loftar wrote:GrapefruitV wrote:But it was indeed racist, you just assumed that people of a whole nation are all the same and this behavior comes to them with blood and/or passport.
It does seem fair to say that nationality, upbringing and the influence of those with whom you live have a very strong influence on behavior, though, doesn't it? Saying that "a Russian does this or that" should probably not be interpreted as "if one is Russian, then his reaction to this or that situation will be uniquely determined by these or those inescapable rules of behaviorism", but rather as "a great deal of Russians display a strong tendency to do this or that".
Just as it would be incorrect to say that "people of a whole nation are all the same and this behavior comes to them with blood", it would be just as incorrect to say that "nationality has no influence whatsoever on behavior and we're all just isolated individuals of whom nothing can be said before testing the individual response".
Well, yes, and that's why I was trying to mess with Nooby in the first place, you're pretty much quotting my point on the matter from another discussion we had previously. I would only argue (or clarify the definition) with nationality thing. Nationality as blood and genes has very little to none influence on behavior, but influence is huge in social environment sense, which includes, but is not limited to culture, tradition, standard of living in given country, etc. And it is indeed not racist to say, for example, "Russians are christians", even though there are almost 40 millions adepts of other religions and atheists, while it would be racist (or at least rude and ignorant) to assume someone is christian, because he's russian.
However in this particular case original thesis was not based on statistics, known and commonly observable facts or tendencies, I wouldn't even call it a spread myth, it is basically one man's perception of his nation, which he advises to "think about" whenever you meet russians.
![¦]](./images/smilies/troll.gif "Trollface")
