Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per...
by rdancer on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:36PM
(#10748885)
The divisions here run along the class and cultural heritage lines. You live and work mostly with your peers, but interact with people from outside your groups a lot. The population density is much higher in UK (and Europe in general), and we have a lot of migration, so it is difficult to construct a boogeyman out of a whole cloth.
I would think that people feel that the way outgroups go about their lives is bonkers, but that most of the ingroup people are crazy in their own right.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per...
by FussyZeus on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @05:57PM
(#10748032)
I know Top Gear's (previously) Mr. Clarkson always had colorful things to say about what they call "midlanders" which sounds to me like the British version of Midwesterners. No facts there there though, I have no idea how widespread it is.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per...
by mrow84 on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @06:39PM
(#10748284)
It doesn't have the same religious dimension - they're basically just the butt of southerner's jokes. There is quite a bit of regionalism in the UK, but it's mostly pretty harmless, and doesn't carry that much bitterness with it.
For example, there's definitely a north-south tension in England, which does have some cultural aspects to it, but it's in a completely different league from the US situation (as far as I understand that), and beyond the occasional mutual quips, you won't see any real discrimination - that's my experience, anyway.
I am always quite shocked to hear of how strong the divide appears to be in the US between, loosely, "religious conservatives" and "non-religious liberals". I've spent approximately zero time in the US, so I can't really tell if it is partly an exaggeration, but the feelings certainly seem to run quite strong across the media spectrum.