My European Trip, Part 9: A Conversation
I described the Rearden recently. Here’s an example where I tested it out in Europe (I’m reciting to the best of my memory, but I think this captures the gist of the conversation pretty well).
I’m sitting at an outdoor bar called L’Toosje in Amsterdam right outside of the red light district, drinking a beer at a sidewalk chair. I was using the messenger function on my Blackberry to talk to a friend back in the US. Since I had limited internet access and my cell phone cost $1 a minute to use, I found the free Messenger service to be the best option for keeping in touch with people back home and letting them know I was doing okay. I felt letting people know i was okay was especially important given the amount of time I was all alone abroad.
A guy walked over to me. “How are you doing?” he said with a mischievous grin.
ME: I’m okay. How are you?
DUTCH GUY: I see that you are…American, yes?
ME: (Oh brother, here it comes) Yes, I am.
DUTCH GUY: I find you Americans so…interesting. Do you mind if I sit?
ME: Go ahead.
He sits.
DUTCH GUY: I find it fascinating how Americans are never able to just relax and enjoy what is around them. I was an exchange student in American for a while in high school. I ran track. The whole team was black guys. I was the only white person on the team. I learned a lot about American people. It was the first time I really understood what being white was.
ME: How so?
DUTCH GUY: I just judge people as individuals. But I did not understand race and how things work until I got there. For example, my team told me to go up to this other black guy on the field and say “What’s up nigger?” I had no idea that was a bad thing to say. And they stood in the back and laughed as I did what they said and got into trouble with the guy. He almost killed me and I had no idea why! Then they came our and saved me.
ME: Were you mad?
DUTCH GUY: (Grinning) No, but I learned about how I’d never fully be one of them. They were my brothers, my team, at the end of my time there I considered them my family. I never considered myself a racist at all, but I realized there that because of the history of America, when I walked around there I was automatically assumed to be racist by the black people there. Do you think that’s fair?
ME: What does it matter what I think? It’s your problem. All that matters is how you think.
DUTCH GUY: (Still smirking) I think you Americans are naturally divided, neurotic…you disconnect from things. You isolate yourselves, even in a crowd. That’s how I knew you were American. And the worst thing, I can’t hold it against you because I know you can’t help it. (What he did here was a very subtle trick. He is subtly “forgiving” me for a trait that I never even apologized for. He’s also giving me permission to be myself, when I never even asked for him permission. The general vibe is that he’s toying with me slyly and placing himself above me with subtle power plays in conversation. His sentences place him in a position of judgment. He’s in the driver’s seat, trying to steer the conversation in a way that’s subtly condescending. But he hasn’t said anything blatantly insulting yet, so i can’t call him on it too harshly. Time for the Rearden)
ME: What are you getting at?
DUTCH GUY: I’m not trying to get at anything.
ME: You’ve come to sit with me, tell me your life story, and a bunch of negative things about Americans and then say these negative things are the reason you knew I was American. I’m impatient. Just get to the point of where you’re trying to go with this. I tend to be a very direct guy.
DUTCH GUY: (Speechless, pauses for a bit) I just feel that Americans isolate themselves and live in their own world like no one else exists. A very, how do you say, self-focused…
ME: Is that a nice way of saying narcissistic?
DUTCH GUY: No, I wasn’t saying that, I was…um…
ME: No, you weren’t saying it. You were implying it. I’m the one explicitly saying it.
DUTCH GUY: I’m sorry…I’m not trying to offend, I…uh…
ME: No, you weren’t trying to offend, you were trying to insult me without offending. That’s even worse because it’s almost dishonest. Anyway, what are you sorry about, that you tried to insult me or that I called you on it?
DUTCH GUY: I feel like…like you misunderstand me.
ME: (laughing) I think I understand you perfectly. You saw me on a Blackberry, so you knew right away I had to be an American. [Blackberry use is a red flag that you are an American, or maybe a Brit or Canadian, when overseas. But most assume American. I only saw another Blackberry once in my whole time abroad] So you decided that me, being the American stereotype that I am, disconnected from the world, needed to be lectured by you, right? For my own enlightenment? And I wouldn’t be sharp enough to catch on to the condescension?
DUTCH GUY: (Realizing this conversation is not going at all like he expected it to be, he doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself anymore. HIs smirk has long faded.) Yes, well, I saw you on the Blackberry just messaging and messaging and messaging and you know…I felt sorry for you, that you are so unable to just turn it off and enjoy where you are?
ME: Who exactly are you to feel sorry for me?
DUTCH GUY: No, I don’t mean to get you mad.
ME: I’m not mad. (calm smile.) But seriously, who are you to feel sorry for me? Aren’t you Europeans always going on about Americans and how we don’t respect or understand other people’s cultures and traditions?
DUTCH GUY: ….
ME: Well I’m from New York City. Talking on Blackberries all day is my culture. Why isn’t that worth respecting? Right?
DUTCH GUY: Well, you have to understand, I just wanted to talk about things, my time in America. My best friend, he was a black guy named Darrell, and when I was there we were so close. And sometimes I think back, and I wish I could find him and get back in touch with him. On the surface, we were so different, different backgrounds, different cultures, different races, yet we ended up being great friends, almost brothers by the time I left. And I always wish I could find him again.
ME: So what is this? You have a lot of unresolved issues with America in general and black Americans in particular and now that you see me, a Black American , and this is your chance to work out all your nostalgia and issues with Americans and black Americans all at once right? I’m like a stand-in for America, for the black guys you remember in the States, for whatever? I don’t care about your issues.
DUTCH GUY: You….you’re really honest.
After that, all the smirking and passive-aggressiveness left. He magically turned into a normal person and we had a normal conversation. He invited me to a fashion show he was throwing and gave me invite. But I knew I would never go to the show because, let’s face it, he was a dick. This exchange went on longer than I wanted as it is, and if he continued on the same track even one more time I’d just have told him to leave me alone, but thankfully he gave up.
There were several other exchanges in Europe where I had to use the Rearden, but that was the longest conversation, and my favorite. Overall though most of the Europeans I met were wonderful, and showed me a great time. But when Europeans do condescension, they do it on a whole other level of assholery.
Also see: Clarification on the Rearden
(7 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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nice! I can really dig this Rearden maneuver.
Good stuff on the Rearden.
I need to practice it myself.
Good post!
I’ve had a few experiences similar to yours when dealing with Europeans and/or Brits.
One was when I was in New Zealand, hiking the Kepler Track, during Christmas/New Years. In one of the huts, 2 Brits basically started ganging up on my wife and I when they learned we were Americans. They played many of the same games you described, as they were bitching about Iraq, how Tony Blair’s “basically a poodle of the U.S.”, etc. etc. They tried to cast the U.S. as hypocrites since there’s a photo of Dick Cheney with Sadaam Hussein from the 1980′s, and that was somehow indicative that the U.S. was once cozy with him. I didn’t think of it at the time, but later on realized I should have mentioned to these 2 clowns that Britain also once went to war with a certain bunch of people, and that Britain is now friends with the descendents of those people. Today we’re called Americans!
Another time I’ve experienced the same also with a Dutchman. This guy was playing the not-too-subtle “Americans are idiots” game by asking me, “How come you Americans always go to McDonald’s when you’re overseas?” I should have countered him by asking him about the stereotype of Europeans all being a bunch of wimps that “swing both ways”, and ask him how many guys he’s slept with!
Good for you. Another good thing would be to point out that Americans are not as uniform in character as Europeans (I say this tongue in cheek) — since the European Union countries individually don’t have nearly as many people as the U.S. (the entire EU is 450 mil, vs 300 mil here and only 16.4 mil in the Netherlands), and since Americans tend to come *from* EU countries, not to mention everywhere else in the world, rather than consider the US as being like England, like Italy, etc. think of it as like the European Union, all by itself, or even a microcosm of the whole world, complex and full of contrary voices. And, many of the reactionary voices stay home, dude.
I don’t know man…
I see where you are coming from, and I agree with the analyses of conversational dynamics you post here, but something about the way you handled this rubbed me the wrong way. Felt too defensive. I would have handled it in one of two ways:
1) Early in the conversation you could have opened up an interesting discussion comparing the relative merits of the more isolated, atomic nature of American life versus the more friendly vibe you felt in AMS (you do agree that there is a qualitative difference, right? I myself found the open vibe in AMS to be refreshing).
2) If you you honestly felt the guy was trying to ho you up, better to go for the throat right away instead of psychoanalyzing and nitpicking. If it’s a “fight”, go on the offensive and start talking trash about what you think about the Dutch. That’s fun. But squirming around about what you think his motives are strikes me as ever so slightly bitchassed.
I like the idea of The Rearden in theory, but I don’t like this example.
All IMHO, of course.
I see your point Tupac, but it’s all in how you say it. The whole thing was delivered with an air of nonchalantly humoring my little sister, no sign of being annoyed, angry or anything.
Your two options:
1) Actually intellectually engaging in the content of his argument is meaningless, because he doesn’t actually give a fuck about the relative merits of isolated, atomic life in America versus the more friendly vibe of AMS. He simple wants to intellectually emasculate an American through passive-aggression. I had plenty of intellectual arguments with people in AMS who really were interested in debate or information exchange, but for him the content of his argument was more of a smokescreen for his issues rather than the actual purpose of his interaction.
2) At the very worst, the things he said just came off as constructive criticism. For the most part, everything was too subtle to respond by just going for the throat. First, I’d look like I was overreacting and WAY too sensitive. Second, he’d get the satisfaction of getting under my skin. Third, it would just validate his stereotypes of Americans as social, uncivilized misfits. I think to a guy like that who thought he was so much smarter than Americans, being intellectually outmanuevered by an American in conversation would actually be much more hurtful and emasculating to his ego than if I just threatened him or trash talked the Dutch. To me arguing is even more bitchass, unless you’re planning to escalate it right into a fistfight. And all alone in a foreign country, no way am I going to risk jail unless I absolutely have to.
Also, I have no problem with Dutch people as a whole, I’m not going to bash the whole Dutch culture just to reciprocate the guy’s America bashing. That would just make me a stereotyping dick like him. I wanted to make him personally feel silly as an individual.
Interesting post. I couldn’t help noticing that your blackness didn’t provide you with any protection from your “guest’s” p-a bs maneuvers. No member-of-an-oppressed-group pass for you! I notice that you didn’t use your blackness in any obvious way to put him back on his heels, something that I suspect many black Americans might well have been tempted to do under the circumstances.
I agree a little with Tupac’s point that you might have come across aggressively, but would say that it was more important that you indicated to your p-a artist in words, tone and (no doubt) body language that you were taking him seriously.
That is the key, in my opinion, of why and how the Rearden works. It consists of doing nothing but taking speech seriously.
Good job. I’ll put this one in my toolkit.
Hey T,
Been awhile since we last chatted. So, I see I have some reading to do! I like “The Rearden” but I’m w/TC on this one: in any situation, Mu prefers the North/South approach, straightup, straight line, let’s have it.
Now, if I had been in your shoes w/dude, I would have cut him right off at the knees, cut the ring off on him and made him duke it rhetorically right there. I would have put him back on his heels in a very dominant way, because that’s my nature anyhow. And he would either have to bring it, or stand down. Kinda what you’ve been saying about drawing them out into the open.
I’ve found that White folks of a certain class tend to talk like this far more than Black folk of any class do. Anyone care to elaborate on exactly WHY this is? For example, I’ve found that White folks talk as if they’re asking questions all the time. Its annoying, especially coming from men. So Wimpy. No wonder so many White boys can’t get laid. If I were a Woman, I wouldn’t offer up myself to that kind of stuff either.
OK, holla back
Salaam
Mu
Wowza – that dude dropping the N word in the second paragraph is one hell of a conversation opener. What a wanker. He deserved the Reardon with a side of beat down.
BandB – I’m not one of those people that’s really uptight about white people using the word “nigger,” unless they’re specifically using it to insult someone racially. He was just telling a story and the word “nigger” was part of the story. Actually, he had a very romanticized, positive view of black people, I feel they were the only Americans he thought highly of. He kept talking about how he bonded the most with the black people he met out of all the Americans he came across and how he still missed them.
Mu’Min – Honestly, that is just how many Europeans are when you are American. If you are planning to throw down the gauntlet at every subtle insinuation of disrespect, all you’re going to do is drive yourself crazy for your whole trip and just make them happy they made you lose your cool. If a guy is openly dissing you I’m all for dominating him, but otherwise you just look like you lost your cool with a response way out of proportion to the transgression. I know because I’ve made that mistake before in the past. You blow up, and it doesn’t make the person bring it OR stand down. Instead it just allows them to say they were just joking and change the focus from their behavior to your supposed overreaction.
The interesting thing about my blackness is that I think it confused him as far as how to approach me. My outfit and Blackberry use probably made him identify me as an American yuppie, which he disliked, but the fact that I was a black American made him want to sympathize with me and romanticize me for being a member of an oppressed group, which is what drove him to keep professing to me the depth of his intense love for black Americans.
I wasn’t really interested in either line of conversation.
What a great post! I spent 6 years abroad, one of which was in Germany, so this sort of thing happened to me all the time. I disagree with other commenters that going for the jugular early on is the right approach. That was always my initial instinct too, but it doesn’t work because (as this encounter demonstrates) they can easily fall back on the faux “OH, I didn’t mean to offend.” It’s true that Rawness calls him on it eventually, but first you have to give the guy enough rope to hang himself. Sitting there and calmly letting him build up a bit belies any impression that you’re easily offended or closed-minded, or simplistic or whatever. Love the Rearden and will definitely plan on using it next time I’m in one of these situations.
I understand where T & the rest of y’all are coming from, and maybe its a combo of my being an inner city,Blue Collar Brotha, but I just don’t have the patience for all this Cloak & Dagger bullshit. If so and so don’t like the USA, that’s cool, its one of the things that makes our way of life so great (unlike so many places in the EU, hmm), that’s people have a right to disagree and voice it. What I don’t respect is that Beta way of going about it.
So, yea, after about two such comments, I’m going right after him, but I’m not gonna burn the place down, LOL. I’ll calmly but very firmly drag is ass into the open and commence to rhetorically pummel him into submission or oblivion, whichever comes first. And it’ll serve as a nice way of saying to onlookers, Please Do Not Fuck With Americans. Especially the Black Ones.
Holla back
Salaam
Mu
What is this assumption based on?
Regarding that blackness thing, a black American dude once told me, basically, that while in America people gave him shit for being black, in Finland people were giving him shit for being American… and he was loving that.
On another note, I remember a very liberal white American living here complaining that the immigrant authorities were treating her “like a Mexican”. After all her railing about white privilege in America, she seemed pretty upset that her white privileges were void here…
I’m an inner-cty, blue collar black guy too.
What I did was a calm but firm way of dragging his ass in the open. I stripped his conversation of its bullshit smokescreen and called it out for what it was. But what I did was give him rope to hang himself with first. If he escalated it, then a verbal beatdown is cool. But he stammered, hemmed, hawed, backpedaled and stopped doing it the moment I dragged it out in the open and called him on it. He got the message not to try the beta stuff on me and anyone watching would have gotten the same message. I gave him the out, and he took it ,and it was crystal clear who was actually in control. And as a result, the rest of our conversation was perfectly fine and nice. It’s about choosing your battles. As Joshua’s comment shows, you will get tested like this ALL THE TIME if you spend time in Europe. You flip out each time over the subtle stuff and you will just end up ruining your time. I can tell you what happens when you do that, because I saw firsthand with a guy from NY I spent time with there who would flip out out of proportion to every bit of beta testing: you do not catch them off-guard because they are counting on, no hoping that you lose your cool because then they can make you look the worse for it. First, they deny they meant anything wrong. And because you blew your stack too early into the encounter, they have plausible deniability when they claim this. You now look oversensitive, close-minded, simple and primitive, which ends up just validating their stereotypes about Americans, and they can then springboard off of that. “See, why are Americans like this? Someone tries to give you some constructive criticism, and you take it as an insult and get mad. That is why your President has no support in the world. It’s like Bush and the UN. You respond to everything with rage and violence, like cowboys, blahblahblah, etc, etc,” FUCK THAT. Now you have spiraled into an argument, and I always maintain that arguing for the sake of arguing is just feminine.
I met an American over there that they would pull this on regularly and he’d overrespond every time. He’d argue back and just end up looking like a stereotypical uncultured hothead American, which is exactly what they want. This type loves getting you to lose your cool too soon.Like I said, if he escalated to a more overt insult, by all means I’m with you Mu’Min. But I still feel that engaging him on the merits of his argument like Tupac says is a waste of time because he probably has read up on his Howard Zinn and Michael Moore and has a bunch of arguments ready to prove things about America. He’s prepared for this. Also, responding to his argument on the merits also validates it in a way because I’m acknowledging that he has some valid points just by seriously entertaining it. I’m not going to waste time arguing the merits of American life vs. European life because it’s a trap, it’s his battlefield, and it’s utterly irrelevant to the real social dynamic going on. Getting sucked into an intellectual debate with this clown will feed the beast, not slay it. And I still feel that showing him that he got under my skin would have gone down as a victory for him because it would show that he struck a nerve, meaning that what he said had an element of truth to it, and it would allow him to claim that his stereotypes about Americans as testosterone fueled cowboys were validated because they retaliate out of proportion to “harmless” critiques.
jaakeli – i would either be given shit for being american, or they would try to befriend me and elicit stories of hardship from me about being oppressed. i suspect a lot of black americans, when abroad, join europeans on the america-bashing, because they were all surprised when i refused to agree that america was an ultraracist society that oppressed me nonstop. in fact, i’d point out the muslim problems they had and mention that if they had their race relations anywhere near as good as americans there wouldn’t be this crisis they’re having now about how to integrate foreigners. people were badmouthing muslims left and right to me in the harshest terms, yet still viewed themselves as more enlightened about race than americans.
a lot of white liberals i know here, the Stuff White People Like crowd, actually love going to europe and experiencing the anti-americanism. they beat themselves up with liberal guilt over being american at home, and going abroad to get beat up seems to really be enjoyable to them. they like saying things like “we’re not all bad,” and “i’m not one of the ones who elected bush, i’m one of the good ones” or they just agree with all the america-bashing and go on about how great europe is to have free healthcare and be so enlightened. for self-hating white liberals, the anti-american abuse is almost cleansing and cathartic.
That’s probably a class issue. The black Americans I’ve met who were happy with the liberal worldview were the ones I’ve met through the university, the one dude who didn’t was here to play basketball…
(And that was eons ago. Attitudes here have changed with immigration. The most notable source of trouble here has been refugees from Africa – most of them illiterate Muslims. You can imagine how well that’s turning out.)
Jaakkeli, that’s my point. When I was there they were having a TON of problems coexisting with immigrants and foreigners, yet they would still bash the ability of Americans to deal with and integrate nonwhite people into their society. Given their current race and immigration problems, I found their judgment ironic. I think it’s because they really buy into the propaganda about how oppressive and unbearable and racism-filled life is for blacks all over America.
One of the things I wonder is whether an Obama presidency will force leftists here and abroad to finally admit that America, while not perfect, is not as racist to its core as people like to claim.
Hi T,
Thanks for the additional comments, and as you’ve actually been about Europe, or least good parts of it, I have to accept your judgment on this one. I’ve yet to go there myself. So I’ll take heed.
But what I will say is that, I don’t have a problem w/Europeans thinking whatever they want about us Americans. What I don’t appreciate is their bitchass way of going about it. I can respect anyone’s POV is they a Man about it. Mu is always willing to break bread w/those who disagree w/him or his country. Viva la difference! But that Beta ish ain’t cool man. And Europe, and a lot of White folks back home here in the States, reek of it.
Thanks again for such good travelogues and excellent writing! I gotta do the Ayn Rand thing asap…
Salaam
Mu
whatever happened to Blacks & IQ Pt. 3?
It’ll be my next post.
[...] Friedersdorf writes that we need more like Tom Wolfe. T aka Ricky Raw demonstrates the Rearden in action. In the New York Times, law professor Glenn Reynolds writes that the vice-president is a member of [...]
I have to say I think the original article is great and right on the money. However I have a problem with this comment:
I think I should point out that there aren’t any places in the EU where you are not allowed to disagree with people – just like in America. There aren’t any dictatorships in the EU and freedom of speech is a right in all of its countries. Just the same as America.
It’s not China you know!
What you have been calling “The Rearden” just sounds like good ol’ Socrates to me — maybe Socrates in a cranky mood.
Anyway, good job.
“ME: I feel like you?re trying to get at something. What is it?”
Nicely done. I’m gonna keep that in mind. I can use that.
He was running Dutch Game on you dude.
Gotta high five him for his successful negs.
Game is all about working with stereotypes and playing them up to get a desired reaction out of your target.
I can’t believe I have to explain your own game to you (a supposed PUA).
LOL.
Guess you can’t see your own nose.
First, I’m not a PUA. Second, what on earth did you “explain” to me that I didn’t explain myself already? That he was running game and doing negs? Of course he was, that’s the whole point of this series! How to deal with passive-aggressive putdowns, aka “negs.”
I can’t believe you’re so self-congratulatory about a point so obvious.
You’re not a PUA? Sorry. (aka “ricky raw” – sounded PUA to me)
OK, then you get a pass with this.
Reading from the perspective that you are not a PUA makes more sense.
Peace
I’m late to the conversion but still, not being as familiar with the subtle art of P/A, I’d probably have missed all the fun by cutting it short.
“DUTCH GUY: I find you Americans so…interesting. Do you mind if I sit?”
Me: That depends on what you mean by interesting.
“DUTCH GUY: I find it fascinating how Americans are never able to just relax and enjoy what is around them.”
Me: Hm. That is interesting. Say, I’ve some important calls to make and need some alone time, but thanks, bla, bla, have a nice day.
Well T, just finished your Rearden posts. Very enjoyable. I’m off to check out your current stuff.
T:
I have encountered a different kind of passive aggression: the passive aggressive body language. I think this is a little bit more difficult than standard verbal passive aggression, since, as it is more subtle, calling someone someone out on passive aggressive body language is easier to be counterattacked by accusations of being “overreacting”, of you being the starter of the conflict, etc. What do you think about this kind of passive aggression? How do you adapt the rearden in situations like that? do you use it at all?
I read this article back a long time ago, but had an opportunity to use the techniques in a garage (for the sin of Driving While Female, it seems).
I refused to participate in reframing something as a favor that was not. It is AMAZING how that will make someone sputter.
I will be going abroad and will take your advice to heart. Your last post about beta male passive aggression has made me question my own witticisms. It’s made me want to be a better Man. Thank you.