What do you dislike about your country's culture?

[WomenHour]

I would say the binge drinking culture of the UK

[quote LaMarschallin]@Poulter

Added to them the pride in lack of education. I've never read a book and it never did me any harm kind of attitude. It's embarrassing. While saying that they're better than people in any other country.

Very much this.

Also coupled, imo, with the celebration of ignorance and/or stupidity.

Small example was watching "House of Games" on Tuesday (pause here for people to make fun of my television viewing....
There - done? ).
Scarlet Moffatt could barely answer a thing and had to be practically told a right answer by Richard Osman. When she repeated it parrot-fashion, everybody clapped, she was beaming in delight, happy to be the centre of attention, appearing to feel she was wonderful and not at all embarrassing to watch...
It was like being at a party for adults where somebody insists on bringing out their 3 year old to perform their new little dance.[/quote]
Love this programme and yes.

Lack of general knowledge frustrates me and no interest in trying to find out more.

The refusal to see that work does not pay, or the rise in insecurity under the “rentier economy” and reduction in employment rights: and that the ladders leading out of that deprivation or enabling the building of assets have been systematically kicked away.

I don't feel proud to be British at all anymore and I wouldn't live here anymore if I had my way.

I used to be so proud that we had a welfare system that supported people through tough times but we don't anymore.

I hate the 'little englander' mentality and that those people hate immigrants while being treated by them in hospitals and eating roast dinners and drinking in English pubs while on holiday without a hint of irony.

I hate what we have become.

@Pepperwort

The total lack of comprehension from the up-their-own-arses middle classes of the deprivation and lack of resources and choices that passes for normality in the UK. The refusal to recognise their good fortune and relative wealth. The scale of the divisions, as the lower middle have been knocked out leaving only one group or the other.

This! (Albeit, I think of myself as lower middle, at least traditionally).

@Margotshypotheticaldog

some Kiwis have little empathy with the history and plight of the Maori people. They have their own culture for those who choose to be immersed in it, but they are disproportionately affected by social, crime, employment and health issues etc compared to the European/other groups in the population. Hence, some people have a poor opinion of the Maori people (I am not Maori, but a NZer of European descent).

NZ
Insular outlook on the world

UK
Parents screeching at children in public (heaven knows what goes on at home)
Drinking culture
Class system
Whinging

The hypocrisy of people.

People complaining we don't take in enough asylum seekers and that we should open our borders to anybody who wants to come here, but complain that we're damaging the environment. More people = more pollution, more building, more roads, more resources.

People wanting a better NHS, better schools, but not willing to work hard and pay taxes to fund them. Complaining that benefits aren't high enough to live on but that they enable scroungers to never work a day in their lives.

People wanting cheap goods but then complaining about the working conditions of the people who make them.

Climate change protesters who superglue themselves to trains and disrupt public transport, the very thing that will play a key role in reducing our impact on the environment.

The fetish for tolerance and the acceptance of everyone who is different, just so long as they are different in a very specific way.

@Margotshypotheticaldog

A question for the kiwis, I've never been to NZ. Is there no such thing as Maori culture? That seems... unlikely.... 🤨

Māori culture or Maaori culture (it's a long a) is the best way to write it.

Māori culture is a strong influence on NZ life. It is not the same as NZ culture. About 16% of the population identify as Māori, and the other 84% can't just requisition it and claim it as theirs by slinging around a few poorly pronounced "kia ora"s and perhaps attending a Matariki party put on by their equally white mates

In Ireland with jobs it’s not what you know , it’s who you know. It’s not remotely hidden either and it’s so frustrating.

Moaning moaning moaning it’s constant

^^ UK obvs

Ireland - just the general lack of caring about the place. The streets are filthy with dog shit, spit, litter, people dump bags of rubbish everywhere, houses are left to rot.
Guinness, it tastes like watered down dirt.

Thanks for the replies re New Zealand, interesting perspectives that I had not considered.

UK

Keeping up with the Joneses. Streets where the houses all have matching block paved drives, solar panels etc.

Curtain twitchers, especially the cul de sacs where as soon as you drive down there to turn around, somebody is at their window!

Great, another slagging off Britain post.

Added to them the pride in lack of education. I've never read a book and it never did me any harm kind of attitude. It's embarrassing. While saying that they're better than people in any other country.
This all day.
Also agree re litter and excessive drinking.
Lack of knowledge of the political system.
A weird kind of belief that it's obvious Britain is the best country in the world.
Too much indulgence of kids' bad behaviour in public. I lived in Italy for years and never saw a child throwing a strop in a restaurant, for example.
Too much materialism and the idea that if you have more you are to be admired.
The tabloids and their stoking up of racial hatred /looking down on people in poverty etc

The UK -
Increasing woketwattery
Normalisation of obesity and sedentary lifestyles
Negativity, whinging and inability to accept personal responsibility.

I do on the whole like living here though, mainly because I can avoid most of this shit in real life.

@WhatATimeToBeAlive

Great, another slagging off Britain post.

Yes. Two in two days!

The idea that someone who has grown up in poverty, with fewer resources and a poor diet, surrounded by family discord, was educated at an under performing school and had no decent role models around them should function the same in adulthood as someone who was privately educated, never went hungry, had a wealth of opportunity to explore hobbies and interests and had a loving family.

I'm not bashing people who have wealth if they've earnt it, it's just people who don't acknowledge that some people have a better start and good social mobility from the outset when compared to others. They tend to blame them for these limitations and not due to how our society functions. We have a knack of laying the blame with each other for societies ills, when a lot of it starts with how the country and economy are managed.

Class system in Britain.

Catholicism

Disconnect from the land/countryside/nature. This

I'm in NZ.

I think the Maori renaissance is good for everyone. I can cope with the inevitable wokeness that goes with it.

Annoying things:
-Imported junk American culture.
-Boganism. All the bogans should be transported to the Chatham Islands so they can't irritate everyone.
-Gangs. Yes, you may be Maori. That doesn't prevent you from being an arsehole.
-Anti-intellectualism.

The feeling of superiority that many British people have.

'Our country and our people are the best - no one else deserves to live here. We know best. We're better than everyone else.'

NZ
Parochialism
Insularity
The strong resistance too many have to any inclusion of Maori language, tikanga (custom and protocol) and resentment of restitution for the wrongs of the (actually historically very recent) colonisation of Aotearoa, and of Maori doing well for themselves (here's to you, Ngai Tahu, and Koro!)
Not viewing education as sufficiently important, and then getting aggro in a very racist manner towards cultures and ethnicities that take it very seriously indeed, and therefore excel.
Racism in general.

UK
British exceptionalism. Time to move on fellas, and get a slightly more accurate world view. Read the room!
The way the education system works as a particularly ruthless and brutal funnel, limiting children's choices and aspirations at regular intervals, and the impact that has on children's views of themselves and their future.
Littering. And dog shit.
Racism, particularly towards the Eastern Europeans, and Muslims.

Oh, and last but not least, for the UK: This godawful mess of arrogant, incompetent buffoons we have busily rearranging the deck chairs. . .