TRAIT 3: Optimism VS Pessimism

This post is about one of the things that I really like about Americans. Since I moved here I have actively tried to take a leaf out of their book and implement their default appearance of optimism into my own reactions to social situations. It has almost been infectious, and you find yourself playing along without even knowing it. The American optimism is one of my favourite parts of their culture and counter to that, the British pessimism is one of my least favourite parts of our culture. So, what made the day to day mental attitudes so different?

Social Supermarket Politics

In both countries, there is a built in script for generic social situations. To walk you through my thought process, we will use an example scenario to demonstrate.

Scenario: You walk into a shop to buy a few things. You find everything that you are looking for and walk towards the check out. You walk up to the assistant and she begins to put through your items.

(This scenario is something that might happen to you a few times a week, maybe even every day. The conversation that follows is a much generalised one, but I have been involved in both conversations in these exact words at least five times in each country, so I take this from personal experience.)

Here is how the conversation would go if you were in Britain:

Assistant: Hi there

You: Hi

Assistant: How are you today?

You: Fine, thanks.

*Assistant finishes putting through items*

Assistant: That will be ten pounds and forty five pence.

*You pay*

Assistant: Here is your receipt, thanks very much.

You: Thanks.

Here is how the conversation would go if you were in America:

Assistant: Hi there, how are you today?

You: I’m good thanks, how are you?

Assistant: Good thanks!

*Assistant finishes putting through items*

Assistant: That will be Fifteen dollars please

*You pay*

Assistant: Here is your receipt, thank you so much for shopping with us, you have a wonderful day!

You: Thank you, you have a great day too!

Now as you will be able to tell, a lot of the differences are just what we might call manners, such as repaying the assistant’s good wishes and positivity with some of your own. However, there is something to be said that I am the same person in the same situation, with the same manors, but in two different countries I say two different things. There is a feeling of optimism and happiness in America that persuades you to act in the same way. The same is to be said in Britain, there is a no-nonsense feel that persuades you to take the conversation for what it is.

There is also an important note to be made here that cannot be shown in the scenario (aside from the odd exclamation point!) – that is the tone used by both parties in the conversations. In Britain, I find that conversations like this are almost said under the breath, quiet and necessary but in a loose tone and at a normal low pitch. In America, these conversations are said in a high pitched tone which automatically illustrates happiness, optimism and enthusiasm.

The main thing that I understand from the two conversations is that British people seem to not like to admit to happiness if they feel it, and they definitely do not like to say that they are happy if they are not. I always felt that I would be bursting the seams of the accepted tone of the situation if I were to come in to it in an optimistic way – almost as though I would not be playing my part in understanding the pessimistic British outlook on life. It makes sense in the scheme of things, why say that you are doing well when you are not. Instead, we use words such as, “OK”, or, “fine”, to express our dissatisfaction with the day in the nicest possible way, but keeping our chins up and plodding through, like we have always done. You would also use these words if you are indifferent, and feel neither happy nor sad. I suppose we enjoy keeping our feelings to ourselves and see no need in veering off the classic British outlook, things are never brilliant but we struggle through and carry on regardless. I think the famous sign from the war tells it best, Keep Calm And Carry On.

Are you faking it?

The general thought when British people think of the American optimism, is that it is so extreme compared to our automatic mentality that there is no way that it can be real.  I must admit, I used to think the same. I used to see the big smiles and high pitched happiness as being over the top fake and I didn’t think that there was any value in it. After all, they can’t possibly be that happy all of the time, so they must essentially be lying to me when they say that they are. I always wondered why they do that, why they smile so much and why they pretend that everything is wonderful in the world when it clearly isn’t – I am just out to buy some butter because I ran out again, why should I be ecstatically happy about that?

The thing is, when I came to live here, I realised something. I was looking at it the wrong way. They are not pretending to be happy to be creepy or over the top or to be annoying, they are doing it for a reason. I found that reason when I began to do it myself.

To explain to you exactly what I found, we are going to do a little exercise:

Please follow my instructions carefully. Pretend that someone has asked you how you are at the food store, just like in the scenario above. Now answer as follows, “I am fine, thanks.” Do not change your facial expression and do not pay much attention to what you are saying so that the words just roll from your mouth without much thought or effort or enthusiasm.

Now think about how you feel. Do you feel any worse or better than you felt before you began the exercise?

Now imagine yourself in the same situation where someone has just asked you how you are at the food store. Now answer as follows, “I am good thanks, how are you?” Change your facial expression to a smile as you answer, put your head up high, shoulders back and create a higher tone in your voice by putting in enthusiasm and optimism.

Think again about how you feel. This time, do you feel any worse or better than you did before you began the exercise?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a safe bet to say that you probably felt much happier and optimistic the second time than the first. That is because even though you may be putting on your happiness a little bit, it still makes you feel more positive for doing it. It actually makes you feel more optimistic inside if you act happy, as well as making you seem like a more optimistic person on the outside. It also helps that you can’t say the word ‘good’ without spreading your mouth open in a smile-like manor.

Automatic (not stick)

I think the main point with this is that it is an automatic response for people from both countries to react this way to a circumstance. It may be counteracted and forcefully changed, like many of the other traits that we have talked about in this blog, but I feel that the default response is procured through the environment or culture that each country creates.

It is strange how the scripted responses such as the scenario earlier are acted out so differently in the two countries, and I would imagine that the other country’s response might seem odd to their counterpart. I know exactly how the British people feel about the American response, but I can also imagine how American’s feel about the British response. It must seem strange to them to think that we would be so unhappy and seem so cold. That is exactly what the generalised “British” character is in movies and TV shows – icy cold with a dry sense of humour. Well we are not far from that, in truth, when put against the American’s in general social situations.

Do British people like to be negative for a reason?

It does make me wonder though, why are we like that? It could be said that we are actually more open than the Americans because we do not hide how we feel – if we are not feeling particularly sad or happy then we will appear very unresponsive. It is not our default response to appear happy because in general social situations, we are not overly happy. We would much rather be at home with our family drinking a nice glass of wine than in the middle of this awkward social charade where we play a part.  Again, this is a very generic assumption based on my own inner feelings in these situations and of the majority of the people that I have observed – there are many in Britain that enjoy a nice chat with the assistant at the food store and conduct themselves with a smile and oozing optimism. One of them, in fact, is my grandmother Jean who is always very cheery in social situations, so my apologies to her!

There are many things about the UK that I find to be quite depressing at times, the consistent grey weather is a good example. I know that it is classic British talk to complain about the weather, but I honestly feel that it is impossible to feel cheery and optimistic when all you can see is greyness and rain. Not even normal rain, the slanted rain that gets underneath your coat – the one that is carried heavily on the wind that breaks your umbrella. That is our weather for most of the year. I think that the weather is just one of the many issues that we feel, as British people, we have been given the worst deal in when it comes to culture and country. It is only when you go to other places that you realise just how great our country actually is – but we are very quick to fall back into the national hatred pattern as soon as we settle back in. That may be true for all cultures I suppose, the grass is always greener on the other side, but we British do excel in the skill of feeling sorry for ourselves. Strange really, when the name of our country has ‘Great’ in it…

Is it historical?

As discussed in an earlier blog post, a long time ago some of us Brits decided to pack up shop and travel blind to an unknown and unchartered land. It was probably done for many reasons but I would dare to venture that the main one is that they were fed up of the way that things were in Britain. It is written in the constitution that Americans have the right to the pursuit of happiness because that is essentially what they were doing when they hopped over to the new world – pursuing happiness. It is built into them that this is their dream land – something that they fight for and a place where they are personally free and independent. Could this in built feeling of success in finding their dream land full of liberty and happiness be the reason for what we Brits see as “overly happy” pretences in social situations? Could it be that they won the war for their happiness and now, on the other side of it, it has been passed down the generations to subconsciously feel the need to express their happiness socially so that the sacrifice wasn’t all for nothing?

We Brits are constantly complaining about things in our country, we are actually quite famous for it, but why do you think that is? As much as we complain, we have put up with a lot in our country in the past. It has been taken over countless times by many different civilizations so we have so much foreign influence in our blood that we couldn’t really know how much of it is actually British. We used to own so much of the world, then they all decided to leave us one by one to become independent countries – leaving us as a tiny little island that you can barely see on the map unless you squint. We get floods and rain and floods and rain and it seems that the only thing that people know about us from the outside is the luxury of having tea with the queen, and around 99.9% of us haven’t even done that! My point is, we put up with it. That’s what we are good at. There is a reason that so many nations have left our sad little bosom, and that is because we do tend to do lots of things wrong. The thing is though, the people that are left and haven’t deserted Britain – our ancestors – are the ones who have stuck it out. I can say with all certainty that they complained like hell along the way, but when push comes to shove, they stayed. That’s what we are descended from – survivors. Tough cookies. We know that things are not great, we know that life is hard, but we stick at it non-the-less. Could this be why we don’t like to put a face on when we are in a social situation like in the supermarket? We are all survivors. We all know what the deal with life is and so our default reaction is to just plod on, not unhappy but not ecstatic either. We just say that we are fine and we get on with our day.

Is it just me…?

I don’t mean Miranda Hart’s hilarious book, “Is it just me…?” (If you haven’t yet read it, you really should, it will make you snort out loud – even if you don’t snort!). I wanted to find out if this is something that I am alone in thinking about Britain and the US, or if there is any truth to it. I also wanted to find out other people’s thoughts on why their automatic response is what it is, and how they feel about the other countries automatic response in comparison to their own. So, I sent out a questionnaire to a set of Brits and a set of Americans, and here is what I found:

When asked the general opinions that American people have about British people, and vice versa, the results were generally as I expected. I will be touching on some of the other impressions that were mentioned in another blog, but for the interest of this subject, I would like to concentrate on the relevant impressions that the selected answerers have.

The Americans that were asked, used words such as “formal”, “cold”, “serious”, “unaffectionate”, and “reserved” to describe the British people. These answers make me think about how our natural inbuilt pessimism comes across to the Americans – them being such an extreme example of the opposite. The British answers enforced this, with the words, “amusing”, “annoying”, “fake” and, “awkward”, describing the general view of the Americans. We just find it difficult to comprehend the go-to positivity, which seems to us to be fake simply because we know that there is no world where people can always be that optimistic. We simply do not see it to be very realistic. The interesting thing is that from the American answers, I get the feeling that it is not about showing your optimism – instead it is more about not showing your pessimism. Showing your true feelings or showing your discontent with something is more revealing to them and more open than just pretending that everything is fine. From the answers, I found that they feel as though they don’t want everyone to know their business, so instead they play a role in a social situation to almost create a perfect world. British people, it seems, do the opposite. There is an unsaid understanding that the world isn’t perfect and it is automatically understood in a social situation – almost a role to play in the opposite way. If someone in Britain went around happy and optimistic it would feel different, and might click the situation out of the normal scripted socially accepted role play.

The general view of the American answerers was that it is polite to have a conversation with the assistant in a store, and to not do so would be strange. The British answerers generally said that they try to remember to have a conversation with them but will not usually find themselves doing so automatically – they also stated their awareness that others in Britain do not carry out a conversation in a social situation, so they like to do it to make up for their fellow Britons. The British people also said that it is polite to only say hi or hello, and that you are either in the mood for the conversation or you are not, but either way you will usually stick to the script which has pessimistic undertones. Americans always carry on the conversation, without fail, and it will always automatically have optimistic undertones, even if you are not really in the mood.

I would also like to point out that, although I know far more British people than I do Americans, I had double the amount of American responses to the questionnaire than I did British. Is it stretching it too much to suggest that Americans are more comfortable about talking about their opinions and feelings than British people – so the British will put off the questionnaire even though I am sure that they had every intention of answering it? Maybe approaching that subject is for a different blog post, but if there is some truth to it, you can understand our issues with being openly optimistic if we find it hard to be open about our opinions in the first place.

Next time…

So, I hope that you are finding my little rants entertaining and not taking me too seriously – after all, I am speaking mainly from personal experience here by looking at how I view the world. I am glad to have you with me on my quest for cultural understanding! Next time I am going to look at how the two countries appreciate their history. See you then!

TRAIT 2: Visually Patriotic VS Silent Promotion

Before I moved to the US, I knew that I was embarking on a journey towards a proud nation that could be seen as bordering on obsessive in their patriotic duty. Whenever you watch a movie or television programme that is set in America, or even listen to American music, you can’t help but notice the patriotism that coats everything that you see or hear. In this entry I am going to consider why it is so noticeably important to be openly and obviously ‘American’, and why the need for promoting your home nation doesn’t seem to translate to us cousins across the water.

 

A righ’ Bri-ish housewarmin’ shin-dig!”

A few weeks ago, I organised a housewarming party in my lovely new apartment in Dover, Delaware. I decided that, as I am now residing much deeper into US territory, I would spin a British theme into the occasion as it seems to be almost exotic here. That made me think about all things British – the flag, the music, the food, and so on. The whole thing was such a classic ‘theme’, just like a beach theme or for the more adventurous type, anything beginning with the letter ‘z’ (how many of you said “Zee”?). It was at that moment that I realised … everything that we associate as being generally British, is just a cog in a theme’s wheel – a joke or a fun gimmick. On a general day to day basis, we don’t seem to openly celebrate our nation or the privilege of being British. Well, not unless there is some sort of Football game on or if a member of royalty is getting married – and of course we are not counting the Olympics! I mean a general feeling of patriotism, without the excuse of an event. I guess that we don’t really think about it much. When we go abroad, that is when we notice the not quite so obviously British things that we miss from home - like the NHS, the British accent or Tesco. But these are not the kind of things that you associate being patriotic with – can you imagine Americans going around and saying that they are being patriotic while talking about Walmart?
***As a side note, I cooked some amazing food at my house warming party (see image above) with great thanks to my Facebook friends for their advice and suggestions.***

 

Flagtastic!

When I first came to America, I flew into Boston through Philadelphia airport. My first experience of living in America was

in Philadelphia airport, walking to my next gate. I looked up to see a big picture of Obama in front of the United States flag. Then, the first time that I left Boston to explore the surrounding areas, every street that I drove down had the United States flag hanging proud from around 90% of the houses. When you are in Britain watching television programmes or movies and you see the excessive amounts of flags everywhere, you think that it must be for show and that they can’t possibly have that many people that are willing to hang up the flag outside of their house. Oh, how wrong you would be! The only thing that I can remotely relate it to, is how British people will religiously wear their football team shirts, and that it is a regular sight to see the football team scarf flying out of the window of a moving car when it is on its way to the game. So, in this way, American people seem to have the same dedication and patronage towards their country that a British person might show towards Leeds United (my Fiancé is a dedicated Leeds fan, so I apologise for any bias here). Of course, Americans are huge on sport as well, most Americans will follow at least one or two sports and show a great amount of dedication towards their teams. I may be clutching at straws here, but would it then be valid to suggest that for Americans, dedication to your homeland is like the lifelong dedication to your sports team? As we dive further into this post, we can see that the patriotism for America is really quite intense – but some would argue that a lifelong patronage to your team is also intense. Curiouser and curiouser…

 

 

 

 Flag down the reason for the flag obsession

 

The Union Jack flag that we know today was actually formed in 1801, to symbolise the uniting of the four nations – England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (but since 1921 it has only been representing Northern Ireland, not the Republic of Ireland). The American flag, even though the nation itself is young, is one of the oldest flags in the world and as it was formed in 1777, it is indeed older than the Union Jack. The United States flag has changed since the original – there were originally 13 stars on it to represent the 13 states that had been formed from the 13 colonies that existed at the time. It came about as a symbol during the war of independence against Britain. It is said that George Washington once said that the stars represent heaven, the red stripes represent Britain and the white stripes represent the purity of the independence and liberty that they seek. The American national anthem, which I will get into a little later, was originally a poem that accounts the sight of the newly made flag, or the “Star Spangled Banner”, on the battleground and how it lifted the spirits of the Americans who were fighting for their freedom. The American people seem to know everything about the flag from an

early age, even the name of the lady who allegedly made the first flag, Betsy Ross, a seamstress from Philadelphia. In fact, my local pizza place is called Betsy Ross Pizza!

There is also such a thing as “flag etiquette” in the United States, and there is even a National Flag foundation (NFF) that sets out the regulations that must be followed when it comes to the flag. They even have a question and answer page which is definitely an interesting read: (Click here to read)
With this much meaning behind the flag stemming from such an influential time for the country – in essence, the birth of the country – it is understandable that they are so proud of it. It seems to me that the obsession with the flag as a visual tool for their patriotism comes down to the subject discussed in my last post – American people seem to value the expression and visualisation of their feelings, wants and needs much more than British people do. In my last post we discussed how Americans tend to ask for what they want more boldly than we British, and how our default answer to most questions is ‘no’, even though sometimes we actually want to say ‘yes’. Here it seems that Americans feel a need to express visually their patriotism in order for it to be true. Could this be because such a short time ago, their recent ancestors fought for and created the country, and so it is more a part of them than you could say the ancient Britain is to any of us? Why does the Union Jack flag feel more like a symbol of a party theme to me, rather than a symbol of patriotism?

O say, can you see God saving the Queen?

 

The American national anthem is a phenomenon that I honestly began to feel quite awkward about very quickly. It gives me a strange feeling when I hear it – there is so much passion in the singing of it as well as in the hearts of the people who are listening around me, so you can’t help but get goose bumps. You are made so aware of its meaning and authority that you find yourself giving it a certain amount of respect. I am not saying that we don’t have a national anthem in Britain, because obviously we do. But the

mumbling that you hear at a football game when even the players are pretending to remember the words is not in the same league. Does anyone actually know all of the words? (“God Save The Queen” doesn’t count…everyone knows that bit!) If you do, I apologise and kindly ask that you teach them to me because I fear that you may be the only one who does know it. And anyway, the wording doesn’t remind us of the sacrifices of our ancestors for our country, it talks about the queen as though she is still the head of the country which, bless her heart, she clearly isn’t.  
Whenever the national anthem plays here in America, I always get mixed feelings. As I said before, I feel a strange respect for it, but I also feel terribly awkward in not being a member of the culture that it creates within earshot. I hate to connect the two, but it is very much like that old British children’s show, the demon headmaster (for you Americans, the show really isn’t as bad as it

sounds!). Let me paint a picture for you. Everyone stops what they are doing. Everything goes silent. Everyone stands up. Hats come off. If there is a flag within the proximity, they will face it. Heads go up. Hands cover their hearts. Then they sing. They sing every word, and they have known every word since they were old enough to read - sometimes even earlier. I am describing the opening of a baseball game and every morning as they raise the flag in a US summer camp, but the same thing happens in bars, at concerts and even in some cases in the workplace. Before this, I had never seen anything like it in real life and it knocks me back every time. Luckily, I am usually with my British Fiancé when it happens, so we can look at each other and feel awkward together. Can you imagine being in that situation that I described but not knowing the words – and even worse, being of the nationality that refused them independence to lead them to create this song about war in the first place? Even more intense are the times that they don't sing along because they are listening intently to the singer - that happened at a baseball game and we were high up in a bar so we couldn't actually hear the singers voice, all we knew was that everyone had stopped everything in unison and had all faced the same way with hand on heart in silence. Very strange experience.

You have to wonder though, why do they hold such emotional importance in the song hundreds of years later? Is it because they want to visually show their gratitude to their ancestors? If it is, I am starting to see a pattern in our revelations!

Next time…

 

I hope that you have enjoyed my experiences of the differences in patriotism between the two countries! In my next post I will look at the American default optimism verses the British default pessimism. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next time!

References:

 

• USA City Link
• Royal Gov
• Wiki - History of the United States Flag
• American Flags . ORG
• ... and in case you want to buy an American flag