Relations between Americans?

[Klausewitz]

I've come to the view that Americans are far more indifferent to their countrymen in other states compared to other countries.
I think other countries, European for example, would hesitate to use violence against their countrymen in a conflict.

I would share that, but i think your wording is not precise enough.
European has, with the exception of England, a strong collectivist tradition; the Middle Ages were very collectivist, e.g. who you knew, who you belonged to (in both senses of the world) and you could rely on was very important, as well as keeping the faith with those in the same group as you, because that was crucial to survival. A villager that is perpetually at odds with other villagers and does not cooperate and does not receive cooperation is dead at the first serious trouble, be it famine, war or witchhunts.
Europe also possesses no untamed frontier were you could go if you did not want to or could not fit in.
Historically populations with high densities and high levels of contact develop very elaborate mechanism for conflict resolution and to allow people to keep face.
That accounts for a fairly high degree of 'concern' among Europeans, meaning there is a strong feeling that the collective directly influences the individual which makes it in the interest in the individual to keep the collective healthy and well-functioning.
This means defusing conflicts, establishing interdependent relationships within the group, etc.

America likes to the narrative of the 'best and brigthest' having come to America to tame it and settle it, but i would argue that actually a very seizable portion of people who either would not or could not fit into European society(ies) followed the call.
Various religious minorities so radical that they endangered religious peace in Europe (various hardline calvinist congregations, dissenters, to a certain degree even the Amish) and either fled or were expelled. Revolutionaries, hotheads, demagogues, restless types, etc.
In a lot of cases people with a lot less interest in the cohesion of society as a whole than with their group or themselves.
Those pioneers then entered a wild untamed land where the successful conflict resolution could far more often be violence than in Europe and where the ingroup-outgroup dynamic was amplified quite substantially.
Central power was weak, law enforcement was often local and private and prison were ineffective which meant that people were either fined, run out or killed in cases of crime.
The USA codified a central, American codes of law in 1874, roughly a hundred year behind the establishment of binding modern codices in most of Europe.
Another point is that due to the rampant gang culture and gun culture in the US the American Police faces a much more dangerous populace.
A German police man has an off-chance of somebody carrying a gun; it is highly unusual. Gun crimes are low and a lot of criminials do not bother with guns because they are unnecessary for their profession (B&E, drug dealers, etc.) and would only lead to a hefty penalty when they go to trial.
In the USA every person could have a gun and shot the police man. A lot of drug dealers carry guns against other gangs (gang culture again) and even ordinary citizen might be packing.
It also does not help that due to a relativly weak state monopoly of force and less tolerance for law enforcement especially among poorer communities American police forces are often in effect simply the biggest gang in town and behave accordingly.


TLR
America was thinly populate most of its history which attracted certain people and let to certain behavior patterns that are more violent and less counsillatory than the European approach because in Europe violent behavior was much less likely to be conductive to ones own survival and success since the higher population pressure and bigger immediate social sphere could not and would not tolerate the same level of (uncontrolled) violence.

Edit:
While i believe that there is racism in the USA, i think race is not as big a factor as it is often made out to be. The USa actually is fairly meritocratic even as it pertains to race.
I think the problem is a different one, namely that there is one thing and one thing only that is unforgivable in the USA: Being poor.
You can be black, but as long as you are rich, that is not much of a problem.
You can be white, but if you are poor, you are still White Trash, Trailer Trash, etc.
I have the sneaking suspicion that all the talk about 'race' is pushed because on both sides there are people who really do not want to talk about class, just distribution of wealth in society and the gap between the poor and the rich.

 

[Henry IX]

.
Edit:
While i believe that there is racism in the USA, i think race is not as big a factor as it is often made out to be. The USa actually is fairly meritocratic even as it pertains to race.
I think the problem is a different one, namely that there is one thing and one thing only that is unforgivable in the USA: Being poor.
You can be black, but as long as you are rich, that is not much of a problem.
You can be white, but if you are poor, you are still White Trash, Trailer Trash, etc.
I have the sneaking suspicion that all the talk about 'race' is pushed because on both sides there are people who really do not want to talk about class, just distribution of wealth in society and the gap between the poor and the rich.

I tend to agree here - it is noteworthy that the two most successful black men in the last two administrations (Obama and Powell) are not from the ex-slave black population of the U.S. Powell comes from a Caribbean background and Obama from Kenya. This hints that the key hurdle in top level political success is the ingrained social disadvantage of being from slave stock rather than from racism per se. That is to say it is the low level of social capital of the ex-save community (an effect of historical racism) is a greater predictor of success (or its lack) than the colour of an individual's skin.

 

[keynes2.0]

I think that indicates that small samples are bad for generalizing large trends. Plus you seem to be forgetting quite a few names. Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Anthony Fox, Susan Rice, Condelezza Rice and Alphanso Jackson. Now I will grant you that Powell was Secretary of State which is generally considered the most prestigious of the cabinet positions while Condelezza Rice was the only other black SoS (although Susan Rice was almost SoS). All the same, these are important cabinet posts that can reasonably be considered his peer group.

Once I thought it was weird that in the early 19th century, Americans decided en masse to give their sons historical names: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes. But then I looked up what the actual common names were: http://www.galbithink.org/names/us200.htm
John, William, James, George, Thomas, Charles were leading through the entire first half of the century. It turns out that it was just a fluke that in the 1860s a bunch of people with funny names got famous all at once.

Remember, every probability curve has it's tail end. If you are only observing outcomes once, you might be observing the tail.

 

[Henry IX]

Absolutely - the plural of anecdote is not data.

They were given as an example of a trend rather than intended as the basic evidence of this trend. There is a large body of work that indicates that parental income (class) has a far stronger predictive impact than race on life outcomes. Even the example of Rice illustrates this pattern; her parents were professionals (both educators).

I find it interesting as an outsider that so much of the dialogue in the U.S. is centred on race rather than class. Whilst these two things are related (particularly in certain parts of the U.S.) the evidence is fairly strong that you are much better off as a middle class black kid than a poor white one.

 

[keynes2.0]

I find it interesting as an outsider that so much of the dialogue in the U.S. is centred on race rather than class. Whilst these two things are related (particularly in certain parts of the U.S.) the evidence is fairly strong that you are much better off as a middle class black kid than a poor white one.

Well it's true that accounting for things like parental income does account for a large part of the gap but it's also true that racial gaps persist for things like wages or police search rates if you account for every control variable under the sun. The people who care about these racial gaps generally care about both things, they want the education and the chance to move kids out of bad neighborhoods but they also want laws about police misconduct or systematic wage discrimination.

 

[Kovax]

Once I thought it was weird that in the early 19th century, Americans decided en masse to give their sons historical names: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes. But then I looked up what the actual common names were: http://www.galbithink.org/names/us200.htm
John, William, James, George, Thomas, Charles were leading through the entire first half of the century. It turns out that it was just a fluke that in the 1860s a bunch of people with funny names got famous all at once.

Maybe a fluke, but maybe a case where those funny names made them stand out from the more numerous hordes of John, William, James, George, and various other common names. You typically vote for someone you remember (unless you're just pulling the big party lever), so having an uncommon but recognizable name like Ulysses or Abraham sets you apart from the crowd, and more likely to be remembered. Having an uncommon but strange and unpronounceable name probably won't help.

Now, "odd" names are far more common, at least in the US, and we don't have as large a percentage of people with those "common" names anymore. We still have a statistically unusual number of people in politics, entertainment, and other public spots with "odd" names.

 

[keynes2.0]

That is an excellent explanation but it's an explanation for something that very well might not exist.
Before the run of presidents with the weird names we have James, John, William, Martin*, Andrew, John, James and George.
*(wierd in the US but not in his dutch homeland)

This is actually an excellent example. Your brain latches onto the weird thing and creates a narrative around it. But your brain is wrong. It's just normal probability happening. There are millions of things around you that might go unlikely. It's like standing in the snow with your tongue out.

 

[Kovax]

Also note that one of those prominent "odd" names was originally a more "common" one, but was changed. Hugh Ulysses Grant is said to have had his name changed because he didn't want to deal with the nickname of "Huggy" when his initials were placed on his personal belongings at West Point Academy. "USG" apparently suited him better than "HUG".