perfidy

Sounds vaguely obscene, no? New research shows that stereotypes of national characteristics have little basis in fact. Individuals from diverse cultures scored more or less the same on basic personality indices. All very interesting, in a we're all pink and bloody on the inside kind of way. But these national characteristics are more typically just that - national characteristics. Of course there are sloppy, lazy and cowardly Germans and clean, martial and brave Frenchmen. But it seems to me that national sterotypes are useful in getting an idea about how large groups of people will act, rather than individuals within those groups.

There's an old joke, attributed to of all people Hermann Goering: "Take one German you have a good worker. Two Germans and you have a Bund. Three Germans and you have a war. One Italian, you have a good tenor. Two Italians and you have a retreat. Three Italians and you have a unconditional surrender. Take one Englishman and you have an idiot. Two Englishmen make a club. Three Englishmen and you have a world spanning empire.

National characteristics do not necessarily have a direct relationship to the characteristics of the individuals that make up the nation.