Travel the world, meet interesting people.

[davywavy]

One interesting difference I’ve noticed between Britons and Americans is the different ways they appreciate their countries.
To put it bluntly – the less an American travels, the more they seem to love the good old US of A. The less an Englishman travels beyond our borders, the less he loves his homeland.
Now this is just a general rule, and I know there are exceptions, but it remains remarkably true of those people who I have met. Go to America, and if you meet someone insisting that the US is the best place in the world, you can usually draw a graph displaying the inverse relationship between the distance they’ve travelled beyond their borders and their conviction of the greatness of their homeland.
Conversely, the more loudly a Briton insists what a hellhole England is, the less likely it is that they’ve seen anything of the world.
I could make some very trenchant observations as to why this should be, but I’m interested in hearing other peoples views as well, so comment away.

Comments

Re: Much randomness

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not sure I'd agree with all of that; the English have a cultural identity so deeply ingrained that I don't think we're even aware of it any more. This is highlighted by the fact that the Scots/Welsh/irish et al all define their cultural identities by the differences to - and conflicts with - the English. I'd argue instead that the English cultural identity is still in the ascendant, and so the only way to really see it is to counterpoint it against that of others.

I don't see also why the feeling of being a declining power would result in people that travel appreciating England that much more when thay come back?

Re: Much randomness

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

English Identity: how would you describe being 'english'?

Not being British by birth or much by upbringing I can't answer this. I have come across, on a radio program?, a study that looked into mental health/cultural identity in Scotland compared to England and found that very few English came up with positive descriptions of being English, as opposed to British.

I don't see also why the feeling of being a declining power would result in people that travel appreciating England that much more when thay come back?

The idea [random and shootable :)] is that Brits have a glorified idea of the rest of the world that they once owned, which they compare to the detriment of current reality. Once they go and actually see the reality of the far away places they can more accurately compare it to reality at home, and hence are happier with home.

However I also think it may simply be cultural - Brits are a self-deprciating lot and hence deride 'home', but once having travelled and come in contact with other cultures who are proud of home, the visiting Brits become less self-depreciating and more positive.