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I think offence is more likely to be taken when people make an attachment between comments about their country to comments about themselves. If someone says GWB is a moron and that USA is known for obesity it doesn't by extension mean that you the reader are a fat moron, unless you make that link yourself.
Not bashing here just my observation but I think there's something in the american culture that gives you a greater tendancy to do this vs European nations (but far less so than asian ones). For all the outward confidence americans can show I think there's an insecurity there where people have placed a false sense of pride on their beliefs, choices and groups they belong to and need validation from others sharing them. So if someone takes the opposite view or says something negative it is very often viewed as a personal slight.
I think this manifests itself in many ways culturally in the USA, a few examples:
- not as many eccentrics vs somewhere like UK
- groups like punks, goths etc being comparatively mainstream
- politically, where many people take things to the extreme where they HATE Bush, Hillary, Dems or the Reps
- in news media a very strange situation where it's almost like a war between two sides
- frequent grouping of threats/enemies Us VS Them - communists, terrorists, liberals, immigrants
- socially on issues like abortion, drugs, gay marriage where it's not enough to have individual choice - people want bans for everyone or from the opposing side they object to those things being "forced" upon them
- celebrity worship
- like in Top Gear (UK TV show) the presenters road-trip through Alabama with "Nascar sucks" on their car and get chased out of town!
Again it needs to be said what people see as trends in a country doesn't mean they apply to specific individuals.
Just to turn things to the subject of Thailand you can take what I wrote above and the same thing would apply but multiplied by a factor of 10.
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