[everdrive]

It's an interesting topic. We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture. But, I'd argue that our quirk is that we constantly tell people to just be themselves, to be their "true selves," to be "true to themselves," etc. We say it incessantly and loudly. And then, in reality, it's often not what people actually want, and that sort of behavior is often punished.

Again, I think we're quite different from the Iranian example, but the conflicting advice brings its own confusion.

[smsm42]

> We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.

Of course we do. Just try to have a political debate in your work place (no, please don't) and you'd find out.

[everdrive]

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm sort of under the impression that the Iranian concept applies broadly to most people. I agree with your counterpoint, but I think in America verboten topics are much more domain and context-specific.

I think it depends on how tightly we want to define the context. Social pressure with regard to how someone feels or thinks is obviously a human universal.

[philipwhiuk]

> We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.

Oh please. We call it classified information, to allow ourselves to just lie to people not in the clique.

[balamatom]

>We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.

I'd argue that yes, you do.

>I'd argue that our quirk is that we constantly tell people to just be themselves

And this is the means by which you do that.

>in reality, it's often not what people actually want

That is true. Tbf I can't really imagine what could be accomplished by normalizing a blatant untruth about something as essential as the principles of who one should be and how their motivations should work; other than to signal "for the love of all that is holy don't examine the underpinnings of this too closely or all the common ground that the cultural edifice supposedly provides will begin to fall apart at the seams rather quickly"

[OgsyedIE]

One of the most prominent examples among many others of presenting as extreme a false persona in western culture is the phenomenon of "closeting" in right-wing communities.

One example of a TV show on the topic, popularly regarded as hilarious and nauseating, has its own Wikipedia page [1] and a wide selection of reaction clips on YouTube.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Husband%27s_Not_Gay