This is my first-ever post, after years of casually mulling over the idea of starting a blog. It started its life as a message to a concerned Brazilian-German friend who'd unintentionally offended me, but also managed to sum-up a lot of my thoughts from the last six years as an American in Europe.
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend.
--Hair
As much as I'd like to think of myself as being "above" my nationality, it would be blind of me to try to deny that it has an effect on who I am. And naive as it may be, I'm still not cynical enough to take a "fuck it all" approach because, like all identity issues, it's personal and social and undefinable and fluid, but it doesn't go away, and it strikes me as immature to pretend like it doesn't matter--even though I still think, "Fuck your nationalstaatliches Denken" is one of the coolest bumper stickers I've ever seen! Fact is that the cross-cultural interactions we have leave lasting impressions that, on a larger, collective level, also have an undeniable "trickle-up" influence on big-picture stuff like politics, which can then trickle back down into our daily lives (war, embargos, immigration policy, me not being allowed to go to Cuba, etc.). And vice-versa. A little abstract, I know, but I always think, well, if I can't change that politics stuff, I can at least try to bring in a little more mutual respect on a person-to-person level.
The thing about Germans being wonderful friends once you get to know them is certainly true, and is one of the first things that "Germany hands" learn when they're on their way here. And I appreciate it. It's one of the things at the top of the "good things about Germany" list that I recite to all the Americans who can't understand why I'd want to live with all these horrible people.
The thing about being caught between two cultures is that you're constantly put in a position where you have to take shit from both sides. When really, the people who've been through it themselves eventually learn that unloading all that baggage on an individual person is just killing the messenger, so to speak, and it doesn't make anyone's lives better. And the chances are pretty damn good that that individual has already come to the same conclusions him/herself.
What I find completely incomprehensible is the enormous gap between Germans' theoretical ideas about "doing the right thing," which they are not at all afraid of expressing, pontificating on, and preaching to others (sometimes complete with finger-shaking), and the way they actually treat strangers in daily life. Like you said, they just don't give a shit. Like all those brilliant ideas about abolishing the death penalty and implementing green energy policies and buying fair trade products have nothing to do with very simple, basic consideration for the person standing in front of you. I have to listen to the long list of grievances about all the things America does wrong, AND get shitty service in the shops, AND get yelled at by strangers when I'm doing nothing wrong. It is an absolute mystery to me what (if anything) goes through some people's minds--it's like the "trained reflex to blame someone else" that you mentioned often seems like the most prominent national trait. Germans think of themselves as rational people, but that is simply not rational behaviour.
And let me tell you, it's not good for my health. I feel like a 60-year-old man sometimes, worrying about my blood pressure.
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