What are your country's 'sacred cows'?

[JimRSmith]

Most countries have a feature, or features, that act as a national glue, to bind that country together.

Ideally, that feature should belong to all that country's people, and unify them, rather than divide them.

Examples of this could include the NHS, in the UK, the American constitution, in the USA, Islam in various Middle Eastern countries, or a national language in certain European countries.

I personally think these are very necessary, and once you start unravelling them, you don't really know where that might lead to. Nasty things can arise from those ashes.

BUT I also think that if criticism of them becomes a taboo, then they don't evolve, and will eventually cease to be national 'glue'.

I'll use the example of the National Health Service, in the UK, because that's one that is particularly familiar to me. This is free at point of access, to everybody, but is ultimately supported by the taxpayer. The work that the front-line staff do is indisputably outstanding, and it is a disgrace that many of these are working in sub-optimal conditions, without the appropriate protective clothing, for example.

However, our admiration for these front-line workers ought not to divert us from casting a very critical eye over other aspects of the NHS. Some chief executives of the NHS earn salaries of £250,000 or more, despite essentially being only the general manager of a single hospital. For comparison, the British Prime Minister earns approximately £150,000.

One example, of many

The NHS will frequently not pay small companies the break-even point for their products, because it can source similar products for less money abroad. In the current Coronavirus crisis, this has led to the supply chain disasters, which have been only too apparent in the news. You don't want to become dependent upon China for key medical supplies.

I believe it would be wrong, if the heroism of individual frontline doctors, nurses, porters etc were used to shield the mismanagement of the NHS from further investigation, when this crisis is over.

But that's a discussion for another day - which features does your country have, that are seen as above criticism, and do you think this is right?

[holidaze]

For me, it is the National Park System. “For the benefit and enjoyment of the People”. Not just the ruling class, not just the rich, but for ALL the people. We are ALL part owners of some of the most spectacular real estate on the planet, we just need to be good stewards of it. At this time and place in history doing that is challenging, but the NPS has a huge and dedicated following, and it will prevail.

This gift is almost always generational as well. My Grandparents took my parents, my parents took me and my sister, and I am taking my kids. And I strongly suspect they will continue this very worthwhile and rewarding endeavor and passage, and so on.

As they have been nicknamed, they are “America’s Best Idea.”

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-national-parks-the-national-parks-ranger-baker/

[holidaze]

And to finish the thought, there is criticism of the Parks, usually by those who have a financial interest in extracting something of value (mineral rights come immediately to mind) that is unreachable for them due to the parks protected status.

[holidaze]

Thank you very much for the MHO. 🙂

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

That'd have to be the Welfare. The Swedish welfare system is unique to the world and arguably the best economical system in existence. All political parties across the board have always been favorable to it and not once in our history have a single force been opposed to it. Neither am I for that matter so this particular, "holy cow", I think is positive.

[JimRSmith]

I think probably most of them are positive, and also probably a lot more necessary than lots of people realise.

In your opinion, would the universal regard for the welfare system eventually cause it to break, or is it able to continue to develop, despite this?

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

I think the welfare system works not solely because it is a secret formula to perfection but because it works for Swedes in particular, who are as a people, traditionally extremely reliant on the state and authorities compared to the world, and law abiding.
The welfare system isn't flawless of course, and the debates that revolve it concerns to what extent the welfare is to permeate the sectors of society, with the leftist side wanting it to encompass everything and the right side wanting to contain it to core tasks.

[JimRSmith]

Excellent answer, thanks, and a particularly good illustration as to why what might work in one place, may not be universally applicable.

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

Indeed. Conservative pragmatism demands such an outlook, no ideological ditches wherein sweeping solutions to every scenario must be the answer.

[ThisDudeHere]

I've never thought about this before. Our society has a few things that everyone here has in common but I would not say that they act as glue.
I mean, both Latvians and Latvian-Russians are pessimistic, for sure. But that's admittedly counter-productive.

[tartaarsaus]

In the Netherlands, the always over-arching dominant thing that impacts all facets of life is the ‘calvinist mentality’, though some argue that it was erroneously labelled calvinism.

It basically describes that being better than average is fine, but you can never show off that you’re better than average excessively, because then you’re a dick.

That’s why two of the most used proverbs are:
“Als je normaal doet, doe je al gek genoeg”, which is “if you act normal you act weird enough” and “je kop niet boven het maaiveld uitsteken”, which basically means that you shouldn’t behave differently from the rest.

Hence there is the sentiment that one must not be proud of something they were no part of (hence the idea that Dutch people have to be proud of historical events is controversial), and if you did something not to show it off, you just need to fit in with the rest of society. People usually call this ‘being level-headed’.



I’m not a fan of this if I’m honest. I think it’s unnecessarily normative

[JimRSmith]

Have you heard of a book called 'The Embarrassment of Riches' by Simon Schama? The title makes even more sense to me, now you've just said that.

[tartaarsaus]

I’ve never heard of it tbh, I don’t think it’s popular here. But it does align with the calvinism, as you say

[theChineseWASP]

I really like the Protestant culture though because I think it is responsible for the modern world as we know it.

[tartaarsaus]

Meh, I think a lot of the modern world is just shaped by pure random circumstances. Acemoglu makes a strong argument that - for example - the US is more developed relative to Latin America just because there were far too few people there they could exploit.

[tartaarsaus]

*they as in original colonial settlers

[theChineseWASP]

Sure random circumstances perhaps but one of those random circumstances could be Protestantism. At least in theory I guess...

[whipitout]

This is a very interesting question!! I can’t speak for all of Australia bc I’m really only exposed to things that come from my part of society (well, mostly exposed to that anyway), but on the whole, I think we’re actually pretty good at being critical of things 😂 It sounds bad, but I was just having a conversation the other day with my dad - he said that people are complaining about our coronavirus stats when they’re actually some of the best in the world and I said that that’s pretty typical. If you’re sitting around chatting with your mates, you’re gonna have a whinge about it bc in a perfect world, there are things that could’ve been done better, but if someone in another country decided to criticise how Australia has handled it, I bet you many of those same people would be up in arms defending how well we’ve handled the situation. For the most part, we have a strong sense of national pride, but I think people do still complain a lot lol. Thing is that if people don’t complain, it’s also pretty easy to getting complacent - complaints show that we’re holding things to a high standard, and even when it’s good, it could be better. Maybe that doesn’t justify whining about stuff, but it does mean we end up with better services.

Things like our healthcare system, indigenous benefits schemes, the welfare system and education system are all criticised fairly regularly tbh. I think it also helps that we are a pretty diverse society, so each group criticises the other groups lol.
I do think we could stand to be a bit less critical sometimes tho 😂

[tallandsweet]

I'm not sure.

I'd say in Germany, it's the fact that the Holocaust existed. While there certainly still are some people who deny that, they aren't just frowned upon - denying the Holocaust is illegal. I think that the argument of free speech doesn't hold here, especially after reading several books about and watching footage of the Nürnberg trials, where gruelling details were discussed.

I also think that Germans are very proud of their waste management, but since they sell off a lot of their trash to other countries (see the figure below) and recycling isn't nearly as good as it could be. However, I think that they do a good job at composting (Austrians too) and they try to protect the environment.

Where German Plastics were sold off to in 2018

Still, especially among the elderly, the awareness that globally speaking, they're among the top 1% and thus produce much more waste and use up way more energy than they "should", isn't there.

I'd say that in Austria, the "sacred cow" is their humour (Wiener Schmäh in particular). It's always the first thing that comes up when people bash Germany; Austria is better because of its unique humour.

As someone who never understood that humour and who genuinely feels ashamed for the jokes that are sometimes way beyond "salonfähig" (socially acceptable), I don't think it's good that this is something you can't really criticise.

[linds34]

Probably the automobile. It's assumed that everyone has & can afford a car, and that a high car payment should be a part of everyone's budget. I work with a lot of people who spend 1/4 of their income on a car payment. Some people have a $30,000 car and they live with their parents.

There are a lot of jobs that will only hire people who own a reliable car, even though they are on the bus route and the job doesn't require making deliveries or anything. The bosses at those jobs have a reliable car so they think it's reasonable to expect that of anyone. This makes it harder for poor people to get a job.

[zagor]

But, think of all the people who don't have cars, who are now dependent on public transportation, with all its exposure to the ills of the public. Or on Uber, where you don't know who is going to show up to drive you. All of a sudden, having your own car doesn't seem so bad.

[AlienParasite]

Oh man, Spain is very divided in many things. I would say our NHS is protected by a big majority of the population, but still there are people who want to destroy it. Maybe our gastronomy is the thing that join us together the most. Potato omelette or jamón serrano. But I'm sure the few spaniard vegans out there might disagree.

[wittymilf]

Government funding for Maori education. I’m not against the allocation of ring fenced funding for low socioeconomic pockets of society, but I think as soon as the government labels this to a “set race”instead of a “set of circumstances “ , they create undue racial tension.

[Sixgunsound]

Governments need their tax cattle fighting each other to distract them from who is hurting them the most. An abstract ‘other’ race or gender or class isn’t kidnapping your funds and children at gunpoint to put them in indoctrination mills which it is illegal not to send them to for over a decade so they can come out ignorant of history politics economics and have very few useful life skills other then putting their hand out to a government savior.

[CubsterShura]

Probably just the identity of being Bengali since that is mainly the reason we're a country now. Co-existence with different religions is integral to our culture.

But a less deep answer would be the king of street foods, fuchka.

[theChineseWASP]

In America there is a lot of sacred cows like human rights, freedom, obsession with the law, that I personally don’t care about. Not saying that those things aren’t important because they are important but I don’t think I care about them as much as the average gun-ho American.

[Ram0n83]

As a symbol in the U. S., I would have to say that the Statue of Liberty is one of our most prized symbols.

[Waffles731]

Honestly the fact that the U. S constitution by many Americans is considered unchangeable and unbending shows a lack of understanding.

The constitution includes rules on how to change it for a reason

[Waffles731]

But yeah, The Constitution would be one.

Abraham Lincoln

George Washington

Among others

[I-am-a-nobody]

@Waffles731
"The constitution includes rules on how to change it for a reason"

And it's also very hard to change for good reason.

[Waffles731]

@I-am-a-nobody ben franklin thought that we would change the consitution every ten years or so

[I-am-a-nobody]

@Waffles731
Is it 26 Amendments? In about 230 years, Ben was close on average.
Wish someone would approve an Amendment that the budget MUST be balanced.

[Waffles731]

@I-am-a-nobody hardly, the 1st ten amendments are the Bill of Rights, tacked on to the original constitution by according to a U. S history Course I took, an absolutely exhausted group of legislators, who after to replace the articles of confederation
(technically Illegitimately but who care since the ARC had to be replaced and they came up with something much better). One man suggested they add a bill of rights and they did.
Basically the 1st ten Amendments aren't Amendments in the truest sense but part more like a part of the original constitution

[Sixgunsound]

@I-am-a-nobody If we had a balanced budget amendment all the corruption and graft would be exposed. Neither left nor the right can afford that kind of exposure.

[TacosRAwesome]

The village patron saints for those who believe in them, certain party leaders.

[Ratmuffin]

Aryshire, Guernsey, Milking Shorthorn, Holstein, Jersey, Brown Swiss and "Red and White".

[Ratmuffin]

Ooooooh.. now i get. Football, Baseball, fairs, bars, alcohol. 4th of July and probably guns

[whipitout]

I laughed 😂

[Ratmuffin]

Those are the 7 breeds of dairy cow. Basically burned into my mind as an agri-child

[whipitout]

We tend to have Holstein, Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire and Brown Swiss here in Aus too, but our last 2 are different. I've got 'em burned into my brain too lol

[Ratmuffin]

Lol nice! Thought i was alone on that one. Did you grow up providing as well? I mean like agriculture?

[whipitout]

No, but I’ve since studied it and have spent quite a bit of time in dairy in particular. Nothing like you would have I’m sure, but I know my basics 😊

[Ratmuffin]

Same here bro. Didn't grow up on a dairy farm but my father did so we went to a lot of farm shows growing up. We also farmed basic crops on our land.

[JustRollTheDice]

Biltong or rugby I'd say

[whipitout]

And rightly so! Who dares to criticise biltong!!! 😱😱😂

[JustRollTheDice]

@whipitout if anyone critises biltong I will fight them

[whipitout]

I'll admit, I don't even eat it anymore bc I stopped eating meat, but I don't care, I'll join your fight! 😂

[holidaze]

@whipitout wait, what? 😳😮😳

[whipitout]

@holidaze I wondered if you’d find that 😂

[holidaze]

@whipitout I don’t even know you anymore! 😂

[Agape93]

Very well said my friend!

[kokotito06]

Catholic church, Soccer and Tacos: Mexico

[BronzedAdonis]

Alcohol fueled domestic violence

[-Asca-]

The simple fact that we are better than germany.

[theChineseWASP]

Which country?

[-Asca-]

Austria

[ZeussLightningBolt]

The Happy California Cows

[monkeynutts]

Tassie devil, or Koala