White middle class Protestant Americans anyway.
Both are seen as rude, somewhat shameful and disgusting. A lot of people brag and talk like they are better than others, but in the US, that’s a very quick way to get regarded as an asshole. You might start losing friends too.
We don’t really have the situation that Yee described this country. I can’t think of any state in the US where people think they are better than other people. And I can’t think of any region in the country that thinks it is better than other regions. You aren’t supposed to think like that if you are an American.
STEM students think that their major is the only rational one. They would like to make it so that STEM and business are the only things that are offered at a university. I doubt if STEM people think they are better than Liberal Arts students. They just think that Liberal Arts degrees are useless and a waste of money. I have two Liberal Arts or Humanities degrees – three is you count teaching.
1. Journalism, BA
2. Teaching, credential.
3. Linguistics, MA.
I have hardly met one single person who has ever told me that those degrees are useless or stupid or said that their degree was better than my degree. You are not supposed to talk like that. It’s very assholey behavior.
Rednecks don’t really think they are better than other types of people, at least not that I am aware of.
A lot of Americans don’t like people from some states or regions or maybe they don’t like city people or country rednecks, but they won’t say it is because they are superior to them. People like me with say that Alabamans are living in the Dark Ages or they are backwards, racist people. We don’t think they are inferior – they just have a point of view that is not compatible with modern society.
A lot of liberals hate conservatives, and conservatives hate liberals.
But liberals don’t think they are better than conservatives to my knowledge. We just think they are backwards, wrongheaded people with a frankly disgusting and immoral point of view. They’re not inferior though. We might say they are bad. But bad doesn’t mean inferior. It means they have a political view that you feel is very harmful and dangerous.
Conservatives think the same about liberals. But I am not aware that conservatives think they are superior to liberals. They just think we are bad, wrongheaded, or even evil. But in the US, evil doesn’t mean inferior. In this sense, conservatives think that the liberal POV is so pernicious and dangerous that it is going to be harmful to society.
These political views are framed as moral matters, not superior-inferior things.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much American society opposes bragging and talking about superior people and inferior or acting like you are better than other people. If you go around all the time talking about how you, your state or your region, your ethnic group, or your college major is superior to other states, regions, ethnics or majors, pretty soon you will not have any friends. I learned this pretty early on in life. You are simply not allowed to talk like that.
If I went out today and starting talking about how Californians are superior to people from other states, it would be very soon that someone would tell me to shut up. And I live in California! I couldn’t even say the West is better. People would tell me to shut up then too. Of course if I say Whites are better, I will get told off in a hurry. Or Germans, or British, or whoever. Certainly if I said my college majors were superior to some other inferior majors, I would get told to shut up too.
Yee: I heard that American culture encourage people to brag about themselves.
Actually you are not supposed to put it like my area/people/ethnic/field of study or whatever is superior and some others are inferior. You are not supposed to talk about the superior people and the inferior people in the US. It’s called putting on airs and it is looked down upon to a profound degree. Nobody, but nobody, but nobody likes it! You will get told to shut up real quick, and if you don’t learn your lesson, soon no one will talk to you.