Kultur 6

The first article, "Sex, Smut, and Shock" could have easily been about America, aside from the culture specific references.  Americans can't get enough celebrity gossip, although most of us are aware that what we read or hear may not be entirely true.  I think that western societies in general are plagued with a sort of collective "schadenfreude" mentality (likely a byproduct of our competitive economic/societal structure), which causes us to enjoy and relish in the scandalous humiliation of others.  Many people enjoy anything that makes them feel even a little better about their own circumstances.

The second and third articles reminded me a bit of Japan, which also has a culture that places high value on privacy and recycling.  I would say that in general, Americans are relatively open and welcoming. I've never been to Germany, but I will say that the amount of human interaction I see in America as opposed to Japan is significant.  In the midwest for example, I would say people can be overly open and friendly.  Personally, I'm still trying to get used to people standing very close or constantly touching my shoulder.

As far as recycling, I must admit that very few Americans really care about it all that much, and will often avoid it entirely if it's too inconvenient.  One example of this I've seen personally would be American military families in Japan: Living off base, you are required by the Japanese government to separate your garbage and place it into the appropriate color coded bin.  If the garbage is not properly separated or place in the appropriate bin, the garbage men will not take it...forcing families to deal with an extra week's worth of filth.  So, to avoid the hassle American families will sometimes drive their week's worth of trash onto the American military base, which does not enforce any sort of recycling policy.  Eventually, the base had to institute a rule banning families from using on-base dumpsters in order to avoid recycling in the Japanese community.  The new restriction stopped some people, but quite a few still hide trash in their trunks or back seats and continue to dump their trash on the base.  All to avoid taking the marginal effort of thinking about which bin to put a piece of trash in.