Compromise is not an option in French discourse... ...you stand your ground until your point of view wins.
At 35 Britain sits in the lower rankings of PDI – i.e. a society that believes that inequalities amongst people should be minimized
At a score of 89 the UK is amongst the highest of the individualistic scores, beaten only by some of the commonwealth countries it spawned i.e. Australia and the USA. The British are a highly individualistic and private people.
At 66, Britain is a masculine society – highly success oriented and driven.
the British are comfortable in ambiguous situations - the term ‘muddling through’ is a very British way of expressing this. There are generally not too many rules in British society
A high score of 69 indicates that the British culture is one that is classified as indulgent. People in societies classified by a high score in indulgence generally exhibit a willingness to realise their impulses and desires with regard to enjoying life and having fun.
Children are raised to be emotionally dependent, to a degree, on their parents. This dependency will be transferred to teachers and later on to superiors. It is, therefore, a society in which a fair degree of inequality is accepted.
France, with a score of 71, is shown to be an individualist society. Parents make their children emotionally independent with regard to groups in which they belong. This means that one is only supposed to take care of oneself and one’s family.
With a score of 43, France has a somewhat feminine culture. At face value this may be indicated by its famous welfare system (securité sociale), the 35-hour working week, five weeks of holidays per year and its focus on the quality of life.
The French don’t like surprises. Structure and planning are required. Before meetings and negotiations they like to receive all necessary information.
France scores high (63) in this dimension, making it pragmatic. In societies with a pragmatic orientation, people believe that truth depends very much on situation, context and time. They show an ability to adapt traditions easily
... implies that the French are less relaxed and enjoy life less often than is commonly assumed. Indeed, France scores not all that high on the happiness indices.
Co-determination rights are comparatively extensive and have to be taken into account by the management. A direct and participative communication and meeting style is common, control is disliked and leadership is challenged
German society is a truly individualistic one (67). Small families with a focus on the parent-children relationship rather than aunts and uncles are most common. There is a strong belief in the ideal of self-actualization.
With a score of 66 Germany is considered a masculine society. Performance is highly valued and early required as the school system separates children into different types of schools at the age of ten.
there is a strong preference for deductive rather than inductive approaches, be it in thinking, presenting or planning: the systematic overview has to be given in order to proceed.
Germany's high score of 83 indicates that it is a pragmatic country. In societies with a pragmatic orientation, people believe that truth depends very much on situation, context and time.
The low score of 40 on this dimension indicates that the German culture is restrained in nature. Societies with a low score in this dimension have a tendency to cynicism and pessimism.
Spain’s score on this dimension (57) is a high score, which means that Spain has a hierarchical society. This means that people accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification.
Spain, in comparison with the rest of the European countries (except for Portugal) is Collectivist (because of its score in this dimension: 51). However, compared with other areas of the world it is seen as clearly individualist.
So polarization is not well considered or excessive competitiveness appreciated. Spanish children are educated in search of harmony, refusing to take sides or standing out. There is a concern for weak or needy people
If there is a dimension that defines Spain very clearly, it is Uncertainty Avoidance, as is reflected in a high score of 86. People like to have rules for everything, changes cause stress, but, at the same time, they are obliged to avoid rules and laws that, in fact, make life more complex.
Spanish people like to live in the moment, without a great concern about the future. In fact, Spain is the country that has given the meaning of ‘fiesta’ to the world. In Spain, people look for quick results without delays.
With a low score of 44, Spain is not an indulgent society. Societies with a low score in this dimension have a tendency to cynicism and pessimism.
They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and affectionate.
One great blemish in the popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood of evils, is Universal Distrust.
The merits of a broken speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not guaged by its or his observance of the golden rule, "Do as you would be done by," but are considered with reference to their smartness.
The love of trade is assigned as a reason for that comfortless custom... Of married persons living in hotels, having no fireside of their own, and seldom meeting from early morning until late at night, but at the hasty public meals.
...while the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and will go back; year by year, the tone of public feeling must sink lower down...
They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament always impressed me as being of a dull and gloomy character.
The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people to assert their self-respect and their equality...
... A world in which not one man in a hundred thousand has either the manners or cultivation of a gentleman, or changes his shirt more than once a week, or eats with a fork.
they have, too, over and above what we have, they have an excellent thing — equality.
I cannot help asking whether the defects of American civilization, if it is defective, may not probably be connected with the American people’s being, as Mr. Lowell says, “ the most common-schooled and the least cultivated people in the world,”
it is written, moreover, in a style which many French writers adopt, but which I find trying — a style cut into short paragraphs and wearing an air of rigorous scientific deduction without the reality.
the more I saw of America, the more I found myself led to treat “ institutions ” with increased respect. Until I went to the United States I had never seen a people with institutions which seemed expressly and thoroughly suited to it.
Outside domestic service within the range of conditions which an American may, in fact, be called upon to traverse, he passes easily from one sort of occupation to another, from poverty to riches, and from riches to poverty. Not one of his possible occupations appears degrading to him or makes him lose caste; and poverty itself appears to him as inconvenient and disagreeable rather than as humiliating. When the immigrant from Europe strikes root in his new home, he becomes as the American.
the American does not take his rich man so seriously as we do ours, does not make him into a grandee ; the thing, if proposed to him, would strike him as an absurdity.
With us, the chief holders of property are grandees already, and every rich man aspires to become a grandee if possible. And therefore an English country gentleman regards himself as part of the system of nature ; government and legislation have invited him so to do. If the price of wheat falls so low that his means of expenditure are greatly reduced, he tells you that if this lasts he cannot possibly go on as a country gentleman ; and every wellbred person amongst us looks sympathizing and shocked.
Wealth excites the most savage enmity there, because it is conceived as a means for gratifying appetites of the most selfish and vile kind.
almost every one acknowledges that there is a charm in American women — a charm which you find in almost all of them, wherever you go. It is the charm of a natural manner, a manner not self-conscious, artificial and constrained.
the Englishwoman is living in presence of an upper class, as it is called — in presence, that is, of a class of women recognized as being the right thing in style and manner, and whom she imagines criticising her style and manner, finding this or that to be amiss with it, this or that to be vulgar.
if there be a discipline in which the Americans are wanting, it is the discipline of awe and respect. .. if one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline of respect, the feeling for what is elevated, one could not do better than take the American newspapers.
the Americans seem, in certain matters, to have agreed, as a people, to deceive themselves, to persuade themselves that they have what they have not, to cover the defects in their civilization by boasting
Is it surprising, considering these antecedents, that much of arrogance, coarseness, and vulgarity should be met with? Is it not rather surprising, that a traveller should meet with so little to annoy - so few obvious departures from the rules of propriety?
the Americans are nationally sensitive, and cannot endure that good- humoured raillery which jests at their weaknesses and foibles.
An Englishman bears with patience any ridicule which foreigners cast upon him. John Bull never laughs so loudly as when he laughs at himself;
It does one good to hear an American discourse on America, his panegyric generally concluding with the words, "We're the greatest people on the face of the earth."
This esprit du pays, although it is sometimes carried to a ridiculous extent, is greatly to be preferred to the abusive manner in which au Englishman accustoms himself to speak of the glorious country to which he appears to feel it a disgrace to belong.
The Americans, however, have too much respect for themselves and their companions to travel except in good clothes, and this mingling of all ranks is far from being disagreeable
in many parts of England it would be difficult for a lady to travel unattended in a second-class, impossible in a third-class carriage; yet I travelled several thousand miles in America, frequently alone, from the house of one friend to another's, and never met with anything approaching to incivility;
I have had considerable experience of the cars, having travelled from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the Mississippi to the St. Lawrence, and found the company so agreeable in its way
I cannot forbear mentioning the rapidity with which the Americans despatch their meals. My next neighbour has frequently risen from his seat after a substantial and varied dinner while I was sending away my soup-plate.
But on summoning the cashier (or rather requesting his attendance, for one never summons any one in the States),
First impressions are not always correct, but I am happy to say they were fully borne out in this instance by the uniform kindness and hospitality which I experienced during my whole tour.
I suppose that there is no country in the world where the presence of a lady is such a restraint upon manners and conversation. A female, whatever her age or rank may be, is invariably treated with deferential respect;
the temperate, tea-drinking, water-drinking habits of the native Americans are most remarkable.
The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.
in the United States it is believed, and with truth, that patriotism is a kind of devotion which is strengthened by ritual observance.
I deny that such is the case when the people is as enlightened, as awake to its interests, and as accustomed to reflect on them, as the Americans are.
In the United States the interests of the country are everywhere kept in view; they are an object of solicitude to the people of the whole Union, and every citizen is as warmly attached to them as if they were his own.
the press is not less destructive in its principles than in France, and it displays the same violence without the same reasons for indignation.
In France the space allotted to commercial advertisements is very limited, and the intelligence is not considerable, but the most essential part of the journal is that which contains the discussion of the politics of the day. In America three-quarters of the enormous sheet which is set before the reader are filled with advertisements, and the remainder is frequently occupied by political intelligence or trivial anecdotes:
The characteristics of the French journalist consist in a violent, but frequently an eloquent and lofty, manner of discussing the politics of the day; and the exceptions to this habitual practice are only occasional.
When once the Americans have taken up an idea, whether it be well or ill founded, nothing is more difficult than to eradicate it from their minds. The same tenacity of opinion has been observed in England
The same tenacity of opinion has been observed in England, where, for the last century, greater freedom of conscience and more invincible prejudices have existed than in all the other countries of Europe.
I draw on the Russian academic tradition of interweaving research with fiction and poetry.
ici le gendarme grave, honnête, sérieux, ... ; là le soldat espagnol, habillé de vert, et savourant dans l'herbe verte les douceurs et les mollesses du repos avec une bienheureuse nonchalance.
ici le gendarme grave, honnête, sérieux, le gendarme épanoui d'avoir été réhabilité, dans les Français de Curmer, par Edouard Ourliac ; là le soldat espagnol, habillé de vert, et savourant dans l'herbe verte les douceurs et les mollesses du repos avec une bienheureuse nonchalance.
Les costumes nationaux ne sont guère , en général, conservés que dans l'Andalousie , et il y a maintenant en Castille bien peu d'anciens costumes.
Ces effrayants tableaux de martyres sont, très-nombreux en Espagne,où l'amour du réalisme et de la vérité dans l'art est poussé aux dernières limites. Le peintre ne vous fera pas grâce d'une seule goutte de sang ; il faut qu'on voie les nerfs coupés...
il est protégé par une carapace... Contre les petalas, manzanas et cascaras de naranja, pommes de terre, pommes et pelures d'orange dont le public espagnol, public impatient s'il en fut, ne manque pas de bombarder les acteurs qui lui déplaisent.
c'était un taudis sans fenêtre, avec un foyer de pierres brutes placé au centre , et un trou dans le toit pour laisser sortir la fumée ; les murs étaient bistrés d'un bitume digne de Rembrandt.
Jusqu'à présent rien n'a justifié pour nous les reproches de malpropreté et de dénûment que font tous les voyageurs aux auberges espagnoles ;
lis renient de toutes leurs forces l'Espagne du Romancero et des Orientales, et une de leurs principales prétentions, c'est de n'être ni poétiques ni pittoresques, prétentions, hélas! trop bien justifiées.
le public espagnol ... Ne souffre la lâcheté ni dans l'homme ni dans la bête.
Il m'a semblé que les femmes, en Espagne, avaient la haute main et jouissaient d'une plus grande liberté qu'en France.
Je ne lui trouve qu'un défaut, c'est l'extrême volubilité de son débit, défaut qui n'en est pas un pour les Espagnols.
ces églises sont meublées, vivantes, et n'ont pas l'aspect glacialement désert des nôtres
les Espagnols ne sont jamais pressés
en quelque endroit que le sommeil prenne un Espagnol, il étend son manteau à terre et se couche avec une philosophie et un flegme parfaits.
cette emphase un peu fanfaronne dont les Espagnols ne se déshabitueront jamais
Le seul parti qui vous reste à prendre, c'est de dormir comme les autres, et l'on s'y résigne bien vite; car que faire tout seul éveillé au milieu d'une nation endormie?
La sobriété et la patience des Espagnols à supporter la fatigue est quelque chose qui tient du prodige.
la réserve habituelle des Espagnols fait bien vite place à une honnête et cordiale familiarité
en Espagne l'on n'est pas dans l'usage de donner le bras aux femmes... Cette habitude de marcher seules leur donne une franchise, une élégance et une liberté d'allures que n'ont pas nos femmes
Les Espagnols se fâchent en général quand on leur parle de cachucha, de castagnettes, de majos, de manolas, de moines, de contrebandiers et de combats de taureaux
En rentrant chez soi, l'on rencontre sous les fenêtres et les balcons les jeunes galants embossés dans leur cape et occupés à ... Faire la conversation avec leurs norias a travers les grilles.
On ne voit pas là cette inquiétude furieuse , ce besoin d'agir et de changer de place , qui tourmentent les gens du Nord. Les Espagnols m'ont paru très-philosophes : ils n'attachent presque aucune importance à la vie matérielle...