Proportion Perspective
I am calling this a perspective rather than a theory because I am not certain that it could be made concrete enough, in a satisfactory way, to be tested. I claim that:
With any nations or region that shares enough of an intellectual heritage, the majority of the cultural and political differences are best understood in terms of differences in the proportions of groups of people; truly novel groups specific to a nation or region are fairly rare. Yes, America has european-style social democrats (and democratic socialists), but it has them in small numbers. Yes, Europe has young-earth creationists who are socially conservative, but they are fairly rare. If Le Pen were to move to the US and start a political party (let's shuffle language and a few other details around behind the scene), he would have supporters here. The various flavours of American feminists have their equivalents in Europe, even if some of them are hopefully more rare and others hopefully more common. Ditto with American-style libertarians, but to a lesser extent because in most senses they are an American invention (1970s) that's a reaction in parts to the American civil war and are thus not exactly part of that shared heritage.
It's harder to find convincing parallels as the common cultural heritage grows more thin.
With any nations or region that shares enough of an intellectual heritage, the majority of the cultural and political differences are best understood in terms of differences in the proportions of groups of people; truly novel groups specific to a nation or region are fairly rare. Yes, America has european-style social democrats (and democratic socialists), but it has them in small numbers. Yes, Europe has young-earth creationists who are socially conservative, but they are fairly rare. If Le Pen were to move to the US and start a political party (let's shuffle language and a few other details around behind the scene), he would have supporters here. The various flavours of American feminists have their equivalents in Europe, even if some of them are hopefully more rare and others hopefully more common. Ditto with American-style libertarians, but to a lesser extent because in most senses they are an American invention (1970s) that's a reaction in parts to the American civil war and are thus not exactly part of that shared heritage.
It's harder to find convincing parallels as the common cultural heritage grows more thin.
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