A new academic year dawns, and with it a raft of American freshers stepping outside their homeland for the first time. You’ve likely already heard a new way to mispronounce Edinburgh or endured copious Harry Potter comments already. Most natives of the UK take this as a chance to ridicule these outlanders, poking fun at the US’s healthcare, gun laws, prison population, and leaders.
Detractions of all sorts are deployed with smarm and self-righteousness by residents of a land that has failed to grow, change, or matter internationally for 30 years. A nation whose supposed “advantages” lie in a barely functioning healthcare system, stagnant job market, and ballooning debt. A shallow-minded, mirthless country that takes great pleasure in dismissing a people who are, in the main, warm, approachable, and aspirational. A nation whose gutless eagerness to sneer at Americans reveals less about its flaws than it does about its own decline.
To those Americans disparaged, pay it no mind and remain proud. Do not treat this place as an escape from your own bedevilled homeland or fall for the faux-superiority of this declining kingdom. The slander you receive is fantasy. Young people in the UK get a far worse deal, and the affronts to your homeland show first-hand the UK’s crab-bucket mentality. Nothing instils in us more vitriol than a people that can hope.
“Edinburgh Students Study Group” by thisisedinburgh is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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Get off Your High Horse, and Stop Mocking Americans
A new academic year dawns, and with it a raft of American freshers stepping outside their homeland for the first time. You’ve likely already heard a new way to mispronounce Edinburgh or endured copious Harry Potter comments already. Most natives of the UK take this as a chance to ridicule these outlanders, poking fun at the US’s healthcare, gun laws, prison population, and leaders.
Detractions of all sorts are deployed with smarm and self-righteousness by residents of a land that has failed to grow, change, or matter internationally for 30 years. A nation whose supposed “advantages” lie in a barely functioning healthcare system, stagnant job market, and ballooning debt. A shallow-minded, mirthless country that takes great pleasure in dismissing a people who are, in the main, warm, approachable, and aspirational. A nation whose gutless eagerness to sneer at Americans reveals less about its flaws than it does about its own decline.
To those Americans disparaged, pay it no mind and remain proud. Do not treat this place as an escape from your own bedevilled homeland or fall for the faux-superiority of this declining kingdom. The slander you receive is fantasy. Young people in the UK get a far worse deal, and the affronts to your homeland show first-hand the UK’s crab-bucket mentality. Nothing instils in us more vitriol than a people that can hope.
“Edinburgh Students Study Group” by thisisedinburgh is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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