How can we understand this country and the people in it?

To counterbalance some of the harsher observations I will make below, well, most Swiss are NOT a) aggressive drunkards looking for fights most evening of the week, b) mindless idiots with no knowledge beyond their four walls c) obese d) flat screen addicts e) burnt out, and f) only interested in football. Nor do they often utter sentences along the lines “we are wasting valuable drinking time”.

However, a lot of Swiss (most?) are selfish, rude, spoilt, full of themselves, not afraid of much. Difficult to reign in. Give them a small position of power, and they lord it with the know-it-all attitude of a 20 year old. Why is that so?

I think one reason is that as a country Switzerland has never been forced to grow up. No wake up calls from WW1 or WW2. No real destruction, no deep suffering, no lasting common trauma. 1315 the last war? When I grew up in Zürich in the 50s, our supermarkets had good cakes, coffee, bread, chocolate, milk, cheese – uncannily similar to what you find in today’s Migro or Coop. No hardship. Same shops as today, same shelves, same sausages, same people (well, not quite..). Tried a coffee in the UK at that time? Or a sausage? When a pint of ale reached 1 pound, we decided to stop drinking…and look at the UK now – changed a hundred times. Not so Switzerland. Having come back last year after 30 years abroad, I am truly surprised how much is the same. Have you seen the advertisement here along the lines “Good news – we are going back to the old”? In the UK and US the mantra is “the only constant is change” not here it isn’t.

So what are we to make of this? They had it good 50 years ago and ever since? That’s why they are spoilt? Yes, there is some truth in this. But not only did they not have the destructive wars, internally they weren’t overwhelmingly suppressed by an Upper Class either, so no real suffering here and hence no need for a Revolution. No major earth quakes, floods, dangerous animals, hurricanes or other horrors in the national psyche. Somehow this gave rise to the attitude that the way to success is and has always been to “take it ‘slow and steady’, follow the rules and to do it properly”. And somehow this recipe of success (based on luck rather than on cause and effect) had led to an utter lack of humour, as the healing effect of humour is not really required for this clockwork approach.

Like in the playground, if no-one kicks your sandcastle down, and the tide does not come in at the wrong time, you start to think there are no limits to what can be done with a proper building approach. Sheltered like this you never have to deal with conflict, and as a result you miss out in valuable lessons in growing up.

This can also be seen in many of the dangers in Switzerland – here you are allowed to kill yourself. We went horse riding in the mountains - no helmets supplied by the riding school and suddenly it got a bit rough to say the least…we live in Basel, fancy jumping in the Rhein and playing with these great big cargo boats? People do it. Want to climb up the Matterhorn? There are “recommendations” but you are free to give it a go anyhow, and you are also allowed to cross the glaciers near by (try to avoid the hidden crevices). All in all, there is very little common sense of dangers despite the many accidents. One good thing – very few signs forbidding things, less of a nanny state.

To end on a good note: people are not afraid of much. That in a way is liberating.

Well, reading that was a waste of valuable drinking time

Couldn't have put it better myself

I don't want to grow up!!!

And also a complete moral vacuum as to whose money they store as long as it gets deposited in their banks. Just to keep it even.

Interesting take.

My dad grew in Switzerland during WWII, and I feel he has a very "Live within (below) your means" huble attitude which I always thought came from rationing during the war.

Not a complete moral vacuum, we make sure to get plenty of expats to handle such sensible things as stolen/black market money... they do a great job at it, you know?

	Quote:
	However, a lot of Swiss (most?) are selfish, rude, spoilt, full of themselves, not afraid of much. Difficult to reign in. Give them a small position of power, and they lord it with the know-it-all attitude of a 20 year old.

That's quite a nasty generalisation.

Having read it, I am unsure what the OP wants to say. "It's a bit different in Switzerland": are you saying it's sad Switzerland hasn't turned into wherever you've been for 50 years? Is this a complaint or a compliment?

I find most Swiss to be shy, retiring which is often misinterpreted as "selfish" and "rude" by people from gregarious extrovert cultures. I have yet to meet a Swiss who was "full of themselves", which is more than can be said for a number of English speakers I have met and I've lived here for over 20 years...

I find it odd that you seem to be claiming that the UK and USA are great places because they have changed so drastically.
Personally I think they are both cess pits and am much more impressed by the way things work in Switzerland, little shops and all.

That's a four star general piece of generalization.

Not for me. I got bored as soon as I realised it wasn't about football, so, during the advert break on the 100" plasma I've got, I waddled over to the fridge and opened another bottle of Dom.

I can make a safe guess at what probably hasnt changed much in the 30 years that here-to-stay has been abroad..... the coiffeurs. Want a beehive hairdo, come to Switzerland.

No actually there is plenty of common sense. Can't swim well enough to avoid the boats? Don't jump into the river. If you do and drown, you were not really using your common sense to assess the risks and your abilities. Or do we really need signs all over the place telling us that "Careful, jumping into water without swimming skills can result in drowning"?

(ps I don't really know the statistics, are there really unproportionally many accidents here?)

I haven't been in Switzerland very long but the only "rude" behaviour I've encountered was from people 50 and older...

Coming from Canada, I've always found the general direction of the USA as a spiral downwards with Canada always about 5-10 years behind them

as long as one doesnt speak the language... one cant define whats rude and whats not. some (swiss) people might be insecure how to respond in english
and appear rude but its not meant that way...when one is replying in english...still words can be misused, be misunderstood.

i rember a swiss guy in new york trying to tell the parking lot attendand
he should take care of his car like it was dynamite. what the p-lot guy understood was: in my trunk is dynamite. and he called the police.
on court they found out that the swiss guy used the wrong words as his
english was shice. i do understand s-düütsch very well and i am german.
though we are not that welcome here at the moment, i dont find the swiss rude apart from jumping lines...

..and into lifts and trains before you get out.

but very close to the truth

Well, I do and I find the Swiss generally the rudest people of Europe. Doesn't mean there aren't any non-rude ones around but generally they are ruder than average.

Err, sorry.. what do they do that is so rude?

I dont get out much, but when I do.. all the Swiss people I see around here always say hello, and the people on the trains always ask if the seat across fro me is free before sitting down, and then say goodbye and smile when they get off the train, and happily/friendlily answer my questions in English when I'm confused about something..

I guess I find the older ones to be rude, but they are the same in Australia - one lady kept reversing her little bike (one of those motorized ones they ride around shopping centres in) into me at the registers until I moved without saying a word to me - just glaring.

As I said, I dont get out much. Maybe its different if you have to work with them or something.. but I really can't figure out why people on here are always whinging about the Swiss..