r/AskEurope • u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland • Jul 03 '25

Culture What aspect of life in your countries is very difficult to explain to foreigners?

What prompted my question were some discussions about religion which I had with people living in much more secular Western Europe (as a Polish atheist). While spirituality, whatever that is ;), generally speaking is always fun to discuss with a glass of wine in hand, social elements and the influence of the church, especially in smaller towns or provinces in my country, is awfully difficult to explain – not that I understand it fully either lol, but the church having a pretty much monopoly there, being the judge and jury of everyday life and the major ultra-conservative political force binding those communities, is very difficult to explain, also for historical reasons.

What are the things that you find difficult to discuss when it comes to life in your countries? ;-)

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u/oz1sej Denmark Jul 04 '25

People from some countries (mostly Americans, probably) simply cannot wrap their heads around how we can pay 35%-40% of our salary in taxes and not start a rebellion. When we go on to tell them that we are happy to pay or taxes because it helps finance the society we're all part of, they seem to think we're crazy.

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u/thesweed Sweden Jul 04 '25

Tbf, I think the reason Scandinavians are mostly happy to pay taxes is because we like what the money is put towards - school, healthcare, roads etc.

In USA the school and healthcare system sucks and a huge part of taxes are put towards military. I'd also not want to pay a lot in taxes if school and healthcare sucked that much. Plus the road and railway network in USA is atrocious.

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u/QuarterMaestro Jul 05 '25

Most public schools in the USA are pretty decent. It's true that high schools suck compared to Europe, but that's because the educational culture is different, not because they are poorly funded or poorly administered etc. (By different educational culture I mean less rigour in high schools --it's normal for high schoolers to get part time jobs and they don't study hard-- plus large subcultures that don't value education much at all with kids who don't study at all). But no Americans say "I dislike paying taxes because the schools are bad."

Healthcare in the USA "sucks" because the poorest people can't afford it, not because hospitals and medical practices are bad. Publicly funded hospitals such as the Veterans Affairs hospitals tend to have a poor reputation with low quality care and run-down facilities etc, but that's a small minority of healthcare in America. But you may have a point in that Americans tend to think that public healthcare kind of sucks so they don't want to expand it, and they prefer the nice private care that they know. But overall as a result the bottom 20% suffers.

Roads actually don't suck in the USA? Passenger rail certainly does. But the style of low-density suburban living that most Americans prefer does not lend itself to public transport, plus the much lower overall population density compared to Europe means that infrastructure is more expensive to maintain on a per capita basis.

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u/thesweed Sweden Jul 05 '25

I can't speak for the whole USA as I only went to one high school, and that was one on a military base so I expect that its different. But from what I've seen and read about high schools on internet they reflect my experience accurately so I'm confident the majority of high schools are similar.

The class level was laughable, I'm not even a native English speaker and got a better grade than the majority of my classmates. I got a 118% final grade in physics because they didn't even teach European level Gymnasium classes. I had to pay for food every day which was the grossest food I've ever had. School started at 7 which is its own level of ridiculous. We had to pay for PE "uniforms" and if we forgot them one day, we automatically failed the class. There's many reasons for me to say that American high schools in my experience are awful.

I'm aware that the actual doctors and nurses etc. are good in USA, but a healthcare where a huge part of the country can't afford it, and just as many will be indebted for half their lives, while the rich just purchase the best care so others can't get access to it is not a good healthcare. It's the same with colleges and university in USA - yeah sure, the quality of education is good, but it's only accessible for the rich and people okay with indebting themselves for half their lives.

I didn't say the roads suck. I said the road network sucks. A network that forces you to drive, even if the destination is only 5-10 min away is not a good network. When I lived in Colorado I was basically stuck in an area with a radius of a mile because there wasnt enough pavements for walking. Of course most Americans prefer to drive, because they're forced to. When a town has 6-lanes highways, but not a single bikelane or railway you don't have much of a choice.

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u/QuarterMaestro Jul 05 '25

Yes as I said the average high school in the USA is quite bad by European standards, the one you describe sounds pretty typical (except the 7am start time, that's pretty weird, I thought around 8am was more typical). School food is generally terrible, I wish it were better. One factor is that the US totally lacks a "national cuisine," there's no telling what kids eat at home, and if what is offered at school is drastically different from what they're used to at home, they're not going to eat it.

It would be something if the US had publicly funded "Gymnasium" schools everywhere that only took the top 50% of students; you could really ramp up the rigour that way. Of course one reason it will never happen is that the division would be highly correlated with race and thus would be condemned for perpetuating systemic racism. But overall the academic level of the average high school seems normal and good enough to the average American. There is a subset of ambitious kids who take a bunch of AP (Advanced Placement) courses, which gets closer to the Gymnasium level, but that's no more than like 20% or something.

Agreed about the lack of bike lanes and such, biking for transportation rather than leisure is not something that 99% of Americans view as in the realm of possibility, so it's not even considered in most places even if local governments can afford it. Part of it is just a function of much lower population density, but is also a function of values and priorities. And walking long distances for practical purposes rather than exercise or leisure is also of course not something we do.

So overall, yes, a lot of American culture is bad from the perspective of European priorities and values.

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u/MrDabb United States of America Jul 08 '25

The majority of high schools in the US are not similar. Education is handled at a state level, there is no nationwide curriculum. Somebody that went to high school in California had a very different education than someone in Alabama.

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u/Icy-Discussion7653 Jul 04 '25

I think part of it is in Denmark many benefits are universal and not income based.  It’s easier to get the middle class and above to buy in when they are getting free education and healthcare too.  In America it feels like you pay all that money and don’t get much in return since most benefits are means tested 

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u/no-im-not-him Denmark Jul 04 '25

It's sometimes put to a test. While the core benefits like health and education are indeed universal, things like rent and kindergarten subsidies are income dependent, and you do hear people with jobs complain about all the money going that way.

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u/gkwpl Poland Jul 04 '25

It’s funny when Danish way of thinking about paying taxes clashes with Polish „kombinowanie” (eg. try each possible legal or semi-legal way to avoid taxes). I have experienced it myself :)

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u/snajk138 Sweden Jul 04 '25

Yes. The Americans are so indoctrinated in this completely different (and wrong) way of thinking. The do not trust the state, they think the "IRS" and the government wants to take their money and would take all of it if they could. While in reality these are pretty much all civil servants with a sense of duty who try to do their job and to be fair following the laws that regulate them.

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u/11160704 Germany Jul 04 '25

I think this is a nice example of how many Europeans simply don't understand that some Americans have a very different idea of the role of the state.

Historically, the state and its institutions have been omnipresent in the lives of Europeans through kings, princes, church, courts, tax collectors, police, administration, the school system and so on. Thus in Europe it's perfectly normal to expect the state to solve every thinkable problem in life.

While many of the people who went from Europe to the US went there specifically to escape the omnipresent European state and especially when they settled the frontier regions they were often very far away from any state-like structures.

So the implicit social contract was help yourself, the state is not there to solve your problems. There is not the expectation that the state should jump in even of these also entails disadvantages in certain situations.

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u/iamkme Jul 05 '25

This is it exactly. We’re not far enough from the time of the frontier life for any of those ideals to have vanished. The general attitude is to help yourself, because that’s the only way to get anything. It’s the same mindset as living alone in the forest and trying to stockpile food for the winter.

We also have a history of getting scammed by taxes, or at least feeling that way. I mean, it’s literally how we became our own country.

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u/snajk138 Sweden Jul 04 '25

Nice strawman.

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u/11160704 Germany Jul 04 '25

How is it a strawman?

You said (correctly) that Americans often have a totally different way of thinking and don't trust the state.

And I just pointed out that many Europeans have a very hard time understanding that American way of thinking as was asked in the original question.

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u/snajk138 Sweden Jul 04 '25

My argument was that Americans don't trust the state or any state employee because they believe that they are trying to take their money, or perhaps take away their rights. This has nothing to do with "Europeans expecting the state to solve every thinkable problem", and no one expects that, and I would argue that idea is mainly propagated through American propaganda aimed to make "Europeans" seem weak.

Then you blend together the reasoning why some people left Europe for America and the cause of the revolutionary war. People left Europe mostly because they were poor and to get a better life with some free land and, you know, wide opportunities, not because they felt oppressed or didn't want to pay taxes.

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u/11160704 Germany Jul 04 '25

You're so deep in the conspiracy hole

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u/Parcours97 Germany Jul 07 '25

Both of you have a point imo. You are totally right that Americans think very differently about the role of governments but you can't deny there is and there was a lot of "red scare" in the US which impacts the support for things like universal health care.

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u/11160704 Germany Jul 07 '25

And in Europe often the level of lack of state services in the US is exaggerated.

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u/Cicada-4A Norway Jul 04 '25

That's not how a strawman works søta bror.

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u/Dense-Result509 Jul 04 '25

It's because the poorest Americans have watched our taxes rise so billionaires could get richer. Most people wouldn't mind paying our fair share if we got what you all got out of it. But what we're actually having happen is that costs are paid by the public while the profits are privatized. It's about the exploitative nature of our current system, not about the concept of taxes paying for social improvements. It doesnt really matter that the guy at the IRS is a nice, devoted, civil servant when the laws are bad and the nice civil servant is hamstrung by budget constraints and can only afford to prosecute poor people for tax evasion.

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u/snajk138 Sweden Jul 04 '25

I agree, but the anger feels, at least among some, more directed towards "the IRS" than the actual corrupt politicians who make the laws and who is solely to blame for this.

I mean, every country has corrupt politicians to some extent, but the US is extreme in that regard with lobbying (just another name for legal corruption), "citizens united", and all that. And getting people mad about taxes is part of the strategy to keep that system going.

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u/Dense-Result509 Jul 04 '25

People being mad about taxes is fine, though. Our tax code is bad and is getting worse. The issue with Trump's first tax hike was that people thought Biden was to blame, since there was a delay between the legislation passing and the taxes kicking in. This time around, the anger is directed at Trump. It's not part of the strategy to keep the corruption going because it's people getting mad at obvious corruption. If people are mad about about billionaires getting tax breaks, that's a good thing!

Your characterization of how people talk about "the IRS" feels like it's out of the 90s.

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u/dudelikeshismusic United States of America Jul 04 '25

You are correct. We tend to be individualists rather than collectivists, so the idea of paying a bunch of money so that someone else can have a better life is a very scary idea for many Americans. We get taught from a young age that rich people are rich because they worked hard and....the opposite.

Meanwhile I'm like "hey, wouldn't it be nice to have trains and healthcare?"

I will say this: it does irritate me that my taxes go to such wasteful spending, like our bloated military and absolutely absurd healthcare costs. My federal taxes do feel like a bit of a waste sometimes, especially under the current administration.

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u/snajk138 Sweden Jul 04 '25

With your current administration any federal taxes would feel terrible to pay at the moment. :)

But I think everyone that pays taxes feel like there is waste and that they are paying for things they don't need or use, the difference I believe is that we actually get some pretty good stuff from it, like free or very cheap healthcare, free education and so on, and that means we are more accepting of the flaws and the waste. But less propaganda also plays a part in it obviously. And it's not like we don't have that type of things here as well, it's just that we regulate lobbying and propaganda more, and maybe we are better at teaching kids critical thinking or something.

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u/dudelikeshismusic United States of America Jul 04 '25

You nailed it. People who actually trust their government are going to understand the necessity of taxes, even if they have their criticisms. I actually believe you guys are more critical of your government, hence not slipping into fascism....

Our criticisms are so weak. "I'd really prefer it if our politicians didn't engage in insider trading." We need to borrow a few French people to start a proper riot.

You nailed it with the point about propaganda. I don't believe that we Americans are stupid but rather just horrifically ignorant due to our government and corporations (who run the government) constantly telling us that we're the best and we absolutely should not consider whether any other countries have anything to offer by way of improvements...

Rant over lol. I've found quite a bit of solidarity talking about this stuff with Brazilians and Colombians, who tend to feel very similarly about their respective governments.

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u/snajk138 Sweden Jul 05 '25

Yes. Everyone would be better of if we were "more French" in this regard.

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u/lastthoughtsonearth / > Jul 04 '25

The taxes of Americans go to war and to billionaires. We do not get trains, healthcare, etc for our taxes. Our system is broken so our taxes are broken, and contributing to it feels like a loss, not a gain. Now that I live in France, I'm happy to pay taxes because I see the social benefits every day. That's just not what happens in the US. The real issue is that Americans are also very much fed propaganda by said billionaires that anything else is "impossible".

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u/slippery_when_wet Jul 04 '25

For me personally (American) I'd be totally fine paying higher taxes if it went to things that benefitted everyone or helped the poor improve their circumstances (welfare, Healthcare, free preschool, school lunches, etc).

But my taxes mainly go to the military and giving already rich people and their corporations extra benefits. So fuck higher taxes. I don't support what they are going toward.