Jimzz12,
You’ve pointed out some interesting and right notes about the European people. In fact, europeans tend to be very materialistic, but so do americans who live in cities like LA, NYC, Miami, et caetera. Although I’d say that out of these big urban centers, which tend to imitate the european life style, things are completely different, and you don’t need to go that far from the urban centers to see how fast life styles change. You just need to go to some suburban neighborhoods to see the change hapenning.
I can guarantee that that is true, because I have family in the US and in Canada, and - just to give you an example - american/canadian families tend to make their social lifes arround their homes; they invite friends for barbecue, they make parties at home, almost all of the typical american family social life is spent at home, very close to the family nucleus. They rarely tend to have a dinner at a restaurant, or making of going to a caffé or a pub a regular habit. The Europeans tend to do the oposite; we almost don’t spend any time of our social life at home - the majority of the time we, europeans, spend on our social lifes is mostly spent at pubs, bars, going to restaurants (sometimes, very fancy ones), and the fact is that you don’t need to be rich to do so: everyone does so.
Also, you’d be amazed at how profitable it is for a credit institution to lend money on a microcredit basis. It’s much more profitable than lending you money to buy a car or a house. As inflation grows, people are in no way concerned about making some sacrifices. Instead, they know these financial institutions exist, and that they will provide you with some ilusorious cheap and fast credit for quick consumption. And they take this false opportunity, which is, in fact, a big, dangerous mice trap. But then again this proves how materialistic are the european people.
I think protestantism had a big influence in the establishment of such a life style since the Reformation. Protestantism paved the way for Capitalism. Lending money while charging your client with interest rates was, until the 18th century, forbidden and considered a sin, in Catholic countries like Portugal or Spain. Of course this was bad to the Catholic countries, as they got behind England and the United Dutch Provinces in terms of economic and industrial development, in the 16th and 17th centuries. So we can thank Protestantism for the benefits of Capitalism (which then, much later, the Catholic Church recognised and gave permission to) but we also due to Protestantism the selfishness and materialism that came with it.
Things were different in Catholic european countries, until the dawn and expansion of the industrial revolution on the end of the 18th century and all of the 19th century. We can’t say the same about the Catholic Church, who has always had a big influence on the majority of the Catholic Monarchs of European Nations in the past, and many times, tended to moderate their foul excentricities.
Are you bi-lingual?
:yup:
:byzsoc: