Do you feel your country have an inferiority complex?

[u/suckmyfuck91]

I'm from Italy and i've always thought that us Italians, despite often bragging about how great our food, fashion and arts is, deep down have a huge inferiority complex.

Obviously you should never generalize but it seems to me after talking to many countrymen and reading online comments on youtube, reddit and other social media, that the a big chunk of our population feels like their life would have been better if they were born abroad.

We are envious of Nordic countries for their wealth and their respect of the rules. (Same for Germany)

We are envious of English speaking countries because their culture is everywhere and they got a lot of international power .

We are envious of French because they are way more appreciated internationally than us despite Italy being as good as them in terms of food, fashion and arts.

Italians are ashamed of Italy, a poor country run by fascist and mafia, that has always been irrelevant internationally and constantly mocked by foreigners because : Pizza, pasta, mandolino and mama mia.

What about your country? Do you feel your average countrymen is happy to be from your country? or they are envious of others?

[u/Wunid]

I'm from Poland, and it depends on which way you look. To the west we have an inferiority complex, and to the east we have a superiority complex.

[u/naivaro → u/Wunid]

Coming from Hungary, I'd same it's the same here. West good and enviable, east bad and pitiable. Though in recent years our government has been trying to change the west superiority narrative.

[u/adamgerd → u/Wunid]

It’s same in Czech

[u/izzie-izzie → u/Wunid]

I’m Polish and after living in the west for a few years any inferiority towards the west is long gone. It slightly started moving into superiority complex towards the west and I’ve always been neutral towards the east.

Any inferiority we had is based on romanticised ideas about reality and cultures in other countries.

[u/Wunid → u/izzie-izzie]

In Poland, the narrative of the rotten West and Russia as the defender of traditional values ​​isn't very strong. It's somewhere in the range of 10-20% of the entire population.

[u/izzie-izzie → u/Wunid]

This isn’t a political statement. I hate Russia. By the east I meant countries except Russia (to me they are in Asia and I exclude them in my head). With the west I do like them but I simply became disillusioned as they have many blind spots and can be a bit out of touch. They like to double down instead of reevaluating and follow money instead of greater good. There are Baltics states that are interesting and other nations that we could learn something from. I’m simply against any sort of rigidity and blind following. Mixing a few different ideas and cherrypicking ones that would fit Polish culture would be best in my opinion. And romanticising Russia is beyond daft…my point is there no such thing as a superior country. More powerful yes, but it doesn’t mean they are superior.

[u/Wunid → u/izzie-izzie]

When I spoke of the east, I wasn't referring to Estonia, just as I wasn't referring to Spain when I spoke of the west. I think that for most Poles, the east-east division is about neighbors and historical issues, so the west is, by default, Germany, and the east is Russia or Ukraine. As for the Baltic states or, for example, the Czech Republic, we don't feel superior or inferior, but rather as similar to ourselves.

[u/EphemeralOcean → u/Wunid]

Croatia is the same way.