SOME CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN USA AND UK THAT ARE

NOT POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS IN NATURE

CARLOS ANDRES HOSTIA VILLANUEVA

STUDENT:

PASCUALE PACICCA
TEACHER:

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS BÁSICAS Y EDUCACIÓN

DEPARTAMENTO DE LENGUAS MODERNAS
PROGRAMA DE LENGUA CASTELLANA E INGLÉS
ENGLISH CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION
VALLEDUPAR
CESAR
2020-I
 SOME CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN USA AND UK THAT ARE
NOT POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS IN NATURE

US Americans and the UK are often considered, especially in Continental Europe,

"culturally similar" but this is probably just an urban legend due to the presumed
cultural difference between most Europeans and both the British and the Americans.

The US have certainly a much more diverse society than the UK has, due to the
different size the two countries cover. Differences can be found in many contexts. Some
examples

- Americans are strongly republican, whereas most British people support the monarchy
- politically, Americans find it legitimate to be somewhat left-of-centre to somewhat
right-of-centre, but there are certain issues on which a "moderate" is certainly more on
the right than a moderate in the UK: abortion, LGBT issues, welfare state
- the texture of the British constituencies (that elect Members of Parliament) makes it so
that there can be huge local differences, with MPs from opposite parties elected in
neighbouring parts of the same town; in the US there is a reduced number of
Representative and Senators for each State which tends to flatten the depth of political
ideology
- the British, despite expressing several different positions on the issue, would always
aim at a National Health System of some sort, providing free care without having to pay
an insurance; this topic seems to be taboo to many Americans
- there is a different way equality and politically correctness play at different levels; on
a typical issue, you would define the same person as "African American" in the US and
"Black" in the UK; "Caucasian" in the US and "White" in the UK. No UK people would
perceive this as being racist, however there is a very strong (and I would feel it as
stronger than in many US places) social stigma against different kinds of racism and
intolerance, ranging from ethnical issues to sexual orientation and disabilities
- the cultural heritage of most people in the US comes directly from fleeing religious
oppression and the accent is on religious freedom; religion represents a big part of the
public lives of people. In the UK, despite having established churches in England (the
Church of England) and Scotland (the Presbyterian Church), religion is considered by
most people as a private matter, and most people are not practising religious people or
do not consider it as the defining aspect of their lives
- there is in vast parts of the UK an industrial heritage that constitute part of the political
identity of those parts of the countries; at best of my knowledge, this process is not that
marked throughout the US.

However, some of the main social differences is that we’re politically and socially a lot
further left than you guys - for instance, we have universal healthcare, and even the
most right wing Conservative politicians don’t dare to overtly talk about replacing it.
Even the hint that this might happen is met with howls of fury.
Additionally, American religiosity is considered absolutely baffling - we have
evangelical Christians in Britain, for instance, but in much smaller numbers.
Mormonism in particular is deemed to be fair game for jokes.

We’re also much more casual about sex and drinking - you don’t see Purity Balls/Purity
Rings or anything like that over here. The age of consent is 16, and while people aren’t
served alcohol until they’re 18 (the ban until 21 in some states is considered very
puzzling), but it’s legal to drink a little at home under adult supervision, and practically
speaking, most people will be pretty familiar with alcohol long before they’re legally
allowed to drink it.

Identifying yourself by religion or political party is generally considered to be bad form,

especially with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a largely sectarian Catholic/Protestant
conflict, being within recent living memory. Identifying yourself by employer is
considered very weird. Identification by region, town, or football (soccer) team is much
more common.

And as for guns, our gun laws are so tight that the pistol shooting team has to practice
abroad and the gun lobby is next to non-existent. The closest you’ve got is the
Countryside Alliance, which is a mainly campaigns for hunting, with guns as an
occasional corollary. Hunting is also a very middle/upper class pursuit.

Sports? Well, the closest we get to the Superbowl in terms of interest is when the
Football World Cup is on, and even then, large chunks of the population are entirely
disinterested, if only because England (the historically most successful nation, though
this means little, and Wales recently got to the semi-finals of the European
Championship) usually fail in new and interesting ways. The most popular sport is
association football, by a long way, though in parts of northern England, it’s Rugby
League, in large parts of Wales it’s Rugby Union, and in rural England as a whole, it
tends to be Cricket or Rugby Union.

American Football, meanwhile, is the target of mockery along the lines of Giles on
Buffy, “I just find it amusing that a nation that prides itself so much on its virility feels
the need to strap on thirty pounds of padding just to play rugby,” though it’s got an
increasing number of fans.

Week in, week out, though, it’s the English Premier League that draws audiences,
largely because it’s one of the richest sporting leagues on the planet (with the exception
of Tottenham, all of the so-called ‘Big Six’ of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester
United, Manchester City, and Tottenham Hotspur, are ranked in the top 50 richest
sporting franchises on the planet) and can thus afford the best players.

CARLOS ANDRES HOSTIA VILLANUEVA

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