The America Effect

We walked from our apartment on Rue Henri Barbusse to the coffee shop across the street. Le Bete Noir greets us every morning with its welcoming seats, hot coffee and delicious pastries. We would sit there, sometimes for hours, speaking to the locals and the shop owners about their lives. We’d pepper them with questions about their lives, soaking in all the new information about Paris.

Where do they like to spend their afternoons in the city? How about favorite dinner spots? Best bookstores and toy shops? What are the latest fashion trends? What hobbies do folks enjoy? They would answer and then they would ask us about our lives in the United States. And it was beautiful, for once in my life, to not have to answer the dreaded “just met you” question: “So, what do you do for a living?” Ugh.

The reality is, in France, and other countries outside of the states, no one cares about what you do for a living. They would rather focus on who you are: your interests, likes and dislikes, proclivities and aversions, dreams and goals. Doesn't this tell you so much more about the kind of person you are, rather than reducing yourself down to your job?

In America, it’s all about what you do. If you're a lawyer, you must have lawyer friends, go to places where lawyers go, and do lawyer things like maybe go to bougie Scotch bars and occupy box seats at basketball games? I have no idea what lawyers do, because I don't care.

Who cares what you “do for a living” anyway? Americans, that’s who. Damn, before traveling in France I didn't realize how annoying it was to be asked that stupid question so often. And for what? Personally, I don’t care whether you dip fries in oil at McDonalds or perform heart surgeries in operating rooms. This sort of distinction only matters to a society that wants to pigeonhole and place each person into their respective socio-economic category. The fact is, Americans have constructed a financial caste system. But no one likes to say that out loud, do they?

In many parts of the world, as well as in France, I learned that doctors are paid roughly the same no matter what specialty they are in. There is no need to be so competitive with your peers and stress your children out about being the top of this or that, because they will be able to make a decent living either way. Oh, and they won't be half a million dollars in debt by the time they graduate. Sounds pretty good to me.

I have a certain friend in France with whom I chatted extensively about the differences between America and France. He acknowledged to me that he never experienced the societal stressors that so many of us have as Americans. Of course, every household is unique, and parents raise their children to believe different things.

However, in America it's less about what you believe and more about what others believe about you, isn't it? There is a greater emphasis placed on how society values you rather than how much you value yourself. It's a real shame. Think about all the times you could have expressed yourself fully, worn what you wanted, or said that thing you wanted to say but didn’t, because you were too worried about what others would think?

Coming back home from over 2 months in France was bittersweet. To be honest, it was more bitter than sweet. I found myself being sucked back into the America Effect, as I call it. I got sucked back in so quickly, in fact, I never had the chance to properly reflect on my trip, to think about the things I pondered while sitting across from the Notre Dame, or walking down Champs Élysées, or spending an entire afternoon at La Bete Noir discussing the possibilities of living in Paris.

I never had the time to think about any of this because of the America Effect. Because I’m an American in 2022, I have to get back fast because I have to get a job fast, because I have to pay bills fast. I have to make sure I acquire health insurance, fast, so that if something drastic happens to me, I won’t lose my entire future and the prime years of my life trying to pay down ruinous medical bills.

I have to worry about my stupid Cox communications bill that had been overcharged by Cox, because they are a profit-obsessed corporation that wants to feed off my energy and money. I have to make sure I have a place to live, fast, because it is way too easy to end up strung out on the street. In America, no one catches you if you fall.

This is how things go in this deeply flawed place that wants to present itself to the rest of the world as perfect. The pinnacle of human society. An example for everyone else to follow, whether they want to or not. America, the land of the unfree and the home of the slave.

I know that many of my fellow Americans share this frustration with me. We don’t have any of the assistance that citizens of other countries do. We don’t have the ability to really be our sovereign selves the way my French counterparts do.

Now, of course there are pros and cons, but we’ll save that for a different essay. The point here is, I spent two months in a country that will never understand the issues that I have to come home to. France just doesn't run that way.

My friend in Paris works in a humble bookshop, and he is happy and all his needs are met. He doesn’t have the stress of worrying about getting this degree or that, making sure he gets this promotion or has this “horizontal mobility” in the corporation that exploits his labor so ruthlessly.

So what is he doing spending so many years in this little book shop? Not obsessing about the nuts and bolts of his raw survival, that’s what. Of course he wants better for himself and has goals and dreams, but his life is beautiful right now, and that is what he was taught to focus on. The now. Not something in the future that you’re supposed to go into debt for.

I have a Masters degree, and for my peers that have graduated from higher education institutions, you can agree that the only thing we all have in common is our debt. We owe so much, while our peers who have stayed focused on one particular skill or trade make more money than we do.

We don’t do everything right here in America. But we sure as hell make it seem like we do, don’t we? The America Effect is omnipresent. Perhaps by speaking freely about it, we can work together to craft a more grounded and egalitarian society. Perhaps we can learn from the cultures of other nations, rather than bombing them to the stone age if they don’t jump into bed with the giant corporations and capitalist overlords who rule over us so brutally.

The American Effect; it affects us all.