totally thought you were asking if we were viewed as shellfish.

@asmonet Of course not! We are invertebrate jellies! : D

depends on the people and the country, I am an educated twenty something guy, thus, I don’t but if you ask a person with little to no education in a country like Venezuela, I bet that person will…

The world will see us as Obasmic, you can feel it coming.

ehhh F*ck em…. lol

It depends really, a lot of people outside the USA kind of look down on Americans simply because two Oceans tend to shelter people from the rest of the world, internet or not, if you don’t see anything in real life every day it has a tendancy not to stick. Some think it’s because Americans are just stupid, others realize that many of them are just sheltered. Whenever I travel and someone asks where I’m from I always just say I’m German because it just makes it easy in case.(I was born in Germany lived there until I was 7 and speak it fluently, to avoid any confusion)

Yep. Even your friendly Canadian neighbours can be extremely critical. I think it’s natural to express jealousy of the world’s top superpower this way.

@shadling21 I don’t think it’s jealousy so much as a generally disagreement of philosophy. Germany, France, Italy and The Netherlands have some of the highest qualities of life on the planet and also one of the highest disproval ratings of American Culture.

@Marina: I was all prepared to be all I AM NOT SEAFOOD. and then I realized how retarded the last few days have made me.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – Good point.

Seafood? I’m not seafood. Please don’t eat me.

Educated people in Europe are able to distinguish between the political agenda of the Cheneys and Rumsfelds and the rest of their obnoxious gang and the majority of honest and well-meaning Americans. The past 8 years have been a total disaster for the world because of the bullying and arrogant demeanor of the previous administration. When Obama came to Berlin early last year 200,000 people came to listen to his ideas. Whenever Bush came there were 20 “fans” waving flags and 5000 demonstrators kept at distance by the police.

So as I European I’m telling my American friends this: No, Americans are not viewed as selfish by the majority of the rest of the world. The vocal critics are often people who have never visited the US. The history is full of American graciousness. An example is Marshall Plan that helped Germany become the third richest nation in the world (soon to be overtaken by China). Whenever there’s a major disaster somewhere in the world whether it’s an earthquake in Iran or the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, many Americans donate money and goods.

What might be seen as a little selfish is when some Americans think energy efficiency doesn’t concern them. But the world’s limited resources are needed everywhere and we should all use them wisely. Germany has the same standard of living as the US, but the per capita consumption is much lower (even when subtracting the topic of longer distances in the Midwest compared to a densely populated country). The attitude of the Bush administration about carbon dioxide and Kyoto also contributed to some of the anger displayed by the rest of the world. But there’s change despite the recession. Change is important. Yes, we can ;-)

After spending some time in Mexico I finally had a good reference for how Americans are so geocentric in their beliefs it’s appalling. What brought me to this was the observation of how hard Mexicans work when all you hear in America is the stereotype of “lazy Mexicans.” It didn’t take long to realize that these “lazy Mexicans” that are so vastly referred to were just Americanized.

It’s the equivalent to someone looking in a mirror and making fun of the reflection they see but being offended if the laughter was being directed at them. The whole thing is humorous to me and pathetically sad a the same time.

I love this country… I just hate all the people in it.

I’ve lived overseas quite a bit. We are seen as violent, fat, unrefined, greedy and gluttonous. Selfish specifically? I’m sure many would say yes. Its unfortunate that so many Americans see vacation time in other countries as the perfect opportunity to reinforce all those unfortunate stereotypes.

@Horus515 Not just the “perfect opportunity” but it’s almost an obligation.

GA for you :)

@Horus515 The best new perspective I’ve heard. Thanks for your contribution.

@alossforwords

Thanks!

I would say that the US is seen with highly suspicious eyes. A country that politically claims to have the moral high ground in the world and abuse it, will of course lose trust. I am a swede, and it is hard to overrate the relief here when Obama was elected.

Intelligent people realize that americans is not the same as the politics of the US. I – and most people I know – don’t expect much of the US, but have high hopes. The US is full of people with compassion and hopes and dreams, more or less the same as everyone on the planet.

American culture is loved all over the world. Some people spit and curse it, while sipping their coke in their jeans, the background radio playing Bruce Springsteen or watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. But whatever you do it is disliked by someone. In the US it seems like it’s an insult to call someone or something to be french, even if it’s a fantastic culture with great people, and a great place to be.

~~ Why would I care? It’s not like it affects me. :P ~~

i would say that you are good natured, and it is always easier to knock good natured and optimistic people….you are still just about the world’s superpower, which works for you and against you…the outside world couldn’t understand what you saw in gw bush and rejoices in the change of leader….because you are such a large country you seem to tend to forget about what goes on beyond your borders….but think of all the tourists you get so you can’t be too bad!!