Values Dissonance/Real Life

• Main
• Laconic
• Playing With
• Quotes
• All Subpages
• Create New

---

Guns, Drugs, and Alcohol

• Values Dissonance exists within cultures, as members of one subculture disagree with members of others. Naturally the potential for disagreement increases with population size and diversity. Some modern examples from the USA:
  • Reactions to gun control varies vastly from state to state and region to region.
    • To understand how radically different this can be between fellow Americans, compare the experience of notably anti-gun New York City with notably pro-gun South Texas. Imagine living in Manhattan, where police are often patrolling, there are a great many people at risk from a stray bullet, and emergency responses are headed by the aggressive and quick to react NYPD. Now imagine owning a ranch on the border with Mexico, isolated from your neighbors, with herds of wild animals you must cull in order to prevent damage to your land, a tradition of hunting, and police often taking many minutes to arrive even if they race at maximum speed toward your land. Is it any wonder US opinions are so varied?
  • Within the gun community, there is the issue of carry. Among the people who carry, you get two camps. One is strongly in favor of concealed carry and tends to viciously attack open carry. Open carriers tend to wonder about all the concealed carry fuss and say that it is good PR for the second amendment to see ordinary good people with guns.
    • The concealed carry folks tend to be older, having grown up in a time when handguns were seen by most people as being bad things for society. Thus, they don't really want to walk around advertising that they are armed. The folks who support open carry are normally younger.
      • Reaction to open carry varies wildly. For example, if you have a carry permit and open carry in a place like Philadelphia, you could very well end up with a faceful of concrete. If you live in a place like Fairfax County, Virginia, you might get some looks, but the cops are not likely to stop and deck you, nor are people likely to freak out and call the police.
  • Then there is the dissonance between the USA and Europe, where gun laws range from very strict, such as the UK, where handguns are illegal and rifles and shotguns are restricted almost to the same degree, and where the police do not carry usually guns, to slightly more moderate (such as Germany). If you suggested to an Englishman that the UK should have gun laws similar to the USA, he would think you quite mad. This is largely because, in Ye Good Olde Days, many Americans needed guns to defend themselves on the frontiers, whereas in Britain the "frontiers" had disappeared nearly a millenia before guns were invented.
  • A funny example comes from countries which have very detailed written civil laws on guns, compared to common-law countries like USA and UK, because in civil-law systems the interpretation of law is usually very strict and based solely on text. For example, notoriously anti-gun countries have detailed laws on hunting and ownership of long guns... which requires multiple qualifications to become a licensed hunter or collector, while not being restrictive at all in regards to the type of guns owned. That is, any long gun which is not fully automatic and fits a hunting caliber, up to MG-42 if modified at factory to fire semi-automatic only, can be legally owned if purchased by a hunter from a licensed dealer with full papers. Doesn't this look a bit like locking the wrong door?
• The popularity of the death penalty varies from state to state. The majority of states do allow it, but many of those that have death penalty statutes on the books do not actively use them. Most North-Easterners live in states with no death penalty on the books or used, and opinions on the matter seem to be mixed or opposed. Texans and Floridians, on the other hand, tend to overwhelmingly support the death penalty, as do a good number of other states. Interactions between the two groups on the matter can be interesting. And on that note, the methods of execution have changed in response to changing social mores. In an ironic twist of fate, some humane methods of execution are more frightening than ancient methods, it's just that since there's no blood we believe no harm has been done. The guillotine, for instance, is far better than any method in use today (in terms of speed and accuracy of death with proper maintenance), but thanks to the Full Circle Revolutionaries it has been stigmatized beyond cultural redemption.
• For alcohol, the minimum age to purchase is 18 or less in nearly every non-Muslim nation except the US, where you have to be 21. There, 18-20 year-olds are legally adults in every other way: they can vote, marry, buy guns, sign contracts, join the military, purchase land, but are legally barred from even possessing alcoholic beverages. This yields the rather odd result, that if a Oregon bar serves a 18-20 year old and gets caught, they can sue the 18-20 year old for their lost business. Interestingly, most honest attempts by Moral Guardians to raise the drinking age to 21 failed at the state and federal level. They succeeded by slipping amendments into spending bills, which reduced the amount of aid sent to states with drinking ages under 21. And to make sure that the states didn't try to work around the money restrictions, they're attached to highway maintenance and construction funds. Likewise, the consumption of alcohol by minors ranges wildly across the spectrum, from no restrictions, to requirements of parental (or even spousal) supervision, to total prohibition until 18 or 21.
  • Teenagers drinking is seen as a huge problem in most of the US. In Germany, for example, most parents are fine with their 14- or 15-year old having the occasional drink, even if it's not fully legal, as long as they don't get shitfaced every weekend. Legal drinking age is 16.
    • Being drunk has different connotations in different countries as well. With young people in the US, getting drunk is cool. Even some older people don't see the point in drinking unless they intend to get all-out drunk. In European countries, though, drunkenness is not very acceptable.
  • This also creates many problems for 18-20-year-old foreigners in the US of A, after more than a year of the routine of a hard days work then beer with friends to suddenly be refused service (and told to leave the premise) can be quite the shock.
    • Not to mention problems from state-to-state. For instance, in Wisconsin (who used to be huge beer-producers and still have a rich culture in alcoholic beverages), a minor under 18 can drink with permission from a parent; in neighboring states it's strictly 21+, and north in Ontario is 19.
    • In reverse, many teens in Michigan, especially in the Detroit area, cross over to nearby Canada to drink, because the legal age there is 19. This has become such a widespread phenomenon that its kind of assumed teens going over to Canada for a day trip are interested in alcohol.
    • The same thing happens with Mexico (where the drinking age is 18), hence its popularity as a Spring Break destination for college students. Unfortunately, day-trippers can still be charged with public drunkenness/DUI once they cross back over the border (or, for that matter, they can be arrested by Mexican police and endure a Kafka-esque legal system) and the current security situation in Mexico makes things even more complicated.
    • And within Canada, British Columbians, where the legal age is 19, will often cross the Alberta border, where it's 18, for the same reasons. This also occurs with the other two provinces with a lower drinking age and their neighbors.
    • Works doubly for 18 year olds in Saskatchewan since both Alberta and Manitoba have 18 as their legal drinking age.
    • It is not uncommon for Ontarians to make a trip to Montreal once a group of them have turned 18. While there they can drink, gamble, and go to one of Montreal's many strip clubs. It makes for an excellent birthday weekend.
  • In eastern Africa, drinking after 18 is legal but heavily frowned upon, both due the expense of alcohol and the general goal of going for blasted. Study abroad programs heavily discourage students even entering bars to avoid program members being stereotyped as spendthrift drunks. That's beside the issue of women never entering such establishments.
  • Sweden solves this by allowing 18-year olds to buy low-point beer and go to bars. They are not however, allowed to shop at Systembolaget, the government owned liquor store monopoly.
• Marijuana use. Netherlands? Legal but there are government campaigns and public pressure warning against the use. Philippines? Possessing one kilogram is punishable by the death penalty. And those are just the extremes -- lots of room in between.
  • Singapore's penal includes death by hanging as an acceptable punishment for possession.
    • The United States' "medical" marijuana policy, a value dissonance in and of itself, allows people to use pot to combat pain. In practice, this means anything from cancer to cramps.
      • And it actually varies a lot from state-to-state. While some of the early adopters of medical marijuana (such as California) made it relatively easy to get, many states that are only now considering it (like Maryland) are taking great pains to ensure it is only prescribed for more serious ailments - so it really is just there for medical purposes and not just a back-door route to full legalization (as medical marijuana bills are often accused of being).
• Smokers are more and more looked upon as irresponsible people who poison themselves and those around them in the US and European countries like Germany, lighting up in an office or bar is unthinkable. In China and Japan they are seen as real men and femme fattales. In many parts of eastern Europe (Bosnia and Serbia especially) non-smoking bars are seen as something hopelessly yuppi-ish and pointless - who'd want a coffee or a beer without a smoke?

Sex and Sexuality

• Any usage of birth control, such as condoms and pills, as well as the concept of pre-marital sex between couples, especially when they're still teenagers, tend to be more controversial in various countries with more traditional and religious views. Attitudes have changed over time, and especially since the discovery of AIDS: In 1977 The BBC absolutely refused to show a Durex-sponsored Formula One car on TV, condoms being a much more taboo product than they are now.
• Public opinion on homosexuality ranges, although it seems to be tied more to age than location.
  • The presence of gays in the US military is still the subject of much controversy, and therefore continues to be so in fiction (see, for instance The General's Daughter). In some other countries, however, openly gay soldiers, sailors, and aircrew serve with no issues; therefore, audiences may tend to view American attitudes expressed through fiction to be rather amusingly quaint (and, in fairness, so do many Americans). When former Marine Corps General General John J. "Jack" Sheehan asserted on a hearing about Don't ask-Don't tell that the Dutch failure in Srebrenica (in which they more or less stood by and watched several hundred people get massacred) was due to the open admission of gays in the Dutch army, and that Dutch military officers he had met there had told him so, many Dutch politicians (including the PM) and the military unions called BS.
    • "Called BS" is an understatement considering what a Berserk Button the Srebrenica Massacre is in the Netherlands (an investigation into it brought down the government in 2002) - then-PM Jan Peter Balkenende condemned Sheehan's remark as "outrageous, wrong and beneath contempt", and other Dutch reactions were only slightly less polite (the AFMP military union said it was "out of the realm of fiction" while the SHK called it "the ridiculous convulsion of a loner").
    • Now that the ban on openly gay servicemembers in the US has been lifted, gay troops are openly forming support groups and the like, and, as predicted by people who've served in other militaries with openly gay members, there's been absolutely no significant negative effect whatsoever. Well, except if you remind the people who were predicting doom that they now look like idiots.
  • Somehow, marrying your cousin is legal in 31 US states, while gay marriage has to wait until 2015 to be declared legal in all American territory , and yet still there are counties that doesn't issue same-sex marriage licenses or give legal benefits to same-sex married couples despite that being declared unconstitutional.
• The tendency towards the Manly Gay was one of many things about Greco-Roman culture that Squicked out some other cultures. For instance, this is the context for the New Testament; the Jewish establishment of that day were pretty squicked out by polytheism, homosexuality, hedonism, and the Roman school of slavery among other things, and pretty shocked or dismayed that some (including Jesus) would ever associate in any way with those disgusting people. Of course, Pompey was equally disturbed when he entered the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem after conquering it. Most religions of the time kept some image of their god in theirs, you see....
  • Additionally, Romans completely failed to grasp the difference between circumcision and castration. So they not only thought the Jews were a xenophobic cult that worshiped an Eldritch Abomination, but that said abomination commanded them to chop off their newborn sons' genitals. At one point the Romans banned the practice on purely ethical grounds, and when the Jews revolted it just convinced them that Jews were so into mutilating their own children that they would sooner die than stop. This is one reason the only form of Christianity that ever took off among Romans was the kind that ignored Jewish law (Pauline Christianity), and even then it took a while.
  • Likewise, the plain and simple fact that such figures regarded as hardcore badasses, such as Alexander the Great, Leonidas I of Sparta, Achilles, Heracles, and nearly every other Greek hero, both real and mythological, were allegedly or definitely openly bisexual, many of them having relationships with their soldiers, and in the case of Achilles, having an older male lover.
  • Additionally, pedophilia was practically an institution in ancient Greece (and to a lesser extent, Rome). It wasn't uncommon for older men to pursue boys (often their own students!) or even for boys to pursue older men, seeking influence, money, or status.
    • When he was younger, there was a rumor that a powerful king had sex with Julius Caesar. What did Caesar do? He told everyone that the rumor was true; the idea was that people would believe that he was so influential and powerful on the battlefield that even great kings wanted his body. It worked.
    • The same was true of Muslim Spain, where drunken pedo parties were all the rage. They weren't particularly devout.
    • Not so much pedophilia, generally it was adolescents, not children.
  • Manly Gay may not be the most accurate term, since though male to male relationships were often encouraged, actual penetration was treated only derisively by surviving written depictions from the time and only rarely depicted visually, despite other forms of sex being common.
• That the age of consent is 16 or less in most of Europe but 18 in some US states gives rise to some dissonance when discussions arise about the attractiveness and availability of 16- and 17-year-olds. 16 is actually common in the US (30 states out of 50), but not many seem to realize this- probably because it's 18 in California, where a lot of the US entertainment industry is based. According to this chart from That Other Wiki, it can vary from "9" to "20" worldwide. This may help too.
  • Which can make it, in certain areas of the US (and other countries), perfectly legal to have sex with someone, but a Federal felony to take pictures while you do.
  • The legality of age issue is less relevant compared to other factors: if in other countries it may be treated as the crime of sex with an underage person and carry a lighter or suspended sentence, the mere American name of statutory rape is a warning of how the perpetrator would be treated and what would he or she be supposed to endure.
• Age gaps in marriage partners have been seen different ways by different cultures in different periods.
  • This can be seen in depictions of the Nativity; in paintings of the Nativity or Holy Family dating from the Renaissance and earlier, Joseph is much older than Mary. In more recent images, they're the same age.
  • In many Middle Eastern cultures, the May-December Romance between an older man and a younger woman is common and often considered positive, as an older groom is usually viewed as more responsible and better able to provide for a family(which is a key component of being granted permission to marry by the bride's parents), and age gaps of 10 years or more between partners are not considered strange.
  • Sometimes, it's the ages of the people in question that make it Values Dissonance. If a couple is 25 and 40, it's considered odd, whereas if they're 35 and 50, it's not as big a deal.
  • A story reported on Oddee told of a man, somewhere in the Middle East or Africa, who married a young woman. The young woman was seventeen or so at the time of the marriage, but the man? In his nineties. He said he'd decided to marry her when she was a young child and was waiting for her to be old enough. This is quite shocking for Western audiences.
• The Roman Emperor Claudius, unusually for an upper-class man of his time, was known for focusing all of his romantic attentions on women and displaying no interest whatsoever in men. Nowadays we would just think of him as, y'know, straight -- but at the time this was thought to make him extra-susceptible to manipulation and domination by his wives, and he was accused by some ancient historians of thinking with entirely the wrong portion of his anatomy, because male-male relationships were more about thinking rationally, which is a totally separate dissonance.
• A historic example occurs in the Greek and Roman observations of Celtic gender roles. Some Celtic cultures gave women near (though not complete) equality with men; including owning land and businesses, and becoming warriors and leaders. Greek and Roman historians, particularly the latter, remarked on the ferocity of the Celts' female warriors, and the extent to which women participated in politics. However, they did so as an example of how "barbaric", "backwards", and "near-animal" the Celts were; that they would allow an "obviously inferior" gender such an inordinate amount of power, instead of treating them as pampered pets the way that "civilized" people did - even though some of the Celtic cultures repressed women more than the Romans did.
  • • A better example would be the Etruskians who ruled the Italian peninsula before the Romans. They indeed gave women near-equal rights compared to men, including the right to divorce and independent property ownership. The Greeks and the Romans were utterly freaked out by the "uppity" attitudes of the Etruskian women.
  • On a similar note, when Emperor Constantius III of the Western Roman Empire died, he had two children - a son and a daughter. Obviously, his son became the new emperor, Valentinian III, and his daughter Honoria basically became nothing but a wealthy woman, and was imprisoned in a convent by her brother after she was caught in bed with a servant. But then Honoria offered herself to Attila the Hun as his wife in an attempt to get him to rescue her. Attila (after accepting) figured the previous emperor had two kids, and the empire was a possession, so the empire should have been split between those two kids when he died, regardless of gender. Since Honoria was now his wife, and in Hun culture a husband gets all of his wife's possessions when they marry, that made half the Western Roman Empire now Attila's. He spent the remaining three years of his life attempting to seize that land and liberate Honoria from captivity.
• Abortion is vastly more controversial in Ireland than in neighbouring Britain, with even many pro-choice advocates favouring restrictions that would seem extremely conservative across the Irish Sea. Incidentally this attitude extends to Northern Ireland too: opposition to abortion is one of the few beliefs that united Unionists and Nationalists.
  • Even Sinn Fein, a party with very left-wing views that is committed to allowing gay marriage and many other liberal platforms, is sternly opposed to abortion, which probably has to do with the Catholic stance against abortion.
  • Though it's not restricted for women to travel to mainland UK. However as they have to go private, it can cost up to £1000 when you include travel and accomodation, so there's the unfortunate effect of abortions being accessible for richer women but not poorer.
• Even neighbor countries can have different views of public displays of affection. While in Argentina male friends greet each other with a kiss on the cheek, in Brazil even best friends don't usually hug or kiss each other, cause it's considered not "manly". On the other hand, two women can even share a room without being or looking like a couple.
• Strangely, the Balkans are (on average) a very homophobic place- yet people of the same sex sharing beds, kissing each other on the cheek, hugging and being naked around each other when more practical- raises no eye-brows. Same goes for much of the Mediterranean.
  • The whole thing with sharing beds was also done in what would become the US during the time of the American Revolution. There was/is less of a focus on sexuality in these cases. The West seems to think everything is about sex, judging by this wiki, so the perceived dissonance makes sense.
• It's becoming more and more common for a man and a woman to be roommates, even in college. Views range from it being a non-issue to it being completely inappropriate.
• In east Africa, only people of the same gender can hold hands without getting looks.
• When Brits are formally introduced, it is a common courtesy for the man to greet the woman with a light kiss on the cheek. In Australia and New Zealand this action will likely result in a denial, a polite rebuke and an offer to shake hands (the normal ettiquette).
• In the audio commentary for Alone in The Dark, Uwe Boll mentions that he tried to get Tara Reid to go topless during her sex scene with Christian Slater, but she refused. He then tries to blame Reid's refusal to show her breasts for the film's failure, complaining about how uptight American actresses are and that he wouldn't have had this problem in Europe. That's at least a couple kinds of dissonance, right?
  • While the main issue of dissonance there is Uwe Boll's dissonance with reality, truth is that European actors actually tend to accept roles with nudity more easily than American or Asian actors of equivalent experience and fame. An American starlet could do something risqué as a No Nipples-showing topless scene early on their career, and from then on demand nude doubles or even opt out of the film if such an scene would appear in the script, because the general conception is that an actress who does too much nudes can't advance into more "serious" jobs. An European starlet would do full frontal nudity with less damage to her career, even moving to major roles, and if a major role still requires nudity it will be her own body in screen. One of the reasons behind this was that American cinema suffered the Haynes Code (which was incredibly strict, regulating even the amount of cleavage shown) and for a while the only kind of films that defied it were pulp, sexploitation and pseudo-"artsy" movies; when the code was lifted, the stigma remained. European countries didn't have regulations that strict, and mainstream film showing some level of nudity became more accepted - the most risqué products are labeled as "arthouse", but films that in Italy or France are sold as family movies can contain too much nudity for the equivalent PG rating in America.

Food

• Food is a huge source of values dissonance, as is shown in the Foreign Queasine trope. What other cultures may devour with gusto may be met with anything from a mild "huh, weird" to more extreme Squick reactions from others.
• Slurping is (or once was) considered to be polite in Japan, to show that the food was really delicious. In America at least, it's considered rude to slurp. The Japanese noodle-slurping method has the added bonus of cooling the food as it's eaten, but it has the immense and disgusting disadvantage of spraying liquid all over the table. It may have more to do with necessity than values dissonance, though, as when eating noodles with chopsticks, it is nearly impossible not to slurp them.
  • Similarly, in many parts of the world, burping loudly at the end of a meal is expected, either as a form of applause to the cook or as a sign that yes, you're done eating. Not so much in Western society (which used to, but it faded out of fashion).
  • In Japan making noise while eating shows satisfaction. Being completely silent shows that you are eating something extremely vile.
  • Mainly because you can't really fake slurping, due to your own gag reflex. Also, lampshaded in the film Tampopo
• Also on subject of table manners - putting your bowl up to your face to push food directly into your mouth while eating is considered rude in Western cultures, but in many Asian cultures it's acceptable because of the way chopsticks are designed. In Korea, however, this is frowned upon just like in the West.
• Polishing your plate is considered a compliment in Western culture as a sign of appreciation of the food. Traditionally, in Thailand or China, it's considered an insult to the serving size and that the host is not making enough food. It should also be noted that this has lessened recently.
• In Red China Blues, Jan Wong told how she visited China under Communism, and every time she visited a house she would dutifully clean her plate. In her culture, not eating everything you're given is an insult implying that you don't like the food and the host is a poor cook; in the Chinese culture, you were supposed to leave some food to show that you had had your fill, and to finish all you're given implies that the hosts are too poor (or cheap) to provide enough. Most of her hosts were actually very poor, and had to keep giving her second helpings...
• Dietary choice is often subject to this. Vegans are highly Acceptable Targets nowadays, as were vegetarians who did so politically, but even today, the two remain Acceptable Targets for mockery. There is also a Double Standard involved in it too. Female vegetarians actually aren't given that much of a second glance unless they're Straw Vegans part of the Vocal Minority. Males, meanwhile, at least in western culture, are supposed to be shoveling down T-bones, burgers, and fried chicken every chance they get, and vegetarianism in males is usually portrayed as more unhealthy. Meanwhile, in central Asia, vegetarianism is pretty much normal, even in males. Especially true in India; where it was actually encouraged through the caste system and even today, people who practice it often follow the dietary "restrictions". Of course, Indian cuisine is actually quite vegetarian friendly.
  • For that matter; in most western societies, a "healthy meal" is considered "meat and vegetables", with the vegetables as a side. This is partly due to something leftover from the middle-ages, where vegetables were often considered peasant-food and the upper-class people such as nobility and royalty ate meat, and vegetables were often held as "less nourishing". (There is actually some basis in that thought, though. They thought nourishment was how full you felt after a meal. You actually have to eat a lot more Fruits and Vegetables to fill yourself as much as a steak)
    • It also explains why steak is thought of as a rich man's dinner, or at least an upper-middle class man's dinner. Back in the Middle Ages, a farmer would be lucky if he could have one cow.
    • It still is. Meat is still one of the most expensive items in a grocery store, and meat-centered dishes in restaurants are always the costliest.
    • Not really, at least in America. Of course it depends on the cut, but meat really isn't that expensive, and is generally cheaper than seafood. Poultry is generally cheaper than both. Buying food as a vegan/vegetarian is often actually more expensive because you have to buy more.
  • Vegetarians and vegans are thought to be weak and in ill health, although many athletes, particularly endurance athletes, follow these diets. Animal vs. plant protein has also been a major bone of contention with bodybuilders.
    • There's actually some truth to it, in the case of vegans; since they're even more restricted than vegetarians, a lot of things which serve to fill in the gaps left by eschewing meat aren't on the table for them. Vegan diets have to be rigorously planned, and there's pretty much no room to deviate, or else you get an effect not wholly dissimilar to feeding hummingbirds no-calorie sweetener instead of sugarwater.
    • The acceptance of vegetarianism depends on the region pf the US. In the East, it depends on what's being served and whether they prepared for vegetarians (that is, if there's a vegetarian alternative made it's less of a problem than if you made them special-order something). In the Midwest, you're not likely to get out of eating meat, if you're male. In many of the western and southwestern areas, you're not likely to get out of eating meat, even if you're female (with the exception of eating beans in the Southwest).
  • Likewise, gluten-free eating is sometimes a target of derision or exultation, depending on where you are and who your audience is - some athletes swear by gluten-free diets, those with Celiac disease and gluten-intolerance need to limit or completely cut out gluten for health reasons, while others believe it's simply a good way to lose weight.
• Talking during a meal is something that can be interpreted differently. A Norwegian culinary school once invited a group of French chefs as part of an exchange program. When the French at one point served a meal all the Norwegians ate quietly. This caused distress for the French who complained that "They only eat it. They aren't enjoying the meal." Thing is, if you eat quietly in Norway it means you enjoy the food so much that you don't want to be distracted by anyone else.
• Attitudes on bringing food to another's house vary widely by area and event.
• What things are considered edible or not depends wildly on geographical location. Scientists have found that all over the world, the number of plants and meats in local cuisine is made up of a quite short list of ingredients, which are usually those that are the most efficient when it comes to the nutrients they contain compared to the effort needed to produce them.
  • In Africa and Europe, which are home to large numbers of herd animals, dogs are invaluable assistants in hunting. A dog will help a hunter to hunt much more meat during its lifetime than one would get by eating the dog. In regions where dogs are eaten, they are usually very few opportunities to use dogs as assistants in hunting.
    • When people from the Caribbean come to the U.S., they often find Americans' treatment of dogs strange. For example, in many West Indian countries dogs are often given leftovers. There is no such thing as "dog food", though that may be changing due to America's increased influence. They also see dogs as pets that must stay outside, in contrast to Americans who usually only keep certain types of dogs outside (rottweilers and the like).
  • Pigs have a very similar metabolism to humans and require food that could also be eaten by humans, while sheep and goats eat grass and shrubs, which is indigestable for humans. In Europe and East-Asia, pigs can be herded in forests where they will forage for their own food, while in desert regions like Arabia and Palestine, they would compete with humans for what little food there is.
  • In regions where insects are eaten, they are either very large or occur in huge numbers, which makes it very easy to get a good meal with a reasonable amount of effort. In Europe and North America, where insects are much smaller and very hard to find, they don't represent an efficient source of nutrients, so they don't make it on the list that the local people regard as "food".
  • Whether or not killing and eating non-human animals at all is considered completely acceptable or barbaric and cruel depends on the culture, and even individual ethics.
  • Guinea pigs are a delicacy in parts of South America.
  • Cats are also quite popular as food among certain groups in Switzerland and South-Eastern Chinese provinces like Guandong, in Northern China however, eating cat is considered very much unacceptable. Even to other Chinese, Cantonese cuisine is disgusting.
• Australian supermarkets proudly stock, in gigantic letters, COON cheese. It's named after the guy who invented the process for fast maturing cheddar cheese.

Religion and Politics

• The Confederate Flag. A nice symbol of the heritage of the South or an ugly reminder of slavery?
  • Or, alternatively, a symbol of state pride, or the symbol of bloody sedition against one's own country?
  • This wasn't really a problem until about 1948, when Southern Democrats went renegade and formed the States' Rights (or "Dixiecrat") party and adopted the "Stars and Bars" as their unofficial emblem. It was arguably the first time in modern history that Confederate sympathizers had received so much media attention, and the coverage caused the flag to be strongly correlated with segregation in the minds of most other Americans.
  • The flag's reputation is not helped by the fact that many American Neo-Nazi groups use it as a symbol. Once you extend the analogy beyond racial matters, this just becomes silly: the industrialized totalitarian ethos of Nazism doesn't mesh very well with the agrarian libertarian Southern ideal.
  • Then, again the 'confederate' flag used by those groups (the kind seen on the general lee car on Dukes of Hazzard), isn't the actual flag for the confederacy. It's primarily used to denote the south.
• The Romans did not like Christianity one bit. It wasn't fear of something new or contempt for the poor that made Tacitus call the Christians "notoriously depraved"; it was mainly their refusal to perform sacrifices, which to a Roman was the equivalent of modern-day flag-burning. Or worse: many Romans believed that if humans failed to perform sacrifices the gods would destroy the earth via earthquakes, volcanoes, plagues, and other disasters. They also assumed that Christians believed that their religion was ancient and thought it hilarious to mock and belittle them on the issue.
  • The Romans also felt that Jews and Christians were probably the most intolerant religion ever, since they did not accept other gods as real.
  • Romans also believed that Christians performed Brother-Sister Incest because followers addressed each other as "Brother" and "Sister" and said that they loved each other, and believed that Christianity was some kind of death cult, because they used an execution platform as one of their symbols and their followers were often eager to be executed. Let's not even get into how Jesus being his own father impacts his relationship with his mother.
    • That's just the tip of the iceberg. The Roman rumor mill managed to combine the Christian practice of calling their savior "the baby Jesus" (which despite popular belief isn't a carryover from Christmas, but a reference to his child-like innocence) and their eating the "body and blood of Christ" during communion, and led Romans to think Christians ceremonially killed and ate babies.
      • Which makes it all more Ironic that blood libel became a very common accusation against Jews in Medieval (and early modern) Europe.
      • Also, Romans were extremely disturbed by the phrase "washed clean by the blood of christ," taking it to mean that Christians (as essentially a springoff of Judaism) had murdered their own god and bathed in his blood.
    • To Romans, religion was mostly done out in the open (or in publicly accessible temples), unless it was a mystery cult, which usually were offshoot religions that still worshiped well-known gods (Isis, Marduk, etc.). Christians only celebrated indoors, away from the public eye, and this was viewed as highly suspicious.
    • Early Christians also had a tendency to require recent converts to essentially cut themselves off from their non-Christian relatives and only associate with their new Christian brothers and sisters. Today, that would be viewed as classic cult behavior.
• Many depictions of Hindu deities of death or destruction like Kali, Yama or Shiva often include, erm, striking aspects to their iconography such as garlands of skulls, decapitated heads, elongated tongues and bloodied weaponry. It's easy to interpret these things as symbols of violence, evil and cruelty, but they're just meant to represent uncomfortable but necessary facts of life such as- wait for it- death and destruction. In scripture and folklore, these gods are as virtuous and concerned with the welfare of the cosmos as anyone else; in fact Dharmaraj, one of the main characters of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata and the demigod son of Yama (Death), is legendary for his goodness and impeccable sense of justice- the idea being that he inherited his father's impartiality. To Western eyes, though, the sight of somebody worshipping a deity decked out in skulls can lead to some assumptions, and in turn, some Unfortunate Implications.
  • In Kali's case, this really gets confused: Kali is the name of a benign goddess of destruction, but also a male and wicked demon. And, for a long time, there was a real murderous cult (the infamous Thuggees) which deliberately conflated the two in its worship. Is it any wonder that people get confused to this day?
• The English word "idol" has a neutral connotation and is commonly used among Indian Hindus, simply meaning a statue representing a deity. A number of Hindu temples (even in the United States) openly sport signs saying things like "please do not touch the idols". Non-Hindus can be confused or offended by this usage, as idols were associated with the worship of false gods by Abrahamic religions, and that association has largely pervaded the language.
• "Socialist" is considered a grave insult in American politics, being conflated with Communism and Stalinism. In a lot of the world, especially most European and South American countries, socialist parties bear the name openly, and usually one of the strongest parties is the socialist one. There is also a strong divide on the "welfare state", which often carries negative connotations in the US (tho, it is tolerated/accepted by liberal areas), while being seen as very positive in say, Scandinavia or Germany. Related to this, in the US, the Democrats are seen as a left-wing party. Compared to the incredibly diverse party politics of many countries, Democrats are positively centrist, possibly even center-right (Republicans oscillate between right and center-right).
  • To cite just one example, Robert F. Kennedy is widely considered to be a liberal icon in the U.S. and opposition to the Vietnam War; however, his positions on most other issues of the day were actually right-of-center. For instance, he was opposed to busing and the "welfare state", and was openly contemptuous of draft dodgers.
  • In certain countries, 'liberal' is almost an insult.
  • The values dissonance over socialism has led to a dissonance over the definition of the word "socialism" as well. It seems that Europeans feel free to use a broad definition of the word, the U.S. right uses a broad definition so that they can use it as an insult against things they disagree with, and the U.S. left uses a very narrow definition so that they can avoid having their ideas classified under the word and associated with its connotations.
    • In fact, in much of the US, particularly in non-academic circles, "Socialism" simply means "something that you disagree with" as opposed to contributing concepts towards a belief - for instance, "Socialized medicine" is a rarely-used term, because it doesn't mean "medicine for the general social well-being" but "a healthcare system which I disagree with."
  • Some more Values Dissonance can kick in as the word - and its attendant baggage - spreads to include political systems which would not have originally been considered socialist. Europeans often refer to Social Democracy as Socialism, and it is a form of "Socialism Lite." More specifically, it is essentially a regulated free market with a heavy welfare state. Old school Socialists - the ones who want to collectivize the means of production of goods and services - would deny this is Socialism at all. An Economist or Political Philosopher may describe it as a Keynesian capitalist system with a large social safety net, and then argue endlessly about terms. Social Dems may define themselves as Socialist, or not. It doesn't help that Socialism verses Laissez Faire capitalism exist on a continuum. Who, if anyone, is committing a No True Scotsman fallacy is still up for debate.
  • An older reason actually predates Stalinism. Socialism in the US faced huge difficulties because of confusion with the Anarchist movement and with violence. The McNamara brothers bombing of the LA times in 1910 virtually destroyed the party in California when the Socialist became the main opposition party in California.
  • There's also an assumed correlation in the United States between socialism and hostility to religion, or at least secularism. In Europe, though, quite a few socialist parties are openly Christian.
• You can see something similar with the word "fascism" - no one in the post WWII era defines that word in a way that includes something that they support. Many on the left use it to describe extreme right-wing policies, many libertarians use it to describe a high level of government involvement in business, and many gun rights advocates use it to describe firearms controls. This is fairly similar to Godwin's Law on the internet.
• "Communist" is an even graver insult in the U.S., while in much of Europe (especially Italy, France and Cyprus), communist parties enjoy mainstream popularity, but it's an even more grave insult in Eastern Europe.
• The definition of the term "liberal" varies enormously depending on the precise political/economic.geographic context. In the US and Canada, "liberal" means generally left-of center, while in Europe it often means something more right-of-center or libertarian. As mentioned above, North Americans are likely to view liberalism as some sort of precursor to socialism, while Europeans may view it as the most viable alternative to socialism. However, on both continents, "liberal" is also frequently used to refer to a generally free-market economic system (a "liberal economy") or general permissiveness ("he had a liberal attitude towards immigration.")
• Values Dissonance can often be seen during wartime, since it involves two differing societies fighting one another. One historically relevant example would be the differing viewpoints on the issue of surrender between the Japanese and the Western Allies during WWII. Whereas the Western powers such as the United States and Great Britain saw surrender as a respectable way to resolve a battle, the Japanese were taught to believe that surrender was the ultimate disgrace. The obvious result was very few Japanese prisoners due to the majority of them choosing death over capture, while Western prisoners were treated horribly by their Japanese captors. Note that this behavior wasn't traditionally Japanese: during the war with the Russian Empire forty years earlier, their treatment of prisoners was noted for its care and humanity. The harsh, brutal Japanese of WW 2 was the result of massive conscription to support the increasingly expansionist outlook of the Japanese Empire in the 30's. The Japanese military sought for a way to keep said conscripted troops disciplined - since discipline is often a big problem for conscript armies - so they introduced an absolutely brutal training and discipline, as well as an ostensibly samurai-based warrior mythos involving honorable courage and the dishonor of surrender.
  • Another touch of dissonance occurred when British and Australian commandos were captured on a raid to sink ships in Singapore harbor. The Japanese charged them with espionage and the war crime of perfidy, but according to one account called for the death penalty as a mark of respect for the courage and patriotism the commandos had shown. "These heroes must have left Australia with sublime patriotism flaming in their breasts," the prosecutor summed up, and it would be an anticlimax for their lives to continue after such a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• Prior to the mid-20th century, the swastika had only positive connotations and was employed as a design motif in several cultures (and is still used as such in several Asian religions). Needless to say, this leads to some confusion for those whose most direct reference to the symbol is Nazi iconography. The swastika is actually thought to have originated in Hinduism. It was also extremely prominent in Buddhism and Jainism, two of the most non-violent religions in the world.
  • The town of Swastika, Ontario has resisted attempts to change its name, the locals claiming it had the name long before anyone heard of National Socialism. Similarly, a few years ago a bank in Bolton, UK, ruffled a few feathers because it had swastikas on the floor of its entrance. Employees insisted that when the bank was built -- 1927 -- the symbol didn't have negative associations, and had no intention of moving them. They're still there. Additionally, the city hall building in Birmingham, AL was built in the 1920's. It has a carved swastika motif on its outside walls. Similarly, Dublin's Swastika Bakery never changed its name or symbol.
    • "Why would we change our name - they're the ones who suck?"
  • It was also a popular and widespread American Indian symbol, and one of the insignia for Americans flying in the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I was the head of an Indian wearing the feathered war bonnet with a swastika pretty much in the center of the image. Notably, the swastika was facing the same direction as the later Nazi version.
  • In early 1942, an American Army division raised in Arizona and New Mexico was just about to board ship for the voyage to Britain as the vanguard of the American commitment to the European war. The American soldiers were expected to perform a "hearts and minds" outreach to their British hosts and they were to be used in propaganda exercises as a symbol of the new anti-Hitler alliance, American and British soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder against the Nazi menace. It ws noticed with days to go before they set sail that the divisional badge, a large and obvious four-inch-square embroidered patch worn prominently on the right shoulder of all 23,000 personnel, was a traditional Navaho Indian symbol of good luck and prosperity. Which for the previous three years had had completely different connotations in Europe and especilly in Britain, where the swastika symbolised something else entirely... the divisional badge was very hurriedly unpicked from 23,000 shoulders and discreetly replaced with something less contentious.
  • It was also widespread symbol in Central Europe, very common among the Carpathian Highlanders (a popular pre-war ornament in Tatra Region).
• Eugenics was popular idea before the Holocaust. In fact, in Canada at least it was considered a hugely progressive, almost bleeding-heart liberal idea - people like Nelly McClung and Tommy Douglas spoke out in its favor, on the grounds that it was a humanitarian way to help the disabled, by preventing them from having children they couldn't care for and weren't capable of choosing to have. Eugenic laws were still on the books in the USA up until 1964, and a Maryland governor proposed a revival in the 1990s. Sterilizations continued in Sweden until 1975.
  • Speaking of Tommy Douglas, his views on homosexuality (namely that it was a "mental disorder") were actually intended to convey sympathy for gays rather than hostility. It reads rather differently today.
    • But, ironically, being diagnosed with a mental disorder is no longer considered such a stigma, especially now that a huge mass market in psychiatric drugs encourages more such diagnoses. The pendulum may eventually swing all the way back in the future, though, as there is increasing backlash against the employment of mental disorders as a sort of Freudian Excuse.
• George W. Bush once used the word "Paki" under the mistaken belief that it's an accepted informality for a Pakistani person, akin to "Brit" for a British person or "Aussie" for an Australian. In the UK, Canada and all of South Asia, it is a highly offensive racial slur. Unlike the other -stans, which are named for specific ethnic groups, Pakistan is an acronym, as detailed here- however, it had no negative connotations until many South Asians arrived in Britain and paki was used a slur, divorced from its origins. In fact, part of the reason for the name was the Persian word "pak", which means "pure".
  • When used in Pakistan the response is "huh"? Not insulting in the least and rather puzzling.
• Crime and Punishment. Different nations have different concepts of the purpose of the justice system. Some are punishment focused, some focused on seperating out the criminal population, and some in rehabilitating the prisoners. A great example of this is shown in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunals as the criminals go to various nations prisons depending on their sentence and the person. So a prisoner might end up in a Finish prison and serve 1/2 of their sentence as a reward for good behavior, and end up in a prisoner nicer than their home in Yugoslava that is focused on rehabilitating criminals. Or a run down english prison focusing on retribution with the full sentence imposed. And that's not getting into sentencing, where life may mean 20 years (10 if good behavior) or might mean until you're dead even if that's in 90 years. In the aforementioned Yugoslav example, a sentence of 30 years sparked an outcry in the former Yugoslav for being too light in not being life, when it was actually 10 years longer than a life sentence in the country it is carried out in.
  • Case point: In Bosnia the fact that Biljana Plavsic (whose policies included the murder and expulsion of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people respectively) was let out of prison after serving 8 years and now lives a comfortable live as national hero in Serbia is seen with utmost disgust and as proof exactly how little Europe cares for human lives as long as they're Muslim ones; the Swedish judicial system, on the other hand, claims that her apologizing for what she did (despite retracting it as soon as she got out) is proof that she is rehabilitated- from multiple counts of crimes against humanity.
• Oddly for two such geographically proximate countries, the US and Canada have very different attitudes about religion. As a general rule, Canadians view faith as an intensely private matter, something that it would be considered rude to discuss with a stranger. A politician would never end a speech with "God bless Canada" if he wanted to be re-elected. (There are of course exceptions, but the prevailing attitude is "leave that stuff at home".) By contrast, many Canadians find the emphasis that Americans place on faith, especially Christianity, to be bewildering.
  • An example showed up in 2000 when both countries were having national elections: at one point during both campaigns, the subject of Creationism and teaching it in schools came up. In the US, George W. Bush (who probably didn't care about it one way or the other) made some comments that could be interpreted as being in support to placate his religious base, while Al Gore, who can safely be assumed to not be a Creationist, had to pussyfoot around the issue so as not to raise the ire of the Christian Right. In Canada, when it emerged that Stockwell Day had Creationist leanings, he sought to downplay the issue and was openly mocked by both Jean Chrétien, the Liberal leader, and political commentators.
  • Notable Canada-U.S. differences also manifest in the respective countries' attitudes towards gun ownership and "socialism". The American attitudes towards these things have already been noted, but in Canada, handguns are heavily restricted and no one bats an eye at this, the long-gun registry being controversial more because it does little to actually stop gun crimes (compared to the multi-billion dollar price tag) and makes life unnecessarily difficult for rural people. Similarly, government-run health care is a given, and any politician who tried to get rid of it would be committing career suicide. Even in Alberta, the most conservative province in the country, attempts to introduce more private delivery for health care has been met with a storm of protest. The socialist New Democratic Party has also wielded quite a bit of influence, governing several provinces at different points and otherwise getting its legislation passed in exchange for propping up a governing party. That's another difference; a modern third party that has influence other than splitting the vote (although vote-splitting and soft jerrymandering are still intense problems in Canada as they are in the States).
• Overt flag-waving patriotism is uncommon (barring sporting events or national days) and frowned upon in many countries, particularly those in Northern Europe. In the US, however, it is not.
  • This is rather complicated and controversial in England, because the English flag was used as the symbol for the far-right group the National Front, seen by many as a fascist and racist organisation. As a result, some people are uncomfortable with the flag being displayed because of these connotations (while many patriotic people get annoyed that they can be mistaken for racist just for using the country's symbol). People in general are a lot more relaxed about it if there's a big sporting event on at the time, such as the football World Cup, but seeing a lot of England flags outside of a sporting context can make British people very wary. Note that this only applies to the St. George's Cross (a red cross on a white background, representing England), not the Union Flag (the red, white and blue design that represents the UK as a whole).
  • Many commentators believe that this attitude (in Europe in particular) is a result of the devastation of the World Wars in the first half of the 20th century, which essentially discredited overt patriotism for most Europeans. As the U.S. has never gone through such harrowing experiences, flag-waving is still considered thoroughly socially acceptable in that country.
    • Which actually gave major sporting events taking place in Europe kind of a "therapeutic" effect due to the ability to openly display national pride on a large scale in the peaceful sporting context.
  • As opposed to the rest of the UK flag waving is very... popular... in Northern Ireland, though it has very sectarian overtones. If you go into an area with Union Flags flying everywhere, the inhabitants will not be happy to hear you're catholic (i.e. will beat the crap out of you). Similarly if you go into an area with Tricolours everywhere, you better not say you're a protestant.
  • Also this has been used for emotional impact in certain works when a quiet country gets out a flag and starts waving it. The climax of Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig ended with an unabashed display of Japanese patriotism. Quite a shock compared to the moderate and quiet attitude of the country.
  • The overt flag-waving isn't found in Canada, and many Canadians actually view it as obnoxious instead of patriotic, even on Canada Day. It's not uncommon for Americans to be mocked among Canadians for their flag-waving habits.
• In several European countries, children get their presents a few days before Christmas in a visit from St. Nicholas (Santa Claus, Father Christmas, whatever) and his helpers, who are often in blackface. The real St. Nicholas had amassed some disciples among the Moorish people. There was a Victorian era morality tale where St. Nicholas dipped some naughty boys into a giant ink well for making fun of a "black-a-moor."
  • The actual practice most likely derives, however from a much more innocent and practical (not to mention heartwarming) source. That of (childless) neighbours putting soot on their faces and wearing dark clothes in order to sneak to the house to leave presents for their neighbours' children outside the window or door without without the children realizing the presents came from their parents, who were right there the whole time. The outlandish clothes and blackface make-up of the people playing the helpers still serves the function of disguising the actual person's identity today. (Which is also a large part of why attempts to make the practice more politically correct are strongly resisted: Without the disguise, even small children would realize that these people are neighbours and family members and that would ruin the magic and wonder of the whole thing).
    • On another note in many (mostly catholic) regions in Germany and Austria the tradition called "Sternsingen" or "Drei-Königs-Singen"(lit.: "Star Singing"/ "Three Kings` Singing") is still vivid. On 6th of January children dress up as the Three Kings of the East (+ 1 in a white gown, who wears a staff with a star ontop and symbolizes the star that led them to the crib), go from house to house, sing songs or recite poems, mark the house with a blessed chalk, get candy and collect money for charity. (The "charity" part didn`t get popular before the latter half of the last century, though). That`s kinda adorable, isn`t it? Like christian Trick-or-Treating! If it weren`t for the fact, that the kids wear horribly streotyped arabian clothing and the shortest one takes on a blackface. Noone has a problem with it though, due to the combined power of "old tradition" and "charitable event".
  • Described by David Sedaris in "6 to 8 Black Men." In "Jesus Shaves," he talks about taking a language course in France where the class was asked to describe things that go on during the holidays, which came to a grinding halt when he tried to describe the Easter bunny/rabbit delivering eggs and chocolate to children - in France, a bell from Rome delivers presents to children on Easter.
• T.E. Lawrence in his memoirs noted among other things that European considered killing a crippled horse an act of mercy (and probably could take a dim view of a man not doing so) while for Arab it's rather appalling.
• The infamous Michael Fay case and other instances where a country's continuing use of judicial corporal punishment came up against First-world Western notions of torture.
  • On the other hand, it also revealed how much Values Dissonance there was in the United States itself, as a number of Americans actually supported the punishment.
• Sharia law has a number of interpretations, some of which are quite moderate by Western standards. More fundamentalist interpretations contain elements that seem completely barbaric to outsiders, like the death penalty for apostasy (or for adultery, or a hundred other things...). Saudi Arabia in particular has a very bad record in terms of human rights, including things like slavery, torture, and institutionalized rape.
  • Sharia arbitration tribunals in England have been criticized on matters of domestic abuse and inheritance. The few cases of marital abuse arbitrated have all seen the abusive husbands in the wrong, but usually given only social disapproval and enforced counseling, while the wife drops charges. Whether this seems like a sexist sidestepping of criminal justice or an acceptable way to express and enforce social disapproval and strengthen community ties while saving a marriage likely depends on which community one belongs to. As well, there have been instances of inheritance arbitrations awarding female inheritors half of what their male counterparts receive, something explicitly within the law... a law which at the time it was made was remarkably progressive, reversing a cultural standard of not just women receiving little-to-nothing, but also ensuring that all children were entitled to inheritance, instead of a single heir. Women receiving less inheritance at the time made simple economic sense (they were less likely to be breadwinners or need business seed money, and also received brideprice from their husbands); the Arbitration Tribunal in question today has acknowledged the dissonance in women's roles and expressed interest in reconciling modern British cultural standards with Islamic law.
    • People coming from countries with thoroughly written and detailed civil laws would be appalled at the fact a religion-based law system would get precedence over established state courts, even if only for a few people from a religious minority. (Guess they would be just as appalled to see the recordings of American courts no earlier than 1920s for the matter).
      • Arbitration tribunals have been in the UK for over 100 years (Sharia tribunals are new, Jewish ones are much older) and they are pretty limited. To start with they only have any power if both parties agree to take the arbitrators service, they don't have "precedence" over state courts. The law that allows them pretty much says "the parties should be free to agree how their disputes are resolved, subject only to such safeguards as are necessary in the public interest", some people just agree on a religious tribunal.
  • Iranians never use the word Sharia for their so-called Islamic laws. This is because that their judicial and political system is far away from Sharia law. Most of the judicial system is made-up in place, and the political system is Communism in the shell of Capitalism presented as Neo-Islamic. Although, because of its name, most Western countries assume that Iran is a barbaric autocratic wasteland that executes homosexuals and adulterers.
    • Assumption isn't necessary - Iran has executed around 5000 people for homosexuality since the revolution.
  • The viability of Sharia law in Western countries is a source of Values Dissonance. For Westerners, each country has its own laws, and moving to another country makes you subject to its laws. The exception -- extraterritoriality -- existed in the context of imperialism, where Europeans would be subject to European laws and courts, even for matters taking place in Africa or Asia, and has obvious Unfortunate Implications. To Muslims, however, the idea that law attaches to a people, rather than to a geographic area, has roots in Islamic jurisprudence, most particularly the Ottoman Empire, where there was Islamic law for Muslims, Jewish law for Jews, Christian law for Christians, and each community had some degree of autonomy.
    • Not really. Everyone lived under Islamic law in the Ottoman Empire; Jews and Christians had their own laws for purely internal matters, but that was it.
  • Perhaps a confusing case for the rest of the world is Oklahoma banning Sharia law - the ballot initiative (and similar ones directed at certain populations, including bans on gay marriage) are often used in the US to get very conservative voters out to vote. The Islamic population in Oklahoma is so small that the law may as well have banned all Martian law.
• The practice of bounty hunting is legal only in the Philippines and 46 US states (Oregon, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin do not allow it.) Most of the world does not allow it.
• Socialized Medicine:
  • A great example of dissonance is provided unwittingly by that very phrase above: the word 'Socialized' is an implicit slur in the US (see "socialist" above), but wouldn't be seen as big deal in most other countries. Furthermore, the very idea that the state does not provide some sort of guaranteed medical health care to a large part of the population is seen as silly in the majority of European and Latin American countries, even in places like Brazil, where the quality of the state health care is incredibly poor, but any politician trying to remove it as a right would be committing political suicide.
    • In Canada, and possibly other nations, it's generally referred to as "public health care" or simply "health care" rather than socialized medicine, which demonstrates the different attitude towards it.
    • As mentioned, "socialized" is a slur in the United States, so only those who are opposed to it called it socialized. You can almost predict whether someone supports it or not by what they call it. "Socialized medicine," "socialized healthcare," and "Obamacare" are preferred names among those opposed, while "public payer," "universal health insurance," "universal coverage," and "health care reform" are preferred among those in support. More descriptive terms, like "insurance mandates," "single payer system," and "public option" to refer to specific possibilities about how the health care system could be regulated are generally neutral, although "public option" is a more supportive term than "government option."
  • Americans in support of public health care use Canada's system as a shining example. The healthcare system in Canada actually varies from province to province, and many Canadians don't think it's all that great (compliment the system after waiting 20 hours in emergency with a broken jaw).
    • On the other hand, suggest to most Canadians that the system should become more like the American one and they'll look at you with a mixture of disbelief and horror. Again, the general mentality in these countries is that it's better to have a bad system than no system.
• In many cultures, suicide is regarded as horrendously wrong and even a one way ticket to Hell. Other cultures, a Proud Warrior Race for instance, may allow suicide for altruistic reasons or follow the edict of "Death before dishonor". In some cultures, the method of suicide is important factor in regarding its morality. This can differ even from one person to another. The philosophers of Ancient Greece all had differing opinions.
• What would you do if you found Christ's cross in perfect condition? Sell it? Give it to a museum? The Church? If you were a Medieval Catholic, you'd bust it apart. Back in the day, it was believed that every church needed a sacred relic and that a part of a relic was a relic unto itself. Needless to say, the original cross is probably splinters now, assuming it even survived to the middle ages in the first place.
  • The Romans would have been extremely unlikely to preserve a used torture/execution implement, especially since it was used to kill a minor messiah cult leader and not anyone the Romans thought was important.
• Canada and the United States also tend to have different views on political rights. Much of the US Constitution consists of clauses stating that 'The Government can only do this, that and this other thing.' Canadians generally tend to think more in terms of 'The government has to provide me with X, Y and Z.' The Canadian constitution does guarantee such rights as freedom of speech and so on, but the few occasions those have been suspended caused very little complaint. The debate over socialized medicine in the US therefore caused much bafflement on both sides of the border, with Canadians wondering why the US didn't have public medicine in the first place and the Americans wondering how the Canadians could stand the government using their tax dollars on something that must be an enormous waste of money.
  • Americans also tend to be extremely distrustful of their government and concerned over it taking too much power. Canadians tend to simply ignore theirs until something goes wrong.
    • Canadians have on occasion been leery about how centralized their government is. Too much power at the Federal level is considered a bad thing.
  • Also worth noting is that what most Europeans (and maybe Canadians) consider rights, are considered by Americans to be privileges or entitlements.
• The LDS Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah has rather interesting decorations on its façade, to the point where a common question to tour guides is, "Why are there Satanic pentagrams on the temple?" Similar to the swastika, the pentagram, both upright and inverted, has been in use for millennia in several cultures, including as a Christian symbol. Inverted pentagrams didn't come to be almost exclusively associated with Satanism until the mid-20th century, decades after the temple was completed.
• In many parts of the United States (primarily the southern and central parts of the country), atheism is considered deviant or even abhorrent behavior, and admitting to being an atheist or even an agnostic will often result in much dismay and disapproval (in certain parts of the country threats and even outright harassment are common; additionally, a poll has rated the public opinion concerning atheists lower than Acceptable Professional Targets like used car salesmen and even serial killers). In most European countries atheism isn't a taboo subject at all, and is almost considered the norm in some places.
  • This actually goes right along with the American and European views of communism, being a hold-over from Cold War-era propaganda. The Soviet Union was officially atheist and tried to suppress religion, so in addition to telling Americans to be proud of their capitalism and hate those damn dirty communists, the government told them to be proud of their Christianity and hate those damn dirty atheists. It's the reason "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" was made the country's unofficial motto.
• The teaching of evolution in school over creation is almost entirely uncontroversial, except in parts of the U.S., where some groups are trying to get "intelligent design"- taught in schools. In most western nations outside of the US, the idea of teaching intelligent design in a science classroom is rather shocking.
  • In many parts of the country, the divide is between public schools and certain parochial schools.
• Throughout much of Western history, a fine was considered an appropriate punishment for murder. This was in part because said fines were often obscenely huge (under the Westrogothian law, the fine for murder was 21 marks, i.e. the approximate value of an average farm, including serfs and animals), and in part because precious metals were valuable as status markers rather than currency.
• Standards of modesty, especially for women, are a particularly rich source of dissonance. Some cultures consider it fine for women to go topless (at least at the beach) while others insist that a lock of hair showing constitutes indecent exposure. And it's not just a simple question of more or less clothing - in some places no one will look twice if you're wearing a miniskirt and a cleavage-baring top, but your shoulders had better not be showing. In others shoulders are no big but any leg above the ankle is taboo. And so on.
  • The location or type of clothing also matters. In many places, a bikini at the beach is fine, but change the scenario to a more modest set of bra and panties and move from the beach to a city sidewalk, and it's supposed to be embarrassing.
  • Ths is important in Israel, which some unwary visitors might see as a nation with generally European values where European social conventions might apply. This is fine in many places, but women who are dressed perfectly normally and conventionally by accepted European standards, who have strayed unto ultra-Orthodox Jewish areas, have been spat on, abused, and physically assaulted by the haredi for being "immodestly dressed. Women have been beaten up for exposing bare arms, going hatless, showing knees, or just sitting in the wrong seat on a Jerusalem bus. In the town of Beit Shemesh, the haredi (extreme ultra-orthodox Jews, a sort of Judaic Taliban) have gone so far as to attack eight-year old girls for being "immodestly dressed".
  • An illustration (of questionable veracity) of cultural dissonance that is often found anthropology texts speaks about what happens if a stranger walks in on a woman in the shower: a European/North American would cover her breasts with one hand and her pubic area with the other, a Muslim woman would cover her face, some tribal African and South Americans would only cover the pubic area, not bother to do anything, or reach for the bellybutton (or some other body part).
• Many Mormons have problems with having language, sexuality and nudity in the media but seemingly have no problem with violence. One example is actress A.J. Cook refusing to do nudity or sex scenes in films but willing to appear in horror films such as Final Destination 2. Another example is theatre owner Larry Miller refusing to run Brokeback Mountain or Zack and Miri Make a Porno due to their sexual content (when in fact, he had seen neither film). However, he raised no objection to running Gorn titles such as Hostel and Saw V.
  • In Cook's defense, violence in films, even down to the simplest punch, is completely simulated. Sex scenes are only simulated inasmuch as there's no penetration, but things like kissing and fondling are very real, and it's perfectly rational for a religious person to not want to let someone who's nothing more than a co-worker do those things to her.
• Aztec religion tends to horrify people from most other cultures, given that it involved an incredible number of Human Sacrifices, often in very gory ways. However, from their perspective, this was absolutely necessary to prevent The End of the World as We Know It, and as such people who were sacrificed wound up in one of the nicer heavens.
• In Eastern European countries, if a cop harasses you for anything milder than a killing spree he probably just wants a handout. So bribing is considered very normal and part of the system (think of it as being like tipping). In Western countries bribing a policeman seems grossly privileged and corrupt. There was some kerfuffle about an athlete of Polish origin who tried to bribe the cops to help out his friend (who was having a party in the hotel and things got out of hand). From an Eastern perspective he was just being a good friend.
• This is perhaps the biggest reason why Liu Shan is such a Base Breaker even today. When Wei laid siege to Nanzhong, at the end Liu Shan chose to surrender. This action is seen as the actions of either a man who chose to protect his people from possible death than continuing a war that could not be won or a disgrace to his legacy who rendered the sacrifices and contributions of his father and followers worthless. Most of this mindset is enforced by the above mentioned belief of honor (That it's better to die with honor than to live in disgrace) while others believe if Liu Shan was more competent then perhaps Shu would've been the one to unite China. It doesn't help that some materials based on the Three Kingdoms Era portray Liu Shan as incompetent (If not a complete idiot).
• Going to church can be this. In the U.S. South, going to church is something everybody does. It doesn't matter what they actually do or believe outside of church, come Sunday and Wednesday (for bible study) everybody and their mother is in church. But in other countries (and even in other parts of the U.S.) anybody who goes to church regularly is seen as a bible thumping conservative weirdo. Also, because of everybody going to church, churches are everywhere. In Georgia, it is common to see 3 churches all within a few yards, and also to see churches in strip malls.
  • In the southern US it's common to greet new neighbors by asking them what church they go to. In many other parts of the world asking someone right off what church they attend would be considered boundary-challenged, roughly the equivalent of asking them to list their favorite sexual position.
  • Then there's what goes on in church. In many predominantly black Baptist churches, it is common to yell "Amen!" during the sermon, for people to 'get the Holy Ghost' and start carrying on, for the music to be loud and moving, and for the sermons (and services) to be long (as long as from 11 to 3 including after-church fellowship). Getting the Holy Ghost in a Catholic or Episcopalian church would garner some strange looks (and in extreme cases might get you escorted out), the music is often older hymns played on the organ, and many Catholic and Episcopalian services are over in an hour (less during football season).
    • Black Catholic parishes also tend to have grandmothers responding during the sermon.
    • YMMV, as people "getting the Holy Ghost" and other more charismatic displays of worship depends more on a denomination or church's doctrine than the racial composition of its members. Generally speaking, most Baptist churches, regardless of race, frown upon charismatic showings of the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit (e.g. "getting the Holy Ghost," being "slain in the Spirit," or "speaking in tongues"). A congregant "getting the Holy Ghost" is just as likely to be escorted out of a black Baptist church as they are a white Baptist or mainline church. Charismatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit are much more common in Pentecostal or independent black churches, as well as white Pentecostal, Holiness, or charismatic churches. But generally speaking, other differences, such as the amount of time dedicated to Sunday services, music, etc., tends to be based more in culture than religious doctrine.
• Debates on the Bill of Rights generally center on the difference between the words "given" and "guaranteed." It's not uncommon to hear, in a debate, that "just because the Constitution gives you the right to bear arms/have a lawyer/refuse unwarranted search doesn't mean that you should have it." American political philosophy holds that the Constitution simply protects the rights every human has. Thus, to an American, a shopkeeper in 1942 Berlin had every much a right to protest Hiter as a shopkeeper in 2011 Alabama has to protest Obama, but the Nazi government was infringing on that right in violation of the laws of nature. This causes people even in fairly liberal parts of the world to have difficulty understanding why so many Americans make such a big deal out of things like Google cooperating with Chinese censorship laws.
  • This actually goes a long way to explaining earlier examples such as Americans' aversion to socialism and their viewing as "entitlements" things Europeans view as "rights." Simply put the traditional American view is that rights, including the right to hold private property, are given to us by nature and/or God, and any curtailment of those rights, no matter how well intentioned, is a human rights violation, if not a violation of divine law and an offense against God. This includes all forms of wealth redistribution. This is also why some Americans use words like "confiscatory" and "punitive" to describe European tax rates.
• What is considered a "proper" or "real" Jew, Muslim or Christian varies widely by region. A devout bible-belt protestant is in for quite a shock when traveling to parts of, say Germany; an orthodox Israeli Jew would hardly recognize some California Jews as belonging to the same religion at first sight and a Saudi will probably think that whole story about Bosnia being 50% Muslim is a sham when he sees that people behave, dress and consume alcohol and marijuana in roughly the same manner regardless of religion. In some parts of the world merely saying you belong to a religion is good enough for everyone (ie. religion is a choice,) in more conservative parts that claim tends to get put under scrutiny and is open to criticism by society at large (ie. religion is a choice- and a duty.)
• How openly people can express anti-Semitic ideas varies from place-to-place. In the U.S., where freedom of speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment, people can deny the Holocaust, though they generally aren't taken very seriously. In many places in Europe, however, they would be risking jail time or a fine. And then there are places like Saudi Arabia, where The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is taught as fact in schools.
• The concept of freedom of speech is also a source of dissonance, with the First Amendment in the U.S. mentioned above giving everyone the right (with very few exceptions, like obscenity, which is rarely enforced, and treason) to say pretty much anything they want, even things that will incite racial hatred. In other places, governments can clamp down on things like racist speech, and others do away with the concept of freedom of speech entirely.
• Dia de los Muertos ("Day of the Dead") is seen as onerous in the US (at best, a very bizarre tradition) - skulls used to portray the dead are seen as insulting in the US.

Miscellaneous

• Land use policies vary extremely between rural and urban areas in the US. Due to the rather different experiences someone who lives at the edge of a forest compared to someone who lives in a high rise you get huge value differences in how they not only view acceptable crowding, but also how much land should be use for agriculture or timber harvesting versus wilderness. This also leads to differences in environmental viewpoints. Urban-Suburban Americans often have the impression that wilderness is very nearly a thing of the past, while those living in rural areas are very familiar with the opposite: the country is actually quite sparsely populated outside major cities. In some areas, wilderness has rapidly encroached: the small towns of the Northeast that are now surrounded by forest were farming communities surrounded by fields a century ago. Even rural residents have a major differences in how they see nature depending on their area. Midwest/Southeast/Rockies= There is plenty of nature left so lets use it. West Coast= We should preserve that natural forest for future generations. Northeast= The natives burned the forest periodically and plained off hills for cornfields; we've cut down the trees three times and stripped it for coal but it has almost reached a climax forest again so let me cut down my trees if I want to.
  • A form of this can come up and create misunderstandings when showing a character's private property. In very rural parts of the country, it's not uncommon, or at least not improbable, to have very large tracts of private land, which, when displayed in suburban or urban America, can mistakenly note a character as being very rich for having a large estate, land-wise.
• Naked kids on, say, beaches and in magazine photos of same were once widely considered innocent and asexual (the almost bare-bottomed Coppertone Baby is something of an artifact), rather than prey for the pedophiles no doubt lurking behind the nearest tree.
  • In most parts of Europe it is still common.
    • In Portuguese tabloid magazines it's common for pictures of stars' young children running around on the beach topless or nude to appear with the child's face mosaiced or blurred (to protect their identity), and their chest and/or other areas left uncensored.
  • In America the 'all kids are in danger of being nabbed by a pedo any second' paranoia has led to cases where people have actually attacked single adults in public with children. The adult in question usually turns out to be the child's parent (there are many, many single-parents in the country but no one seems to remember that when they see a small child with a single adult). There is an extreme gender bias in the paranoia, however, in that a child with an adult man is almost immediately assumed to be being kidnapped even if the child is going with him willingly, whereas a child, even a screaming and crying child, walking with an adult woman is usually only seen as a disobedient kid being handled by their mother. The latter is an assumption which has led to a handful of cases where a child was actually being kidnapped but no one intervened.
    • This same paranoia has led to another problem of fathers who are often afraid to be openly affectionate toward their own children, especially daughters, for fear of being seen as a child molester. Some fathers even refuse to feed or change diapers of their own children in public, or bathe them at home, for the same reason and leave all of these things for the mother to do.
  • Even in the U.S., it was once common for high school boys to go naked for their indoor swim classes. (Girls' classes were held separately, in one-size-doesn't-fit-anybody swimwear provided by the school.) Imagine a school board's reaction to that proposal nowadays...
• There's the infamous 1976 exhibition "match" between boxing legend Muhammad Ali and Japanese wrestling icon (and Mixed Martial Arts pioneer) Antonio Inoki. Most in the West saw the fight as an embarrassing farce -- with Inoki spending virtually the entire 15 rounds on his back, in a defensive position, kicking at Ali whenever he approached. But in Asian countries, especially Japan, the fight is seen as a victory of brains over brawn. This is a P.O.V. somewhat supported by various rules changes in the months leading to the match that barred Inoki from using wrestling moves or standing kicks (Basically forcing Inoki to try and outpunch or get creative). There's also the fact that being kicked in the same muscle for 45 minutes caused blood clots which eventually required surgery. Ali's legs were never the same.
• Soccer can also suffer from the same kind of dissonance:
  • On the technical front, the English are notoriously physical in their approach, as contrasted with the highly technical Italians, whom they continually mocked due to the strong defensive tradition. Italy's '80s great defender Claudio Gentile is the epitome of the dissonance. He was so good as virtually keeping the opposition's key player out of the game by marking him with extreme pressure: football fans of English leaning (and there are many nowadays) tend to write it off as anti-football, while others consider it to be tactically ingenious. A more recent example is Jose Mourinho's treble-winning Inter side, which were very divisive in their defensive approach.
    • Former footballer Gianluca Vialli, an Italian who achieved success in both Italy and England, noted that in England, even a skillful player wouldn't have much respect unless he runs all the time. Intelligent, highly efficient players like Dimitar Berbatov, then, are somewhat frowned upon.
  • Off the field, the game is infamously unpopular in the USA. The complaint invariably revolves around the "WILL SOMEONE JUST SCORE ALREADY" question (see below). Of course, while scarce, the magnitude of scoring in (association) football is far higher than in, say, basketball. If someone scores in football, the crowd goes nuts, the players are scattering around the field celebrating, and the celebration could last minutes. In the end, it's the same ratio, really. Canadians generally tend to have the same dim view of soccer as their American neighbors as well.
  • In the US it seems to be mainly a women's game, whereas in much of the rest of the world it's predominantly seen as a man's game. Though in those countries it's a very popular sport for children to engage in too (and growing in popularity for women). Whereas the US is the only country where it seems to be only for women and children.
    • This may have to do with soccer's perceived relative simplicity to other American sports. Throwing children on a field and telling them to kick a ball around for a few hours is easier than teaching them baseball or American football, which take years to learn to play properly. Outside of their native soil American sports tend to get similar treatment when soccer is the dominate sport.
  • Baseball also sees its share of dissonance. With the popularity of the WBC and international little league events, baseball has grown in popularity nearly everywhere in the world. Yet in Western Europe and Australia, baseball is a dead sport, seen as something no one but the Americans play.
  • Whereas in New Zealand, both footballs (American and soccer), baseball, and basketball are all fairly dead in comparison to rugby, cricket, and netball.
  • The second most watched sport after soccer is, of all things, cricket. This causes dissonance as most wouldn't consider it to eclipse other allegedly more "popular" sports. However considering the sport is massive in the likes of the UK, India, Pakistan and Australia to name but a few, it's suddenly not so surprising.
  • Values dissonance is evident even in the above troper's use of the phrase "of all things". For this English troper who was raised with cricket as the second most high-profile sport after football/"soccer" (my compulsion to use air quotes around the word soccer is also indicative of values dissonance), implying that cricket is unusual is how it might be for an American if someone said "of all things, the 2nd most popular is basketball".
• "Bastard" is considered far more insulting in Germany than it is in America. There is likewise a divide between the Australian and British usage of 'bastard'. It is much more insulting to Brits than Aussies, the latter using it quite affectionately much of the time. The most well known example of this probably being the response of then Australian cricket-team captain Bill Woodfull to Brit captain Douglas Jardine's complaint that he had been called a bastard by one of the Aussie team. Woodfull turned to the team and said "Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"
  • And 'bollocks' seems to be fairly mild in US English compared to its use in the UK.
    • This is likely because the word just isn't used much in the US, similar to "wanker", and when it is it's usually mistaken for a funny foreign euphemism for "bullshit".
• The use of the word "nigger" is considered very offensive and "negro" very politically incorrect in the U.S., while in other countries variations of negro are perfectly normal, as "negro" is merely Spanish for "black". "Negro" and "colored" were considered perfectly acceptable terms in the US as well up until about the late-20th century ("nigger," on the other hand, seems to have always been offensive). (This neutral connotation survives in the names of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United Negro College Fund.)
• Interestingly, "black" was considered an insulting and negative exaggeration in the 19th century US. There seems to be a slight shift back to this position; while "black" is still considered generally acceptable in modern times, the frequently (but not universally) preferred "official" designation for formal contexts is "African-American". Which gets really weird when Americans go abroad; what happens when you meet a black Englishman?
  • A white South African immigrant to the United States could technically use the term "African-American". But this Just Isn't Done, except maybe as a joke.
  • In many countries where there is little to no black population, "nigger" is commonly used to refer to blacks.
    • Also, some blacks have no problem referring to each other as "nigger," usually in a humorous way (listen to any early Richard Pryor routine), although this is a much-debated topic in the black community. But use of that word by a white person is a definite no-no. Though they'll often insist it is, in fact, the completely different word "nigga", note the A.
  • Even in nearby Canada this leads to Values Dissonance. "African", "African-Canadian", and "Afro-Canadian" are considered quite offensive by most Black Canadians, seeing as over 60% of Canada's black population is of Caribbean ancestry.
    • But weren't the Black populations of the Caribbean islands descended from African slaves in the first place?
    • Yes, but some people prefer to be identified by their nationality instead of their ethnicity.
    • And don't forget about those with direct roots from the African continent itself, in which case the above terms would hardly be offensive.
    • And yet they still can be. "African" is a fairly generic identifier. If someone is a second generation Canadian whose parents are from Ethiopia, African-Canadian is technically accurate, but they might prefer Ethiopian-Canadian. Really, the best rule of thumb is to use whatever the person themself uses, if you know it.
  • Then in the opposite fashion, using "Afro-Caribbean" or a similar term in Britain is almost always derided as pretentious over-politeness, and "black" is universally acceptable and officially correct (this is probably also because "Black British" has Alliteration).
  • Although a racial slur, the word "macaca" (derived from the macaque monkey) is a fairly common one with French-speaking African white people. When Senate candidate George Allen used it to refer to a videographer at a campaign stop, it all but ended his candidacy; when people learned what it meant, they took it to be as bad as "nigger".
  • In Costa Rica calling a black person anything other than "negro", spanish for "black", is considered offensive
    • Likewise "negro", or "negra", is used as a term of endearment in a lot of Spanish speaking cultures.
  • There is a Chinese brand of toothpaste that until a few years ago called itself "Darkie" and used a blackface image because they thought that black people really had teeth that white. It's now called "Darlie," and the image is of a normal-looking black man (albeit in a minstrel-style top hat). However, the Chinese text still reads "Black Man Toothpaste." Incidentally, there is also a "Whiteman" brand toothpaste, though Darlie is still far, far more popular.
  • In South Africa, the racial term "coloured" is not considered offensive, since it refers to someone of a particular Afrikaans-speaking cultural group which has mixed Black/White/Asian ancestry (and a significant amount of them are Muslim).
    • The term "kaffir" is considered extremely offensive, to the extent that it was flat-out illegal to use even during apartheid. It's often said to be "like the American word 'nigger'", but it's actually far, far worse: even if you yourself are black, you can't call anyone else by the k-word without catching a lot of flak and possibly getting in trouble with the law (under the criminal offense called crimen injuria, which relates to "seriously harming the dignity and humanity of another person").
    • Curiously, in Mexico, the Spanish rendition of that word (translated in Spanish as Cafre) does not have racial implications, since in Mexico its a slang word for Reckless Driver and you can be the whitest guy on Earth in Mexico and still being insulted with that word if your driving skills are poor.
      • That word is totally accepted and used in most Spanish-speaking countries, with the usual definitions of "barbaric and cruel" or "course and crude" (used as both adjective and name, mainly the second).
    • Also, in South Africa there is no euphemism for calling someone "black", and it's not seen as derogatory to refer to people in that way. The most common alternate term for "black" is "African", which makes no sense if you think about it; usually people who use the term "African" wind up having to use the term "black" anyway for clarification. It's still "African" on the latest Census, though.
  • In North America the normal word used to describe someone of East Asian background is "Asian", as opposed to people of south Asian background who may be referred to as "East Indian". In the UK, on the other hand, people of East Asian ancestry are called "Oriental" (a very derogatory term in North America that Brits would be best advised to avoid while visiting, as it's connected to some very nasty stereotypes), while people of South Asian ancestry are simply "Asian". "Chinaman" is often used in the UK but (outside of a few specialized meanings) is considered both derogatory and archaic in North America, where the normal term is always "Chinese".
    • Note that Oriental is only offensive in North America when referring to a person (as opposed to words like nigger which aren't used in polite conversation at all). It is still commonly used to evoke archaic or mystical themes, as in the "Mysterious Orient", and you will here it quite often in reference to objects like "oriental pottery" or something similar. It's also uncommon enough that many Americans don't even know it is offensive.
• On the race issue, the minstrel show held out far longer in the UK than it did in the United States - 'Coon singers' (I quote verbatim) appeared in the theatre into the 1960s, the minstrel troupe ( not quite minstrelsy as the Americans would understand it, 12-odd men, generally in blazers, trousers and boaters, blacked up, playing banjo, banjolele or ukelele, singing well-known popular songs, rather than american 'negro songs) could be seen at the seaside well into the previous century, and the Black-and-White Minstrel Show appeared on television into the '70s, and on stage into the 1980s.
• Performers in the long-running Black-and-White Minstrel Show saw nothing wrong in what they did for a living, and show veterans are generally proud of maintaining what they see as a long heritage in entertainment. However, this conviction was challenged when, at the prestigious annual Royal Variety Show, the headlining act was a visiting American singer called Diana Ross. She had not been pre-informed as to who else was on the bill, and she was absolutely appalled to see the Minstrels rehearsing. She refused to share the bill with them, and a dialogue was opened backstage, in which Ms Ross explained the rather different connotations blackface has for people of African-American ancestry. Some Minstrels saw the point, but Diana still pulled out of the gig.
• South Africa still has an annual minstrel show called Tweede Nuwe Jaar (second new year) held in Cape Town on the 2nd of January. More info courtesy of The Other Wiki
• Floridians are often amused when every few years a group of non-Floridians decides to petition Florida State University to change the name of their football team from "the Seminoles," claiming the university is promoting negative stereotypes of Native Americans. It's become something of an in-state joke, since FSU consults heavily with the Seminole tribes of Florida to make sure they are using the tribal symbolism with complete accuracy and Seminole tribes themselves have repeatedly endorsed and promoted the team.
  • The opposite problem in Illinois, where Illini fans couldn't see why dressing a mascot representing a particular tribe in the historic clothes of their traditional enemy was seen as offensive.
  • The University of North Dakota has had some problems concerning the logo for their school.
  • Probably every team based on Native Americans are asked to change their mascot. When you actually go and ask the tribe in question, the only offensive part of the team is that they don't win enough.
    • Except when the tribe in question is doing the asking.
  • And then there's the Fighting Whites, where they were trying to be offensive, but people thought it was so funny they wanted shirts and so on, to the point where they could fund a Native American scolarship fund with them.
• Traffic laws and driving standards. The lack of a speed limit on the German Autobahn network being an obvious example. One third of the Autobahn routes has a permanent speed limit, and another part has speed limits depending on weather or traffic situation. Just about 50% of German Autobahn have no speed limit (though there still is a recommended maximum speed of 130 km/h). Nearly every other developed country has strict speed limits on all motorways but in Germany the Chancellor even defended the lack of a speed limit as being part of German national identity (though the misconception that all the motorways are limit-less is something many Germans are either amused of annoyed to be constantly asked about). Tailgating is another driving habit that can have different meanings, from being a crime as it's 'dangerous driving' or coercion, to an intimidating or aggressive gesture in the UK and USA, to a pragmatic "I want to overtake" message in Italy.
  • The overtake message is meaningless on some US highways since various states allow passing on the right, a behavior strictly prohibited on the Autobahn. If a driver has never had to worry about people passing on the right, it can be disconcerting to say the least.
  • Douglas Adams once wrote an article, collected in The Salmon of Doubt, about different driving regulations between the US and UK. For example, turning at a red light in the UK is a definite no-no, and undertaking is simply not done (passing on the outside of the road). In the US there's generally no legal distinction between under and overtaking on multi-lane roads, although the former is considered a bit rude if the person's not making a left.
  • There exists a joke (Based off of a few real life incidents from traffic police officers) about how someone in Colorado/South Dakota/Utah/Wyoming/Kansas was running red lights, ignoring stop signs, going way beyond the speed limit, and just being all around reckless driving. When pulled over by the officer and asked why on earth he was driving so recklessly, s/he responded with, "I'm from New York - everyone drives that way out there". Course, given how many people don't seem to realize what the word, "limit" even means, even in the supposed "safest cities to drive in" (according to insurance companies), you see assholes who throw stuff out the window, slam on the brakes, and refuse to use their turn signals.
  • Also jaywalking - in some countries it's normal to cross street at any place at any time as long as it is not dangerous (say UK) in some it is treated very seriously.
• It seems to be an unwritten traffic law in the U.S. that you can drive up to 10 miles over the speed limit, especially on a multi-lane highway, and not be accosted by the highway patrol providing that (1) you're moving at the same rate of speed as the other traffic around you and (2) you're otherwise driving in a safe manner. This isn't a perfectly universal rule, though.
  • Ever since 2002, Romanian traffic law has the written provision that speeding is punishable starting from 10 kph over the speed limit.
  • A similar distinction exists in Canada as in America. The speed limits on the highways in Ontario, for instance, are 100 kph, but the flow of traffic may have everyone going 110 or even 120 in some cases. The police won't stop you for this because going with the flow of traffic is considered safe. However, if the flow of traffic is 115 and you're only going at 100 or 105, you'll be ticketed for unsafe driving, and if by some chance everyone is going at the speed limit and you're only doing 80 or 90, you'd better be in the slow-moving lanes where that's acceptable or any cop in the area will give you a ticket. Naturally, going much above the flow of traffic is likely to get you a ticket as well, so it's advisable to pay more attention to your fellow drivers than the speed limit.
• Germany, for example, is actually a little more strict, which is probably why they can trust drivers without written speed limit(s) on the Autobahn. Traffic fines are based on the offender's income, preventing offenders who're rich enough getting a fine that to them is small, or getting away with no fine due to their status or if they bribed the officer. (In some parts of the world, like Qatar, you can get away with bribing the police.) Also, they have to retake their driver's test whenever they try to get a new license- in America, for example, you get a license, prove that you know how to drive once, and from then on they assume you know how to drive if you haven't gotten any demerits. You only have to pass a vision test to renew a license. In America you practically have to be trying to lose your license unless you're drunk (driving under the influence charges do NOT look good anywhere- it suggests a lack of responsibility, which is why it's pretty big when you hear someone running for school board or whatever has had a DUI, or had a child with a DUI).
  • It's also more expensive to get a license in Germany than in other parts of the world. The written test is often shown, but is sometimes bypassed if the person taking the test has had a Learner's Permit and proved they passed driver's ed.
  • In the U.S., getting a traffic ticket involves not only paying the ticket, but taking the time to get the ticket 'fixed.' Failure to get the ticket fixed means that it goes on a record that can be accessed by insurance companies. Very few people have so much money that they're eager to say Screw the Rules, I Have Money to a lifetime of higher auto insurance payments. On the other hand, this means that anyone who can't afford to have a lawyer get the ticket fixed is in for a high cost in the long run.
  • On the other side, in France the driving license is held for life - inability to remove it altogether pushed the government to impose strict penalties for dangerous driving, including huge fines, license suspension from 3 months to 3 years and even imprisonment.
  • Japan ought to be the most extreme case because you have to renew your license every ten years. This includes driving school all over again.
    • Probably because roads in Japan are insanely narrow. This causes another Values Dissonance - cars like Volkswagen Golf, for example, that are considered smallish by US standards would be considered normal-sized in Japan.
    • Romanian law also states the driving license has to be renewed each 10 years - either before the 10-year term ends (which mean simply trading the old license for a new one) or afterwards (which needs the usual medical examination to be performed again before getting a new license).
  • As to drunk driving, it varies, but is not tolerated in most places. However the extent varies. In some parts of the United States if a death results from drunk driving it's a separate crime called vehicular homicide or a form of manslaughter, with jail from 3-10 years or so. In others it's Murder 2 with life (on the grounds that drinking and driving in itself constitutes depraved indifference to life, so if you kill someone while driving drunk, it's just as bad as having to intended to kill them in the first place).
    • A semantic issue: in the UK it's called drink driving, rather than 'drunk', to emphasise the point that you don't have to be actually drunk to be over the limit.
    • In Portugal drunk driving is not considered as big a deal as most other countries.It's not uncommon for a person to have a few drinks at lunch then drive back to work.
• Not having a license. In urban parts of Europe where everything's more centralised and they have some of the best infrastructure and public transport in the world, people often don't have drivers' licenses and can get by without the responsibilities and expense of owning a car, or only using their car for when they can't take the bus or train. However in rural or even suburban America, you're pretty much confined to a small location if you don't have a driver's license and a car because there's very little public transport and it'll take forever to walk anywhere, if there's even anything to walk on. The European students at some universities are often surprised when they come out to America and find themselves having to walk more since the buses aren't really funded and it's made under the assumption that everyone above the age of 16 has easy access to a car, while the disabled and elderly use taxis or dial-a-ride.
  • We're simply too big to have extensive public transportation. Rural parts of populated areas can have homes miles away from any kind of shop. Rural parts of not-so populated areas (everything between the mississippi and the west coast) it can be miles to the next house.
  • In Canada, even some of the average sized cities are poorly optimized for public transportation and businesses can be very far from residential districts. This compounded with the problem of public transportation being unreliable during the long winter months means most Canadians rely on their motor vehicles simply to be productive members of society.
    • Not so much an issue of distance, as an artifact of colonial-era city development. Many cities that developed extensively in the 1800s and early 1900s have street plans laid out in a grid, assuming the primary mode of long-distance transportation to be a horse, carriage, stagecoach, wagon, etc. The grid was a very efficient street plan before the advent of public transport and the automobile, by which time all the open space was already built on. Grid patterns are falling out of favor with city planners because they cause a lot of waiting at intersections, but (post-)colonial cities still don't get designed with public transport in mind, because we have cars.
  • There's also the size of cars. In urban Europe, where distances are short (comfort isn't as big issue) and taxes on cars and fuel are higher, people tend to buy smaller cars. In non-urban America, where cars and fuel are cheaper and distances longer, people buy bigger cars. As a result, owning a small car is seen differently: in Europe, a small car is practical while in the US, people assume you're poor.Then there's Japan and their kei cars...
    • Size of the car is also (usually) not directly correlated with performance or technical sophistication. A large percent of European small cars have massively overpowered engines even in stock form, braking rotors sized as for small trucks, and brake drums are frowned upon. A late 1990s Ford Crown Victoria or Chevrolet Camaro would be seen as antiquated already.
    • Not to mention in different areas in the US. In more urban areas, especially those that lean Democrat, people tend to see larger vehicles as wasteful (for practical reasons) and damaging to the environment (for political reasons). In some rural areas, it's a necessity. Some places in Montana and Wyoming can only get water via cisterns, in some cases families having to haul water from a nearby city to the home. Not easy to do that in a Prius.
• People in China often do U-turns on the highway. In most of the world, that's a formula for Vehicular Suicide.
  • Tanzania has two-lane highways that are two-way in both lanes.
• John Douglas wrote, in his book Mindhunter, about being part of a training program that regularly invited officers from overseas. He mentions that the Japanese preferred to send pairs of officers, where one is the senior and the other the junior. There was one incident where the junior of a pair essentially acted as the senior's servant, shining his shoes, laundering his uniforms, and even serving as, basically, a practice dummy for the senior's martial arts practice. The senior was subsequently admonished that all students were to be treated equally in the program and that this was unacceptable behavior.
• A controversy erupted during an Australia vs India cricket series over Harberjan Singh calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey". Symonds (who has one Afro-Caribbean parent) took it to be a racist comment, while Singh claimed it was innocent mockery. Singh made a counter-complaint about being called a "bastard", a term that is considered extremely mild in Australia, but very insulting in India. There are blogs from several Indian bloggers on why Indians do not understand racism. Examples: Racism in India; a list of commonly used jokes and epithets from India. part one part two
• Pro Wrestling around the world varies according to perception and style, and wrestlers who work in multiple countries tend to adapt their style to the local brand. In America, at its high-points (in the 50's during television's infancy, the 80's "Hulkamania" era, and the Monday Night Wars era) it was considered an addictive, but cheesy soap opera. At worst, it's a sideshow (at times, literally). Big time wrestling (read: WWE and TNA) tend to be heavily scripted, with emphasis on storyline and "high spots" (big stunts and signature moves).
• One random anecdote deals with a British physician setting up a medical school in China in the 19th Century. He asked a government official if the school could get a supply of cadavers for dissection. The official was horrified! Desecrating the dead is barbaric! However, he assured the doctor the school could have an unlimited supply of live criminals.
  • Rules regarding human dissection were common in past times. In several places, such as China mentioned above, it was an unthinkable sacrilege. Physicians were more or less forced to make educated guesses, based on the anatomy of other animals they hoped were similar to humans. Other places had more specific rules, like "It's fine to look, but you're not allowed to open them up with a knife."
    • The taboo against dissection in traditionally-Christian countries may have had a lot to do with the idea of physical resurrection, meaning the dead had to be buried whole. Dissection was added to the death penalty as an extra layer of punishment. Cremation, too, was frowned upon; although legal in the UK from 1884, it didn't really gain favour until after the First World War; possibly, sad to say, influenced by the impossibility of complete and 'proper' burial for most of the war dead.
    • In contrast, modern Judaism heavily frowns upon cremation, even in countries where it is common. Part of this is the belief that the body should be returned to the earth, but the Holocaust has made cremation a severe taboo to even the most nonpracticing Jews.
• The concepts of property and usage rights can vary wildly between countries: all Nordic countries, which generally have more nature than they know what to do with, and some others have Freedom to Roam statutes regulating what you can or cannot do on privately owned land. America (or parts thereof?) All common law jurisdictions apparently have land laws involving a lot of 'use it or lose it' (called adverse possession). You can guess how the stereotype of a hick who takes a shotgun to trespassers goes over in the Nordic countries. (The countries even have low gun crime rates to make the shock worse.)
• For a recent sports-related example involving three different cultures, look at the issue of the Spanish Basketball Team's photo with their eyes slit to give themselves an "Asian" look some days before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The image was heavily criticized in the British and North American press, claiming that it was racist and the team should apologize to their Chinese hosts. The Spanish press meanwhile presented the issue as an example of Anglo-Saxon overreaction to a good-hearted joke, obviously derived from these countries being afraid of their own racism. Finally, when Chinese authorities were asked if they were offended, their reaction was something like "...are you kidding me? Why the hell would we be offended?"
  • However, Chinese people resident in China presumably don't have the issue of non-Chinese people mocking them by making similar faces, as British and American Chinese people might.
• The women's figure skating finals were an excellent example. In the USA, you're considered pretty awesome if you medal at all, but the achievement-heavy cultures in East Asia are disappointed with anything less than gold.
• CS Lewis advocated reading old books to learn from for just this reason. His point was that moderns and ancients both have cultural prejudices but they aren't the same cultural prejudices and that therefore you will be wiser for the perspective.
  • "The past is a foreign country." - L.P. Hartley
• To nearly every other culture, the Japanese are unsettlingly quiet at large public gatherings, with little of the cheering or other crowd noises associated with such events.
  • When Star Wars: A New Hope first premiered in Japan, the film's producers were aghast to see the audience watch the film in stone silence compared to the wildly enthusiastic response by audiences in other countries. However, their native contacts reassured them that this was a very good sign that the audience so enjoyed the film so much that they stayed silent out of respect. The subsequent big box office earnings proved to the producers that that assessment was correct.
    • Europe seems to be somewhere in between in this regard. Noise in the cinema is usually limited to occasional laughter during funny scenes.
    • Eiji Aonuma was somewhat upset with the behavior of American fans during the Zelda concerts, who would wildly cheer during certain parts. [1]
    • Fans at Japanese concerts often do cheer, dance, wave their arms, etc. but in a less disorganized way. The audience is supposed to do certain movements and shouts at certain times, roughly based on and synchronized to the tempo and volume of the music. Crowds at Vocaloid concerts are a good example. This system can seem overly complex and lacking in spontaneity to American concertgoers.
  • Cirque Du Soleil's first Japanese tour, Fascination, also had its artists initially worrying that audiences weren't enjoying them due to a lack of applause - it is not uncommon in North America for applause to break out many times in the course of a single act. Thanks to the input of the Japanese co-producer (Fuji Television Network), which included helping them adjust to this dissonance, the tour was their first to hit it big beyond North America.
  • When the WWE toured in Japan, it was much the same thing. It made the whole performance feel a lot more technical.
  • During the famous bout between Mike Tyson and James "Buster" Douglas, in which Tyson lost the Heavyweight belt to Douglas, one of the English-language fight commentators pointed out to the American television audience that the complete silence of the Japanese crowd was completely normal, and that if this fight had been going on in, say, Las Vegas, New York, or Atlantic City, the roar from the crowd would have been absolutely deafening.
  • After the 2011 Sendai Earthquake hit Japan (a 8.9 or 9.0 magnitude, depending on who you ask), many people were surprised to see, compared to other countries, that Japan is "unusually calm and orderly." For example, people were patiently waiting in line that stretched for city blocks for supplies, and they only took what they needed.
    • The Japanese live by the concept of "Shikata ga nai" or "it cannot be helped", after the response given by Emperor Hirohito when asked about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Basically, the ability of maintaining dignity and be stoic when facing unavoidable tragedies beyond human control.
    • Although it has also been noted that a number of Japanese have been becoming rather... disillusioned with their government. This is a big deal considering how much Japan values obedience and respect to authority... but make no mistake, those in authority are always trying to cultivate those kinds of values which will make people obey and respect them.
      • The explosion at the Fukushima nuclear reactor didn't help either.
• 24/7 stores. Overly expensive and demanding work which could be avoided if people planned in advance or extremely useful when you need something urgently?
  • A lifeline for second and third shift workers. Also averted oddly enough in some places: often the largest 24/7 store in the states is a Wal-Mart supercenter, with the lowest prices.
  • The United States actually enforces this one by law. Citizens must have 2/47 pharmacies for emergencies and pharmacies have adapted to market pressures by devoting most of their floor space to non-pharmaceuticals. Drugs may be big money, but they don't need a lot of space.
• Physically punishing a child. In the past few decades it's become increasingly unacceptable, backed by studies showing it to have little or negative effect on discipline and mental health. In several ethnic groups and regions it's still common and just considered a form of punishment.
  • In a variant on this theme, it used to be a given that teachers could physically discipline students. Today, although this practice is still allowed in some parts of the United States, in the rest of the U.S. and the whole of Canada it's generally thought that parents are the only people allowed to physically discipline their children. Said parents can also become very angry towards anyone else who spanks or hits their kids.
  • A woman went on Doctor Phil and showed video of her administering hot sauce to her child for lying or giving him a cold shower if he disobeyed or threw a tantrum. A generation ago this kind of punishment would be considered common or even mild (a child who swore often got their mouth washed out with soap). Whereas now it met with a very hostile reaction.
• Views on racism vary from country to country, most notably in Ireland. The Irish have always been slightly conservative in the case of foreign people in the country and for years were not used to other cultures in the same way that the British or the Americans are. This can lead to large amounts of discrimination towards people from other countries, notably the Polish people who immigrated to Ireland in the 2000s. There was a lot of hatred towards these Polish people as many Irish felt that all their jobs were being taken by the Polish workers who would work harder for less money, ignoring the fact that these were jobs in cleaning, fast food and kinds of jobs nobody really likes to do.
  • It's exactly the same thing that happens in the USA in regards to Latin American people... except that in the USA, the Latinos can and will get shot dead in occasions, especially in the conservative states.
  • To return to the Irish example, Polish migrants into Northern Ireland ran into a different but potent form of Irish bigotry. Poles coming to Belfast in search of jobs and who were not aware of what might be called local sensitivities were naive enough to think they could rent houses and flats just anywhere, including Protestant East Belfast. Poland is, along with the Irish Republic, one of the most Roman Catholic countries in the world. This was a disaster waiting to happen. The local morons and psychos, having spent most of the previous thirty-odd years burning native Irish Catholics out of Protestant areas, soon rediscovered old craft skills in the face of a new Fenian threat to their Loyalist sensibilities...
• Australians are notoriously inured to swearing. Just about the only words that cannot be broadcast on radio or television are "cunt" and "fuck", and even then both are allowed on TV post-watershed.
  • Australians in fact get very confused when told by Americans that 'Hell' and 'damn' are mild profanities in the United States.
    • Seems to be similar in Britain. 'Hell' and 'damn' might be viewed as swearing by religious people, but generally they're unremarkable.
  • To a lesser degree, Canada is also more liberal with the swearing than the US. The Sopranos used to be broadcast at around 10pm on CTV -- a network channel that can be picked up via antenna -- completely uncensored. Likewise, many Canadian-made shows aired on network channels -- even the fairly vanilla Being Erika -- are able to casually use the word "shit" without it being big event that needs to be pre-announced (i.e., the NYPD Blue "incident" in the US). Overuse of profanity is viewed as tacky, however, unless it's relevant to the plot/characterization/etc. "Cunt" is the only word that is just as taboo in Canada as it is in the US.
  • Sweden is another country that is liberal with swearing, with even the worst swearwords being possible to say on series shown in the children's programming slot.
  • Japan, likewise; while slipping in even mild (uncensored) profanity into a kids' TV show in the US or Canada would get you burned at the stake, it's not uncommon to see uses of "Damn it!" or "What the hell...?" in fansubs of what are very obviously kids' shows. Of course, Japanese is a language where grammar and tone matter much, much more than the actual words you use when it comes to politeness and insults.
• During her 2009 concert in Bucharest, Romania, (part of the Sticky & Sweet Tour), Madonna protested against the discrimination of Gypsies in Eastern Europe. The crowd of 60,000 fans booed her furiously.
• Today celebrity divorce and infidelity is par for the course, but when singer Eddie Fisher (Carrie Fisher's dad) divorced Debbie Reynolds to marry Elizabeth Taylor in The Fifties, the public outrage ruined his career.
• Even the most well-meaning young people who get out of the military and rejoin civilian life may notice that values like sticking with your buddies not matter what and doing sixty squat-thrusts before 7 a.m. aren't so important. Remembering not to tell dirty jokes about fat girls, especially when you're working as a high school guidance councilor, is. This has been grossly exaggerated in the media, especially with The Neidermeyer and the Shell-Shocked Veteran, but can still apply in reasonably small measures.
• This Cracked.com article by a Chinese-American woman about her difficulties with her Chinese heritage. The crowner would have to be the gift-giving portion of "keqi"; one wonders what would happen if the situation were reversed, when the Chinese family discovers that in America refusing gifts is practically a killing insult.
  • That is, refusing a gift in such a way it's obvious that you never wanted it or simply don't need it. Thinking "this is too much, you really shouldn't have" is much more acceptable, partly because it speaks to the generosity of the gift-giver. Though even then, a short back in forth resulting in the gift being properly received is also generally expected.
  • Gift-giving in America generally zig-zags all over the place, especially in the American South. Thanks to some vestiges of the etiquette of the Antebellum South, when you visit someone's home, it's expected to bring a gift for the host (usually a small token, such as a bunch of flowers or a small baked good, especially if you're visiting to have a meal.) However, thanks to the Appalachian region being continually poverty stricken for decades, randomly giving someone a gift for no apparent reason (especially money) comes across as an act of pity (and generally will offend the one receiving it.)
• Nudity and violence on TV. While many Americans think a child will be scarred for life when confronted with a bare nipple seen for a fraction of a second on TV, they don't have any objections against a show where people are being shot, or otherwise killed. Nor do they have objections against other forms of violence. In many European countries, it's the opposite. Images of violence are considered to be more damaging to children than nudity (although since most shows shown on TV are made in the US, even European kids see more violence than anything that could remotely be considered "nudity").
  • Other notable dissonances related to this is in Japan, which tends to have both significant amounts of violence and nudity in kids shows which tends to lead a What Do You Mean It's for Kids? reaction from foreigners (The Anime sub-page of this trope show examples of this). The middle east meanwhile, due to cultural, religious, and political issues, tends to tone down both.
  • Oftentimes both sides will often accuse the other side of being Hypocrites and advocating Double Standards, while ignoring the fact that they themselves are actually the Hypocrites and Double Standard advocators as they too are also committing Values Dissonance (Although you can also say the same for any Values Dissonance for that matter). This tends to happen a lot even here on TV Tropes unfortunately.
• Schools. Is there a system of classes (like in Japan or many European countries) or courses (like in America)? Are school uniforms required? Are sports (or other school activities) a big event?
  • To provide an example: European viewers might be a little confused when in American shows and High School movies, a big deal is made of sports, cheerleading, the prom and home-coming.
  • Likewise, Americans think that uniforms are a solely British, Japanese (and sometimes, Mexican) idea. While a lot of private schools have uniforms, the "uniforms" in question usually seem to be little but strict dress codes (khaki/navy/black pants or skirts with polos of certain colors). Few public schools have uniform policies, and those schools are mostly elementary or middle schools. Uniforms are so rare there that they are thought of as restricting a student's right to freedom of expression.
    • Not only in the US. In Germany even a strict dress code can cause this effect. While most German school regulations feature a clause, about "appropriate clothing", you practically, had to show up shirtless/ in a bikini to actually face any consequences. On the other hand, German history made Germans feel very uneasy about putting children in uniforms. Even boy scouts are often regarded with suspicion.
    • Or, that uniforms in the US are solely for Catholic schools.
    • Being a country with major class disparities, uniforms are universal in South Africa, at least in part to "equalize" students and minimize bullying.
  • And then there's the whole topic of sex ed in Europe vs. certain parts of the USA...
  • Respect towards teachers. Granted, this may even vary within a country (private and public schools) or even within one school, but there are still some differences. Some countries (such as the United States) see teachers as mentors and prefer more egalitarian relationships between students and teachers; others (such as France and Japan) see teachers as authority figures who need to be obeyed, not negotiated with, by students. In some countries in the latter group, practices such as students standing up to honor the teacher when s/he enters the room are common - which can seem antiquated and silly to people from countries which prefer the former approach. Think of the one scene in the fourth Harry Potter movie, where the French pupils shoot up when their headmaster enters, while the other students stare and even giggle. Conversely, French and Japanese viewers must find the active interest teachers in shows like Glee have in their students' personal lives to be bizarre and off-putting.
    • Japanese schools tend to be much more intrusive in the lives of their students than US schools. Teachers regularly do home visits and if a Japanese child gets in trouble with the law, their school is notified before their parents are.
    • This is also true in countries in the Caribbean. West Indian people are often shocked by how "disrespectful" American/Canadian children are towards their teachers. As recently as the '80s, if a student misbehaved in school, he was beaten by the teacher.
    • Cultural attitudes vary about Teacher Student Romances. Most Western nations frown upon it, with the U.S. taking a particularly strong stance against it (see Paedo Hunt) - to the point where U.S. media sees anything short of an Anvilicious Big No on the subject as harmful and irresponsible, even in college, where most students are legally adults. (Trans Atlantic Equivalents of shows such as Skins often have to alter these storylines to address the U.S.'s strong taboo.) On the opposite extreme, depictions in anime are often quite positive, or at least no different from any other relationship on the show. It's seen as quite normal for high-school girls and young male teachers to pursue relationships with each other. American readers can be quite shocked by the way that works like Maison Ikkoku or Marmalade Boy deal with the trope.
  • Even for how long you went to school varied over the course of history. In many parts of the world today, not finishing high school is quite frowned upon and is associated with lowered job prospects, while as recently as 100 years ago had quite a successful career as a government mechanic despite not having a high school education.
  • Students' general attitudes towards cheating. Is it something everybody does, something kind of accepted as long as you really need to pass and don't suddenly end up with the best grade, or is it frowned upon?
• In The Deep South in the early 20th century, lynchings (when black people were hung for no reason) were seen as acceptable outings. Some were even announced in papers, and people brought their children to see.
• Asian Tiger Mom.
  • Notably, despite China still being heavily Confucian (to the point that a single parent's disapproval can end a promising romantic relationship, job, or educational opportunity), the "Tiger Mom" is losing its appeal to younger Chinese mothers.
• Beauty standards. In most Western countries or countries with a particular Western influence, being slim is regarded as most desirable, because it stands for a healthy way of life, often also coupled with success and inner strength. In other countries, even nowadays, a fuller figure is more desirable. Can also be Values Dissonance between two generations.
  • Similarly, a healthy tan is considered attractive in many parts of the western world while in most of Asia pale skin is preferred. Another example is that when a western woman gets plastic surgery on her nose, it's typically to make it smaller; when an east Asian women gets it done, it's usually to make her nose larger ("taller").
• Views on piercings vary wildly from culture and person. In the most parts of the USA and Europe it is only really acceptable for a woman to get lobal piercings in or after adolescence and maybe for a man to have one ear pierced. However in India most girls and some boys get their ears pierced very young, and the same is true in Hispanic countries. In India it is also common for women to have a nose piercing. Some people are fine with non-ear piercings (eg, eye-brow or nose piercings), other people regard it as a sign of being a deliquent.
  • In the UK, ear-piercing of young- even baby- girls is fairly common, at least enough to be unremarkable, although it's seen as somewhat low-class (and schools most likely won't allow it).
  • In Germany ear-piercing of 2 to 3-year-old girlsit is pretty much standard and earpiercing of boys is getting more and more popular. No schools, except for a few very conservative cathloic ones, prohibit wearing ear rings.
• In the UK, the privatisation of water services in the last 13 years has lead to a substantial difference in domestic habits. In the West Country county of Cornwall a tiny percentage of the UK population - and one that is already the most impoverished - has had to pay for sewage treatment upgrades and beach cleaning for a large chunk of the UK's coastline, much of which is to satisfy the tourist trade. As a result the tariffs are very high and many families have had water meters installed to avoid the astronomical standard charge. As the unit cost is still high, this had lead to the habit of restricting water usage and the most generally adopted method is to flush the lavatory for "solids only" and water used for showers, baths and washing floors etc, invariably saved to pour down the toilet. Most British visitors accept these habits but American tourists tend to be horrified by the daily accumulations of family urine in the lavatory.
  • Similarly, in New Zealand and Australia, all toilets are equipped with two flush settings: a small flush for urine and a big flush for feces. These kinds of toilets are slowly catching on in the rest of the world as well.
• The way you refer to someone can have different meanings depending on your culture, and the language. A lot of Spanish cultures are fine with using nicknames or affectionate terms like "negra" and "negro" to refer to darker skinned people, or "gordo" and "gorda" for chubbier people. In other cultures, both would be quite offensive.
• The NHL's legal fighting in a game not fighting oriented. While many find it horrible because of the violence in it, a much large part of the fans see it as a part of the game's grit, intensity, and emotional nature.
  • To add another level toward this, popular American sports athletes can almost be considered above the law, to the point where it's unusual for drug use or violent crimes to carry significant penalties beyond the potential loss of sponsorship, and attempting to rein in a player too much may lead to him leaving the team and accepting an offer elsewhere. In contrast, the NHL's players tend to be extremely polite and orderly outside of the game, with criminal activity being so scandalous as to have the league as a whole drop the player.
• The controversy in both Mexico and the U.S. about letting both Mexican and American commercial trucks enter both countries. It's because of the great national difference in driving culture, not to mention the fact that neither Mexican nor American drivers wants to be lectured or change their driving habits just to comply with the laws of both nations.
• A saying often attributed to Confucius is "before seeking revenge, dig two graves." Most Westerners interpret it to mean that if you seek revenge, you destroy yourself. One traditional Chinese interpretation was instead that revenge was so important that one ought to prepare to become the Determinator in order to achieve it.
• Go to any given article which involves a Bullfight getting out of control and the bull either wounding the Matador or trying to get into the stands. Generally comments from nations where it is outlawed will congratulate the bull, regarding injuries as three tons of Laser-Guided Karma, and call the Matador and spectators anything from Dirty Cowards to Complete Monsters.
  • This is despite the fact that bullfighter bulls are raised much more humanely than slaugherhouse steers.
• What is considered "appropriate dress" can vary wildly even in one country. In some parts of the American South, where temperatures in the summer can frequently surpass 100 degrees Farenheit, the general consensus seems to be "It's too damn hot to cover up," and you can frequently see rather young children wearing things like short shorts and spaghetti strap tops without anybody batting an eye. In other parts of the country, it's usually met with "You're not leaving the house like that, go put some clothes on!"
  • To that end, much of the US is utterly dumbfounded by what they see as unnecessarily heavy clothing in the Middle East, parts of Africa, and India. Said clothing is actually more helpful in preventing sunburn, dehydration and, you know, death than shorts and a T-Shirt would be.
• Tattoos. If you're at a public pool in Japan, tattoos are often seen as a signifier that you are a gang member, while in (for example) the US, the quality and content of the tattoo are usually the only issue with all but the most conservative.
• Haggling. In Western nations, haggling for items is only reserved for high-ticket items like houses and cars (or extremely low-ticket items at flea markets or garage sales) and attempting to haggle anywhere else makes you look stingy. However, in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, haggling is a mandatory part of the selling process, and not doing it makes you looks stupid for not knowing what the item should cost. However, even among countries that do allow haggling, the values differ. In Southeast Asia, haggling for food is looked down upon because food is seen as a necessity.
  • Intentionally trying to avert this sometimes leads right back to Values Dissonance. Haggling is common for many manufactured goods in Latin American countries, but trying to talk down the price of a piece of art or craft can result in a rather distressed reaction from the person who made it, though artists and craftspeople in touristy areas are probably used to it by now.
• Canadians and Americans seem to have very different attitudes regarding whether guests should take their shoes off when they enter someone's house. In many parts of the U.S., taking your shoes off in someone else's house implies that you're making yourself too comfortable and in a sense infringing on your host's hospitality. On the other hand, in Canada it's almost unthinkable to leave your shoes on in your or someone else's house. One possible explanation is the harsher climate in Canada-people obviously don't want to track snow or slush into the house, to say nothing of muck and grime during the spring months when the snows melt.
  • Japan takes this even further: houses are supposed to be equipped with slippers for houseowners and guests to change into when they enter, and schools (possibly also workplaces?) have Inside Shoes, stored in special lockers, for the same purpose. This seems to mainly stem from a desire for extremely clean indoor areas, which is a bit of Values Dissonance in itself.
• In the West, getting a call on a cell phone in public is a minor faux pas, but in Japan it's a major taboo, especially on public transit. It's a factor in that country's massive early adoption of text messaging.
• Speaking of phones, what's considered proper telephone etiquette is also a rich form of dissonance. For example, a French person who calls who will usually apologize profusely, even if it's someone you know very well and would welcome a call from.
• Medicine and patient autonomy. In the United States, doctors are terrified of stepping on a patient's toes and of winding up hearing from a patient's attorney. Current US practices forbid acting against a patient's decisions unless the patient is ruled incompetent to decide for themselves (ex: a minor, unconscious, etc). This can even include when a doctor knows a patient's decision will lead to death, disability, or extreme consequences. It used to be "doctor knows best." In other parts of the world, it still is "what the doctor says, goes."
  • Traditional and New Age medical practices get this treatment. Europe and Australia have seen a big push to eliminate non-scientific medical practices. The United States has seen a similar, if less potent, movement. China allows all manner of traditional medical practices to continue alongside science-based medicine. Let's not argue out what should be done here.
• Accountability: A healthy part of the English-speaking cultures and almost a Berserk Button for Spanish-speaking countries, to the grade there's no Spanish equivalent of that word.
  • As a closer example, that is the reason why Spain refuses to asking help for solving his economic woes to the E.U. in the same way as Greece, since that will imply that the Spaniard economic and political system will be scrutined in the same way as the Greek one.
  • Ditto with Argentina in the 2000's, with the Argentinians choosing an extreme choice and prefering to going bankrupt rather to having a foreign institution like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to saying what to do with their country.
• To quote the former entry in Values Resonence, "anyone who's a fan of strict separation could pick up a copy of John Leland's Rights of Conscience Inalienable and find it perfectly cogent or even progressive by modern standards." Except that the essay is based on a false choice between values of people and the government, with no mention made to evidence, and the assumption of the existance of god. Mr Leland also has trouble with the concept of a man doing evil while he believes himself to be doing good. Many similar claims and assumptions therein have been disproven by Evolution, which is fairness Mr Leland had no knowledge of. The origonal troper obviously found it convincing, but many who do have knledge of evolution, would not.

---