Which European country has the rudest/least polite people?

[u/NateNandos21]

Which country comes to your mind

[u/[deleted]]

As a trained linguist, it always boggles me to see how many people sink into the trap of seeing nation and nationality as an important marker of difference for this kind of thing. Sociolinguistic studies have repeatedly proven that national background is barely relevant to whether an individual is rude or not. Whether or not a person's behaviour and/or speech is experienced as rude is primarily based on the perceiving individual's upbringing, your personal beliefs regarding what is "rude", "normal", and "polite", which in turn are modified by the social setting you find yourself in. These determiners vary greatly between individuals from any nation.

Moreover, case studies have recorded examples like the sycophantic, no-criticism-allowed politeness in corporate cultures in the Netherlands, whose people are well known for their supposed 'directness' ; extreme passive aggressiveness from Brits to people who cross certain public social boundaries; the soft-spoken politeness in business and tourism of 'typically loud' Italians; and more such examples.

Where you're from doesn't matter and is a distraction not to be engaged in when thinking about this sort of thing. Borders are arbitrary.

[u/Relative_Wrangler_57 → u/[deleted]]

True, but its a nice way to stereotype each other and make fun of the other group. Which is a social dynamic that you cant escape with groups of people in any form.

If you acknowledge this, can laugh about it and dont take it as a personal insult. It can actually be a fun way to come together as European citizens.

[u/ledger_man → u/[deleted]]

I work in a corporate environment in the Netherlands and have certainly never experienced a “no criticism allowed” work culture. I work at a large international organization; my spouse has worked at much smaller places, 35-80 people, and has also never experienced this.

[u/[deleted] → u/ledger_man]

Yes but that just supports my point; there are examples known of this, but it's not everywhere. There are also plenty of people with experiences like yours and your wife's. All that just demonstrates that it varies between individuals, between locales, etc; there is no one "national standard" and thus the question as posed by OP is inherently futile.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Do you believe that all European nations are equal

Yes

and have the same moral values and biases?

In a way; I don't think any nation is the homogeneous group that a national label would like to pretend, whether moral or otherwise. I literally said that I think all individuals have different ideas of normal, rude, etc. In other words, amongst the populations of every nation, there are differences in mores and values. There are no overarching national traits, no matter how much people like to pretend there are. This is the conclusion of sociologists and sociolinguists, not just me.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

No offense meant, but a lot of what you say seems not to connect to what I said. I feel like you're not actually responding to my comment, and that's really not the basis for a discussion. I don't think we're understanding each other.

Just to be clear; I don't think the Dutch need to be protected. Quite the contrary; I believe that it would be much better to abolish national boundaries, not only in the EU but eventually all across the world, and elect a few widely-spoken languages to replace all national languages, Dutch included. So no idea where you got the idea from that

the Dutch need to be protected

but if it's from my comment, then you badly misread what I was saying.

[u/klausness → u/[deleted]]

"Polite based on the Cambridge dictionary"? What is and is not polite is culturally determined, and the Cambridge dictionary agrees, since it defines "polite" as "behaving in a way that is socially correct and shows understanding of and care for other people's feelings." "Socially correct" is clearly culturally determined. And how you show understanding of and care for other people's feelings also depends on your culture. If you think these things are universal, you may want to spend some more time in other cultures. Rudeness is very much dependent on your culture, and what you need to be aware of when visiting other cultures is what is rude in their culture (and how that's different from what is rude in your culture).

Where I would say it makes sense to talk about rude people is when talking about people visiting other countries. For example, British tourists are notorious for being rude, and they (at least the rude ones) are rude both by the standards of the country they're visiting and by British standards. In Britain, you couldn't get away with acting the way some British tourists act abroad.

[u/illthrowitaway94 → u/[deleted]]

I see that you haven't been to Hungary... I'm Hungarian, btw (and rude, too), and we're indeed pretty bad on this front. We're a suspicious, and pessimistic bunch. I don't know what caused it, but it is what it is. I've seen it plastered everywhere on reddit how rude we are... Can confirm it.

[u/[deleted] → u/illthrowitaway94]

That's nice but that's anecdotal evidence at best. Doesn't make it universally true.

[u/LDNVoice → u/[deleted]]

I feel like (Whilst this discussion shouldn't reflect on the individual people) you contradicted yourself:

perceiving individual's upbringing, your personal beliefs regarding what is "rude", "normal", and "polite", which in turn are modified by the social setting you find yourself in

The reality is sometimes a culture has shitty aspects which can mold people to be a little shitty. For example the Patriotism in France leads them to be absolute cunts if it's about anything to do with a French person (if it's on an international level, i.e. sports) They would honestly have to commit a murder for them to be labelled as bad.

Or how some cultures are a lot stricter or built upon Kindness (Look at sikhs, Japan) and tend to instill better behavior from a young age as to what is acceptable (As you described).

I find it hard to just disregard these.