I recently asked my Greek teacher about if 2008 was as bad in Greece as American media portrayed. She said things were definitely not good from an economic perspective but life kept going on. Even though people had no jobs, you couldn’t find an empty seat in a taverna on the weekend. She pointed out the biggest difference she notices living in the US is that people prioritize money above all else. In Greece they prioritize having a good time. It really changed how I viewed the crisis and reminded me that cultural differences bias our judgements.
> She pointed out the biggest difference she notices living in the US is that people prioritize money above all else.
Something Jerry Seinfeld (yes, the comedian) recently observed:
> SEINFELD: In the seventies, this is the tragic turn of American culture. And this was explained to me by Mario Joiner who cracked this puzzle that I could not figure out what the hell happened. That money became everything. What happened because it was not like that in the seventies. In the seventies, it’s how cool is your job? How cool is what you’re doing? If your job’s cooler than my job, you beat me.
> BRENNAN: And no one said, how much are you making?
> SEINFELD: Oh, you’re doing okay. You’re making this? Yeah. Who cares? And Mario Joiner explained this to me. He said the eighties was the first time that young guys could make a lot of money fast.
> Never existed before. Rich guys were Aristotle Onassis, Andrew Carnegie, shipping, iron. You couldn’t make a lot of money fast in those days.
> And it has poisoned our culture to this day. It’s poison.
I figured it was the exact opposite. It was the very slow start of when life started to get really expensive. by the 00's there was no time to just go out and pursue your passions, you needed to pay rent the next month.
I imagine a part of this is (among many factors) impacted the US very strongly due to the "out of the nest" mentality. If you were 18 and still in your parent's house, you were doing something wrong. And that mentality has only very recently started changing as university costs skyrockted (and thus commuting has risen) and rent became untenable for someone making minimum wage.
If your good times cause a crisis with long lasting consequences, that isn’t exactly a good thing. I could list a hundred example situations but there’s no need, is there?
I recently asked my Greek teacher about if 2008 was as bad in Greece as American media portrayed. She said things were definitely not good from an economic perspective but life kept going on. Even though people had no jobs, you couldn’t find an empty seat in a taverna on the weekend. She pointed out the biggest difference she notices living in the US is that people prioritize money above all else. In Greece they prioritize having a good time. It really changed how I viewed the crisis and reminded me that cultural differences bias our judgements.