[aaron-lebo]

You sound bitter. Find a society without historical sin and then we can talk. You went off on some tangent about jingoism without explaining where the book supports that. Did you read the book or the review or did you just want to rant?

[erikpukinskis]

> You sound bitter. Find a society without historical sin and then we can talk.

You sound defensive. Why should there need to be a sinless society before you'll entertain someone's thoughts on the relationship between your sins and your success.

[aaron-lebo]

Don't get me wrong, like every American interested in history, I'm well aware of the sins of the United States. Hell, Texas was colonized by slaveholders who were illegal immigrants before it was stolen from Mexico. On the other hand, Mexico itself is a land full of people who are the offspring of the conquerors and the conquered. There's really no winning and nobody with a clean record.

What I object to is someone who's bitter because he's not American launching into an irrelevant tirade and acting like they are somehow better when 60 years ago Europeans were exterminating each other. It's pretty dishonest and it shows some hate and/or immaturity when a bunch of people have upvoted said tirade because of their own biases.

[enraged_camel]

>>What I object to is someone who's bitter because he's not American launching into an irrelevant tirade and acting like they are somehow better when 60 years ago Europeans were exterminating each other.

75 years ago Europeans were exterminating each other. Today, they are united and peaceful for the most part, and their union is one of the largest and most successful economies in the world.

75 years ago America entered World War 2 and helped defeat the Nazis. Today Nazis are openly marching in the streets and running over counterprotesters with cars, and the President suggests that "both sides" have "very fine people".

Perspective is a hell of a thing, isn't it?

[aaron-lebo]

If we want to talk about perspective, it's ironic that "zizek" is very possibly Russian or Eastern European, and if so lives in a country that has a far bigger issue with Neo-Nazis than the US, they just don't have the same media exposure.

I think it's delusional to believe that the prejudices that led to literal genocide in Europe within living memory (more recent than that even, see the Balkans) have faded more than the prejudices of slavery in the US which show up at events like Charlottesville. The hatred is alive and well in European societies like it is anywhere else. You're citing a single counterprotester getting run over (horrible, yes) when in the Ukraine there is an ongoing invasion and throughout Europe, Islamic terrorism (due to divided societies) will last for a generation.

Your perspective (which sees as a vice the suggestion that both sides of any conflict might have some realistic grievances) is a myopic, tribal one which too often parades around in places like HN and sees itself as diverse and open minded when it is anything but. You don't realize how: "Today, they are united and peaceful for the most part, and their union is one of the largest and most successful economies in the world." is just as applicable to the US and such an optimistic view of Europe is an incomplete portrayal. If that's not how you intend for it to come off, I apologize, but it has a very strong undercurrent of bias.

All I'm saying is Americans are humans, descendants of the same Europeans, Africans, Asians, and native Americans that came before them, so it's not shocking that we'd have the same flaws as every other society, and in fact, historically, the actions of the US have at times been no more or less deplorable or laudable than any other people.

[erikpukinskis]

You're shadow boxing. I didn't say those things.

[tmax6]

It sounds like he/she just read “A People's History of the United States.”

[gerdesj]

I have just read the Amazon puff on that beast (never heard of it before - being British.) I suspect I wont be adding it to my must read list.

Ta for the heads up 8)

[walterstucco]

> Find a society without historical sin

The Minoans

[labster]

Didn't they trap young people in a giant maze with minotaurs? I'm pretty sure minotaurs are specifically forbidden under the Geneva Convention.

[walterstucco]

Non exactly

The minotaur was invented by the Greeks that were jealous of Minosse's SWAG :)