Phoniness and North America: 1
One of the most widespread and persistent comments made by immigrants about “native” white North Americans (including Canadians) and Australians/ New Zealanders is-
They are phony.
People from places as diverse as Russia, Ukraine, India, Jamaica, Argentina and even England share that view about these groups. While other dislikeable people like Japanese, Swiss, French may be seen as racist, greedy and rude or Scandinavians may be seen as passive-aggressive, it seems that phoniness is a uniquely new world phenomena.
So what makes phoniness worse than other negative attributes?
Phony is another word for untrustworthy. Societies with large numbers of untrustworthy individuals are intrinsically unstable. Some of you might say- “so what? it has worked till now.”
There are two major interlinked reasons that it has worked till now- population growth and technological progress have kept the struggle for resources to a minimum. Untrustworthiness becomes a huge liability once the struggle for resources becomes intense.
I have a feeling that comments on this post will necessitate another post in this series.
Comments?
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Well, the former English colonists (Americans of all backgrounds and non-American colonists of upper-middle class and above backgrounds) are phony. I’ve sat seiza and crossed chopsticks with 1st-generation CJK Asian visitors to America, quaffed dozens of beers with plenty of rural Europeans (Germans, Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Finnish, etc.), had philosophical/cultural/governmental/etc. arguments with “high-caste” Hindi and South American people (Brazilian, Mexican, Peruvian, Argentinian, Columbian) and even enjoyed a dinner with pre-apartheid refugees from South Africa, and all of these people had no problem with looking me in the eye and admitting that they enjoyed my company (regardless of their personal set of circumstances.) As an addition, I have no qualms about admitting that (in most of the situations in which I was involved with these people) I most definitely did enjoy more than a few carnal encounters with women from their specific back grounds (from the daughter of the South African man who grew up terrified of Black people to a Korean lady who’d literally been in America for just a week prior to our meeting to fucking my way across the European continent at will.) For the people with whom I still stay in touch (and judging from the feedback I’ve received from people who are still in their circles), my reputation among them is at worst neutral and in some surprising cases (the SA family is still a shocker, even though they’d been living in England for decades) stellar.
I’ve done the same things with American people. Drinking all night for as many weekends as possible, being dragged to hibachi joints, spending long weekends talking about sports/Obama/free will versus predetermination/commenting on “which chick is best”/etc. And yet, regardless of our long-term views toward each other, I can count the white, American friends who have and will always have my back on one hand. If there’s a bigger definition of irony than the idea of a black American being able to receive a job application and offer of plane fare from a former apartheid opponent while working for/with a bunch of white Americans who have no idea that everything negative that they’ve ever said about me has been transferred through the grapevine to my ears (while still being able to smile in my face and butter me up as necessary), I’ll eat my hat. Given the choice between being a second-class citizen in Europe and the false hope of becoming a first-class American citizen, being second class seems better and better by the day. At least I’ll know that I can always find work, shelter and pussy/overall approval based on my output, not based on whether the polls suggest that it’s time to look down on people from certain backgrounds again…
Reminds me of Holden Caulfield calling adults “phonies” in Catcher in the Rye. Salinger wrote that novel in 1951, and the youth of today can still relate to it.
Interesting post and rings true.
I believe what non-North Americans perceive as ‘phony’ is a reflection of what, in a more charitable phrasing, would be termed ‘politeness’.
Politeness is a social defense mechanism that seems to develop when differing groups with no natural cultural/social ties have to live amongst one another and get along in public life. This may go a long way to explaining why Russians, Japanese etc have seen less need for it and have not developed it as fully. These are all either monocultures and/or harsh climates in which social participation consists either of close family/friend gatherings, or a mass/political scale, but nothing in between.
Other cultures are indeed ‘more genuine’ to guests/visitors. No one is more hospitable, in a way that feels and is genuine, to guests/visitors – on a personal, one-to-one level – than Russians, or (say) Persians, or Arabs. All cultures that developed in harsh climates or relative ethnic homogeneity or both.
Yet there is something to be said for the ‘phony politeness’ that these homogenous cultures decry so. You will note that hand in hand with their ‘genuine’ lack of politeness is, at times, a vicious, paranoid and xenophobic political culture of corruption, violence, pillaging. You hand-wring over it happening in North America but this is and has been a reality in the non-’phony’ cultures since forever.
The ‘genuine’ sincerity also does play out in the home. I have seen Russian families say the most vicious things to each other over the dinner table. They are completely direct in a way that shows or knows no tact, they expect others to be the same (thus: do not easily pick up subtle signals of discomfort, unease, etc. unless they are stated directly). There is no ‘please pass the salt’ it is ‘give me salt’. Etc. It’s perfectly true to say this is ‘less phony’; on the other hand, it’s not clear – at least, to anyone who has outgrown their resentful/teenage Holden Caulfield ‘I hate phonies’ phase – why such a ‘genuine’ way of interacting with one another is to be preferred.
In short, two cheers for ‘phonies’.
Could you expand on what you mean by phony? Do you have some anecdotes that exemplify this tendency?
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Once the gap between expectation and reality crosses certain limits with a high frequency, it is not possible to maintain a cohesive society.
For one, phony does not imply untrustworthy. It just means that there is a disconnect between expectation and reality, between what you apparently convey and what you intend to convey. It’s entirely possible for an out-group to misunderstand the implied meanings of an in-group conversation.
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Fair enough, just don’t complain when my “I don’t care” implies “Your family will end up in an incinerator”.
Just because it seems phony to an outsider does not mean that the insiders are phony with each other.
I will note, skip, that Milton Erickson and his teachings on manipulating people have been around for a while. I will also note that America has the highest prison rate in the world, while babbling insanely about how merciful it is. It may be surprising, but as you think about it, you will discover that America is corrupt, and violent, and thieving.
How many nations in the world are occupying, by force of arms, nations of any real size today? That would be America. And maybe Russia.
Germans are also phony.
In the cities, most definitely. However, I lived in the countryside. The Germans who didn’t like me (for whatever reason) had no problems with demonstrating their dislike. I can’t say the same thing for America, not at all. Some of the deepest wounds (emotional and physical) inflicted upon me were delivered by the hands of people who smiled as prettily as any model. In one case, literally.
(I worked for a woman who worked as a mid-level fashion model during her teen years. She smiled in my face, laughed at my jokes, complimented me for my willingness to work overtime without pay and relied on my to make up for the work of others without offering the slightest bit of oversight. She also conspired to have me forcibly discharged from the service {when a more favored employee complained about my “lack of respect”}, spent as little of her own money on me as possible {somehow, her offers of free lunch occured weekly with other personnel and seasonally when I was working with her directly}, scuttled any attempt at allowing me to be promoted when her attempt at having me discharged blew up in her face, then told the people at my new base that I was a lazy, dirty, disease-ridden whoremonger. For the next two years, every single person who i worked with treated me (and spoke to me) as if any vacation time that I used was for the purpose of paying for sex (seeing as how I’m still AD military, these actions are not only highly inappropriate, but slanderous and punishable under at least three separate sections of the UCMJ.)
I’d rather deal with a German who’ll cross the street before allowing herself to walk beside me on the street (of which there were quite a few) than an American who’d literally do everything in her power to end someone’s career at the behest of a drunk (a brown-nosing sycophant, to be honest, but an unreliable drunk nonetheless.)
She also conspired to have me forcibly discharged from the service {when a more favored employee complained about my “lack of respect”}, spent as little of her own money on me as possible {somehow, her offers of free lunch occured weekly with other personnel and seasonally when I was working with her directly}, scuttled any attempt at allowing me to be promoted when her attempt at having me discharged blew up in her face, then told the people at my new base that I was a lazy, dirty, disease-ridden whoremonger.
Simple rule of thumb: Any woman who isn’t jumping your bones should either be treated as neutral or as a very clever enemy.
They’re definitely not your friends if they don’t set you up or are interested in you.