Why Are Americans and Europeans so Different?

After living in several different countries, one of the most fascinating things that I've noticed that really shaped my worldview is how different human beings can have very different perspectives on a particular issue. You grow up learning that things are a particular way, and then you go somewhere else in the world and realize that people don't see it that way at all. World War II, for example, was utterly devastating for Europe. But it was kind of the perfect storm for the U.S. to pull itself out of a depression and end up becoming a world superpower. The US didn't have to do the rebuilding that Europe did after the end of the conflict. So depending on where you were in 1945, you were either exhausted and wiped out, or you were in a position to shape the new world order. Same war, completely different outcomes. And there's always more than one perspective on an issue. And we know this politically. There's a left and a right. Some of the most anti-communist, super conservative people you'll find in the United States are actually immigrants from Eastern Europe. People that experienced communism during the Cold War. You know, I've seen this firsthand in the Balkans, in Romania, in Poland, in Eastern Germany. And so in many ways, where you come from at least partially shapes how you see the world. So fast forward to today, and it's really interesting to me to see the ideological gaps. the different ways of looking at things between the US and Europe. Two parallel realities are playing out on either side of the Atlantic. Europe and the US look at each other and they see very different things. As an American, you can either see it as a creaky old continent that is sagging under the weight of its aging population and bureaucracy and slow-growing economies, or as a refuge from the hyper-capitalistic hamster wheel that is the US. Europeans look at the US and either see a highly erratic, highly polarized, overly caffeinated playground for billionaires to trample over the masses that's undergoing a culture and gender war or a land of opportunity, innovation, hard work, efficiency and better salaries. And so my question is, how did we end up here? How can we look at things so differently? In the last episode in this series, I established a sliding spectrum, if you will, a dichotomy through which you can look at a particular society. On one side you have gas, on the other side you have brakes. Europe has more of a safety net. The US has a more of an individualistic setup. Another way to put it... is to call it socialism versus capitalism. And I know those are very big words that mean a lot of different things. I mean, for starters, there are so many versions and technical terms, and I'm not interested in getting lost in the weeds here. All I mean by capitalism is more of what we see in the US, individualism, less regulation, letting the markets do their thing. And by socialism, I mean a safety net. I mean social programs, affordable education, affordable health care, more protections for renters, better unemployment benefits and paid maternity and paternity leave, right? Like that kind of thing. Now in any given country, it's not one or the other. You see this within the US, a left and a right. All countries have this. All countries actually have mixed economies. And so across the West, we see honestly a lot of capitalism. And then we also see a variety of different socialist programs in place and then on top of it, it depends on the particular administration. And so like right now the US is swinging to the right. And then finally it'll depend on regions. So certain states like New York and California lean further left. States like Texas are further right. Same sort of deal in Europe. Western Europe generally has more social programs than Eastern Europe for example. And so the question is how do we end up here? Why are Americans more aggressive, more risk-oriented, more willing to take on personal debt. To attempt to explain how we got here, I find it helpful to rewind the clock. History provides a lot of clues. Growing up in school in the US, there was an obsession around our founding fathers, around the Mayflower pilgrims, around the treacherous voyage to this new land. They brought their work ethic in exchange for a life of freedom. Then you had the California Gold Rush. The Oregon Trail, these dangerous journeys even further out west to basically steal from, remove, and kill the native people. And then build and become rich. Breathing sickness and testing death. White nationalism, in the form of an idea, manifest destiny, fueled this drive to take over this continent. The idea that America is exceptional and that this is almost like a divinely ordained mission, right? Like this is God's will. If it sounds like I'm describing a rabid group of people, storming and taking over a giant chunk of land. That's exactly what I'm doing. And there is one theory that I found quite compelling in its attempt to explain why there were so many people in America with this appetite for risk. It's called the hypomanic edge, the link between a little craziness and a lot of success in America. In broad brushstrokes, author and clinical psychologist John Gartner explores the pervasiveness of hypomania in America. Hypomania being a genetically based mild form of mania which endows people with high energy, creativity and a propensity for risk-taking. He asked the question, what kind of person is willing to embark on a sometimes very long, very dangerous journey into the unknown, often starting from scratch, with nothing but the promise, the potential of being able to build something bigger or better, right? Freedom. more opportunities. Especially in the early days, it's only the risk-tolerant people that were willing to cross the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean, which was like the filter, and then you put a lot of those people together because they're the only people that make it through that filter, and you end up with a society that becomes the United States. I want to pause here for a second before going any further into this theory on how the U.S. became what it is today to thank BetterHelp for their paid partnership in this video and making this entire video essay series possible. It's really easy to feel overwhelmed in our very fast changing world, especially with the ideological divisions that we see today. It's a very common feeling that I've noticed in the people around me. It's why I'm making this series as a way to make sense of things and it's also why I find therapy to be so valuable. It's not just for when things are going poorly. Therapy creates space and also gives you the tools in my view on better navigating uncertainty and making sense of your feelings especially in a world that often doesn't feel like it makes a lot of sense. I talk to my therapist every week and it's been especially helpful as I try to reconcile different worldviews after having lived in different countries. I've been challenged to question a lot of the beliefs that I've grown up with and It's helped me stay grounded throughout that whole process. BetterHelp offers access to a wide network of credentialed therapists and is built to adapt to your schedule. So whether you want to talk to your therapist via text or call or video call, you can do that. And one of the things that I really appreciate is how easy it is to switch therapists if you're not clicking with who you're talking to. If you're curious to check it out, there's a link in the description or you can go to betterhelp.com slash Nathaniel Drew. It's easy to sign up and get matched with someone. And signing up with that link is a great way to support this channel as well as giving you 10% off your first month with BetterHelp. Alright, let's get back to making sense of this world. So now you have a society that's built by people like this that are going to further create systems and a culture that is oriented towards this. Some of the examples in the book include Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Ford, and more recently people like Steve Jobs. It's a state of elevated mood, energy, and activity levels that is less severe than full-blown mania. Unlike mania, hypomania does not cause severe functional impairment or psychosis. But it can still lead to risky behaviors. It can also lead to increased irritability and agitation. being easily frustrated and impatient hyper productivity racing thoughts enhanced creativity distractibility impulsivity and poor judgment it's a very potent cocktail of different character traits. So while it does often feel like the wheels are gonna fall off this bus, the bus that is the United States, this fast-moving thing that is careening towards potential disaster, always pushing for bigger extremes and more, threatening the fabric of society, constant disruption and innovation, I recognize that there's a part of that, a small dose of that, that I cherish as an American. Risk-taking has shaped my life and is a big part of my... Life philosophy. It has led to some of the coolest most beautiful richest lessons and experiences of my life. Maybe it's part of being young. You know this desire to want to build and try new things and break out of the mold. I certainly don't think this channel would be anywhere near what it is today if I hadn't gone all out with it years ago with no guarantee of it ever panning out and turning into anything. I was just inspired by other Americans that have this attitude of just fucking go for it. I think it's very human. to push boundaries. You see this everywhere in the world. This isn't unique to Americans. It's just that I think this manifests itself most in the United States in the form of capitalism. Compare American ideas of exceptionalism and individualism with the Swedish idea of La Gomme, which if you translate that means just the right amount or not too much, not too little. Swedish society places much more of an emphasis on moderation and they're not the only ones. In Denmark I discovered the Law of Jante or Jantelovn in Danish which are ten laws or rules that sort of denote a social attitude of disapproval towards individualism or expressions of individuality and personal success. Let me read you the first three of those laws. 1. You're not to think you are anything special. 2. You're not to think you are as good as we are. Three, you are not to think you are smarter than we are. Talk about a different way of viewing things. And you guys are both Danish? Yes. It's about that nobody should think that they are important, I suppose. Yeah. In some sense. Yeah. Or that they are somebody special. Yeah. And I think it comes a bit from this socialist kind of approach of... we're doing this project together of the welfare state and that also means that if you're an individual who is going outside of bounds or trying to show yourself off then you need to remember that you're part of this common project but it has a very negative turn or like understanding in danish you cannot be too different basically and you cannot be too proud also i think it's also like a good kind of remedy i suppose if like people go a bit out of bounds or try to get too much power and do something with it that is like negative to the community. I think also we're moving away, I think having a kind of influence from, for example, the states with higher individualism. After speaking with younger generations, I think this idea, this concept has mellowed out a little bit, it's shifted. It doesn't change the fact that this doesn't show up anywhere in the United States. There's no concept of la gong or yantelong. And look, Europe has had to organize itself very differently than the United States. More around cooperation and multicultural tolerance. Because when one group of Europeans tries to take over the continent, that goes very badly. And it took more than one world war to realize that that really... had to stop. Hence the creation of the EEA and NATO and the EFTA. You know, you get my point. Maybe it's a certain kind of person that ended up going to the United States, especially in the early days, that created a kind of culture or attitude that has remained since. I don't know. This is just a theory, right? But I think one thing that's undeniable is that America has historically been, and still is today, a unique kind of environment. I'm in Austria right now, okay? This is where Arnold Schwarzenegger is from. But of course, being someone who is as extreme as he is in a fringe sport, America was like the perfect place for him to go. The thing that's concerning, the thing that I think a lot of people are afraid of, is that it seems like it's never enough. This is an insatiable appetite for more and it never ends. These hypomanic tendencies, they keep pushing the limit. How far are we gonna take capitalism before it breaks? And now we have a deeply divided country with billionaires cozying up to the current president, meme coins being launched left and right, scamming people. And it does feel like the bubble will burst at some point. But when? They say that The reason there's still a British monarchy and not a French one is that the British understood that you have to give back some of the wealth at some point or else there'll be a revolution. I say this because I do wonder if the imbalances of American society are getting, are reaching a tipping point. When does it become too much? We're living in times where there's such loud displays of luxury and wealth that it's difficult to ignore. It does feel like The US always has to be expanding and that's why we're hearing about the Panama Canal and Greenland and Canada as an American state. Because if it doesn't have something to eat up, it's gonna eat itself up. It'll cannibalize. And I think maybe this is why we're seeing such a divided country. The US needs somebody to bully. The Europeans used to be the pros at this, but they've handed over the mantle to their younger sibling. And so what we have now are... billionaires racing each other to get to Mars first because the Earth is just not enough. We're sort of destroying the Earth in our rush to get off of the Earth. So while the US feels more than ever like every man for himself and it's careening towards the future and I'm not sure that this is a future that we necessarily want to rush into, Europe feels very different and I don't know if it's because it has less of those hypomanic tendencies but it feels a little more tempered. Is it because all the hypomanic people left and went to the US? I don't know. Europe has different problems. It's aging. I'm not just talking about the architecture. I'm talking about the demographics. More and more older people and less and less younger people means that there's more strain put on the social security systems. Who's gonna pay for it all? And especially with debt continuing to balloon, this... also feels like a system that might go bust at some point. So who's going to pay for all this nice stuff? All these safety nets and social programs? The US is certainly not any better with regards to debt, the debt situation, but the US does have a very robust economy. It has the world reserve currency and also a younger demographic, so it's in a different situation. A couple of years ago, French President Macron sought to raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 and this is because they're running out of money like this is totally unsustainable right now and for the record that's still a younger age than the retirement age set in the United States in a country that has a life expectancy that's much higher than the United States. Now this was an immensely unpopular thing to do the French I hate Macron's guts. There was all kinds of protesting happening. I totally support people's ability and freedom to express themselves, to protest, and I love the passion. But I watch these protests not fully understanding how people think this system is going to get fixed. While Americans live to work, the French work to live, so this was tantamount to being told you have less life to enjoy. I respect the French and their priorities. I really do. There's so much more to life than work. And it's easy to get caught up on worrying about GDP growth and productivity and blah blah blah when in reality who gets richer? It's always just the rich, right? I just don't fully understand the logic because these systems cannot continue as they are. They're not financially sustainable whatsoever. I guess it's maybe the American in me who grew up never even thinking I have something like this to count on, but... I don't see how any of these systems are going to survive by the time I'm retirement age, which is decades away. I mean, the world is changing so quickly right now with AI and humanoids and like who the fuck knows what else is in the pipeline. It's hard to see how any of these systems are going to last. I just don't think there will be any money left when I'm. retirement age. I point to Macron, who by the way I'm not defending. I know that he's an insanely unpopular president. It's an easy example. In reality though, a lot of Europeans are dealing with similar issues. There are actually countries in Europe that have even more serious demographic problems like Germany and Italy. Maybe this all makes me sound conservative to Europeans. I definitely think we need some of this stuff in the United States. With so few social programs in the US, it does make it feel like the American dream is less attainable than ever. In the meantime, we're here now, right, in this like insanely fast changing and fascinating point in history. I think it's really important to remember that humans always like to predict the end of the world or the end of civilization and have been doing so for millennia. How many of those China is about to completely combust videos have you seen pop up across social media over the last few years and at least For now, it hasn't happened. Yet. The truth is that none of us know where all this is going or what happens next. I think human beings are a deeply adaptable species when we have to be, and a deeply stubborn species when we have an established way of doing things. I'm nervous about the future, but I think I'm also too young to let pessimism win. We're all so interconnected now that I think we have to start thinking about all of us being on the same team. It does look like we're headed towards a more turbulent and fast changing world and I guess that's why I'm making these videos as a way of attempting to make sense of things. Make sense of the world that we're living in. There will be more coming soon. This is only episode 2 in an entire series that I have coming out. Please do give this video a like if you enjoyed it. It helps me out a ton. It boosts this video and the algorithms which means other people can discover it. And consider subscribing to this channel. and hitting that bell icon if you want to be notified for when future episodes of the series come out. And finally, if you're interested in more of my writing and my reflections on the world and on life, I have a Substack. Again, I'll leave a link to it in the description below. That's a way for me to reach people that isn't algorithmically based. If it's easier, you can just look up Nathaniel Drew on Substack. Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you soon.

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Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro: Where You Come From Shapes How You See the World
02:30 – Socialism vs. Capitalism
04:05 – Rewinding the Clock
05:05 – A Theory to Explain Why We're So Different: Hypomania
7:39 – A Society Built by Hypomanic People
9:25 – European Ideas That Offer a Counter Balance
11:58 – A Unique Kind of Environment in the USA
12:59 – How Much Do You Give Back?
14:25 – Europe Has Different Problems
15:04 – Retirement
17:00 – Predicting the End of the World