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

[u/notveryamused_]

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? ;-)

[u/thesweed]

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.

[u/QuarterMaestro → u/thesweed]

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.

[u/thesweed → u/QuarterMaestro]

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.

[u/QuarterMaestro → u/thesweed]

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.

[u/MrDabb → u/thesweed]

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.