This nails something I’ve felt about australia for a while. There seems to be something missing... a collective amnesia, an emptiness, and a rootlessness which was created. And it was created because this is a civilisation who want to forget genocide
In terms of the cultural cringe I think americans have a lot of it. They’re always renouncing their own culture. The woke ones especially.
I think the amnesia of a lot of you english cunts about your imperialist past is about avoiding cultural cringe too.
FBPE have it about brexiteers.
It’s described as an inferiority complex (my culture is below others) but it’s also superiority complex (i’m above my own culture). And this is very tied to class too isn’t it, chavs, the demonisation of the working class.
You could argue that Joyce had cultural cringe about Ireland, in fact this was his muse, a shame and disgust that propelled him beyond all english writers.
I can have cultural cringe about plenty of northern irish culture
I’d like to argue that the reason life is cringeworthy is The Brits