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[quote=”Carl”][quote=”sprite”]It is a closely knit small society and most of us come from societies which are quite different.[/quote]
That’s exactly it. There’s a societal balance when actions lead directly to repercussions of those actions that is missing in larger societies, a lack of personal accountability. A guy can go to a bar somewhere in Los Angeles, start a fight, skip out on the bill and cuss the whole place out at the top of his lungs, and for the next six months go somewhere else just a few miles away and it’s like that never happened.
It seems like Ticos have been so indoctrinated to be part of a cohesive societal fabric that the mistrust that is essential to survival in larger urban areas is far less prevalent…which is a refreshing change from living in a society where your fellow man is often operating at a stress level where he’s basically ready to rip your throat out over things like improper turn signal usage.
What really impressed me about Ticos in a general sense is that even after all this foreign money came into their country, bought up a lot of desireable land and drove real estate prices well out of line of an average Tico’s income, I still felt very little cultural backlash or resentment in my time there.
I was talking to someone the other night about theft problems in CR, and actually made a reference to this in the context of a passive-aggressive cultural backlash. Americans just seem resigned to accept an occasional theft in CR as a randomly assigned tax for the economic stress and cultural non-assimilation of many foreigners here, almost like a marginally justifiable attitude of “you people have intruded into our society and made things worse here, so as compensation I can take something from you”… not that the average American’s behavior deserves that treatment…it’s that the average American knows the behavior of other less well behaved Americans, combined with stark economic inequalities the American presence here have inadvertently exacerbated are what they are paying this ‘tax’ for.
Still, to be shown such kindness coming from the broken dysfunctional society I have called home was very sweet indeed, especially taking into consideration the negative perceptions some Ticos may have as to how some foreigners have impacted their society.[/quote]
