When typing in „advice“ into amazon(dot)com – USA – roughly 140,000 books are listed. When inputting Ratgeber (literally advice-givers) into amazon(dot)de – Germany – about 640,000 books are listed.
There 320 million people in the U.S. In Germany there are 80 million. The American population is four times larger than the German. However, there are four times more books written in Germany on giving advice than in the U.S.
The Germans give advice and the Germans take advice.
With the recent popularity of YouTube and other amateur video websites, people have been staging scenarios and filming people’s reactions to them. This is particularly popular in the U.S., where, in addition to amateur reaction videos, in 2008 ABC created a television show called What Would You Do?
In the show, actors and actresses pretend to be in situations in which they would benefit from unsolicited advice (domestic abuse, drugged beverages, etc.), and the show collects statistics on how many people offer advice or warnings.
Typically, most Americans who witness these situations don’t get involved. In one episode, in which a caregiver in a park berates the elderly man for whom he’s supposed to be caring, and refuses to take the elderly man home when asked, only one-quarter of the people who witnessed the interaction intervened. Other episodes typically have similar statistics of intervention.
There are hundreds of American advice-givers on the web. Let’s read what they write about unsolicited advice:
“Your opinion is valuable, your advice even more precious. So, save it. Keep it for yourself. Odds are, you need it more than I do. So, please don’t give that sh*t away, certainly not without even being asked.”
“Have a nice day,” said the mom to her teenage daughter; to which the daughter replied, `Motherrrr, will you pulleeeeze stop telling me what to do!´ I empathize with both parties in this old joke. Sometimes we get so overrun by unsolicited advice that even the most innocuous, benevolent advice becomes intolerable.”
“Unsolicited Advice: We’ve all received it at some point in our lives and we’ve all given it as well. In some few cases, if we didn’t know enough about the circumstance to ask for advice then we are appreciative if someone tells us – but those moments are few and far between. The majority of the time we feel that the other person is trying to take our own power away. We feel as if they believe that we are not capable of taking care of ourselves and knowing what we need.”
“Four tips on how to give unsolicited advice: 1. Rephrase your advice as your own personal experience. 2. To repeat: Keep your stories short and relevant. Most people’s attention span is a lot shorter than your speaking ability! 3. If you must give direct advice disguise it as “How I did it” or “How someone else did it”. 4. Accept that the recipient will reject or act on your advice at their own will and allow them their self motivation.”
Many Americans are the descendants of people who left their homes to escape what they considered to be imposing or coercive laws in their native countries. As such, they’ve been raised to consider any interference (even unsolicited, but well-meaning, advice) as an attack on their freedom as Americans.
This in the sense of: ;„Who are you to tell me how to live? This is America. A free country. I can live the way I want! Americans are very fearful of one group in the U.S. dictating to another how they should live.
coerce: to restrain or dominate by force; to compel to an act or choice; to achieve by force or threat. Middle English cohercen. Anglo-French cohercer. Latin coercēre, to shut up, enclose. Synonyms: force, compel, constrain, dragoon, drive, impel, impress, make, muscle, obligate, oblige, pressure.
Germans believe in norms. Conformity, uniformity. Rectitude, righteousness. Accommodation, assimilation. Subordination, subsidiarity. If the law states that adults may not ride their bicycles on the sidewalk, then German adults do not ride their bicycles on the sidewalk. Doing otherwise breaches, transgresses, goes against the law, order, against agreements made which are then communicated in the form of a law. The breach demonstrates a lack of respect, of making oneself more important than the others.
In public spaces – such as automobile, bicycle, pedestrian traffic – Germans feel responsible for each other, allowing them, expecting of them, to point out to others what they are doing wrong, which could injure them or others. Just as one would help an older person carry their packages across a busy street, so to one would point out to a parent who forgot to put a bicycle helmet on their child’s head.
Germans believe in having a high degree of collective responsibility. They show concern for, look after, the people around them. Germans do not believe in leaving others alone to suffer the consequences of their own avoidable failures. Both the individual and the group is responsible for the individual. The weak – or less informed – should be supported with “Rat und Tat”, literally advice and action.
Not long ago. In a café, talking with a German graduate student interested in doing project work for me. He is intelligent, polite, listening carefully. At the table next to us another guy, same age, drinking tea, eating cake, typing into this laptop, headphones on, on his head a thin woolen cap. It‘s late November. After an hour or so our neighbor pays his bill, packs up his laptop, stands up then turns to me and says: Wissen Sie, es ist sehr unhöflich auf Menschen mit dem Zeigefinger zu deuten.
I was not aware that during my talk with the grad student that I had pointed to him with my index finger. But, wait! Who is this guy to interrupt our conversation and correct my behavior? I was shocked, but then again not surprised. I turned to the grad student – we were discussing differences between cultures – and smiled, saying softly: “There you are. Germans giving unsolicited advice.”
Hardly had I gotten that statement out and my friendly neighbor – not yet finished gathering his things – turned to me again and said: Ich bin Deutschfranzoser. He‘s bicultural, German and French. It wasn‘t worth my time to engage in a debate with him about the matter. It made me wonder, though, if the French also give unsolicited advice.
Several years ago. Atlanta. A management seminar. One of my first. I have the habit of walking around the room while I talk or listen. Two straight days of sitting is not healthy. And I tend to be wound up.
Day two, just after breakfast, I head to the seminar room to prepare a few flipcharts. Coming down the hall is one of the participants. German. He stops me, clearly angry with me. Sie sollten nicht die ganze Zeit im Seminar aufstehen und herumgehen. Das ist unprofessionell und stört. I should not stand up and walk around the room during the seminar. It is unprofessional. My reaction? Oh, ok. How nice to get such friendly advice.
Twenty laps done. I decided to jump out of the pool and simulate my golf swing. I had played a few rounds in the U.S., bought some used clubs, and decided to get back into it. Lap swimming builds shoulder muscles. Good to stretch a bit then swim some more. As I’m swiveling from right to left, swinging my imaginary golf club, I hear from lane two: Sie müssen die Hüfte stärker schwenken.
Had I heard that right? I needed to swing my hips a bit more? Oh no, I thought. Here we go again. I immediately knew that I had a choice to make. Get angry at him, wait for him to come out of the pool then tell him to keep his opinions to himself or not get angry.
I opted to react positively, looking at him with question marks in my eyes. He repeated himself, with a smile. I smiled back. After my swim I bumped into him in the locker room. Later, sitting outside we talked for well over an hour. He was a delightful gentleman who had simply looked for a way to strike up a conversation with me. I’m glad he did.
End of a workday. 6:30 pm. Winter. Dark. Raining lightly. I hop on my bike and head home. Turning into my street I ride along the sidewalk on the left hand side of the road. Slowly. Don‘t want the bike to slide out from under me. I also want to be respectful of pedestrians.
I see a woman about twenty-five meters ahead of me. Just before I pass her she suddenly sticks out her left arm like a pole to block me. It works. I brake suddenly, jump off and confront her. “Are you crazy? I could have fallen from my bike and injured myself.”
She stands her ground, looks me in the eye and says very calmly: Sie fahren auf dem Bürgersteig, auf der linken Seite der Strasse und ohne Licht. I was riding on the sidewalk as an adult, on the left hand side of the street and without a bicycle light on.
In Germany, all against the law. I was flabbergasted, not so much at the laws, which make perfect sense, but at the audacity of this woman to play enforcer of the law. I could hardly contain myself. Upon arriving at home I described the scene to my German wife. Her response? Sie hat recht. The woman was right. The marriage didn’t last.