„I’ve noticed that many Lithuanians seem unwilling to admit when they’re wrong. Instead of acknowledging a mistake or apologizing, they’ll often insist they’re correct, even to the point of being rude.
Is this a common cultural trait, or have others noticed something similar? I’m genuinely curious and would like to understand this better.“
https://www.facebook.com/groups/209733365824002/posts/3513564038774235
Komentarai
„I’d say it all depends on a person and their EQ (emotional intelligence)“
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„Men are way more stubborn, in my experience.“
„Cultural way of doing. 16 years in LT never listen anyone tell clearly “oh sorry I’m wrong or I was wrong” everytime they have a justification, whatever it is. 😀
I got used and now I don’t even argue anymore, just smiling to them and move on.“
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„very much same is my 12-year expierence . Can not get used to it, so sometimes it is hard to manage my emotions, but arguing: no, that is waste of energy and fooling yourself with too high expectations.“
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„Agreed, for me two words are missing. Thank you and Sorry! but that is societal problem. I am here for 16 Yrs too.“
„Not sure if it’s being Lithuanian, or something else, but it’s clear especially with government, police, and so on. They will keep repeating they’re correct even when you show them how they just a moment ago said something different.
For example, a police “investigator” said sun rises at 2AM. You show it’s not correct. The official statement from Lithuanian Police is that there was no error, the statement was correct. And many more.
So there’s something in the water at least for people working in certain professions.“
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„had this experience with migration. I received conflicting information: one thing at the office and something completely different in an email.
When I showed the staff member the email, she insisted that the email was correct, but also claimed that the situation I experienced was equally correct.
Somehow, the incorrect email was still considered “correct.”“
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„Yep, they do exactly that. Everything is correct even when it’s conflicting – sometimes even in the same document.“
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„Happens everywhere. You guys, have no idea, what level of incompetence is, let’s say, in Spain! Compared to them in Lithuania everything looks professional and smooth hahaha“
„I am a Classical pianist and, occasionally, helping opera singers with Italian pronunciation (since I am an Italian native speaker). Once I was invited to a singing lesson to this purpose, and both the teacher and the student would keep asking me, every time I was fixing their pronunciation: “Are you sure?”, sometimes even followed by: “It can’t be”. 😀“
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„This is so typical!“
„Overall, they are good people, but I definitely agree with you on this point. Of course, this varies from person to person, but my observation is that they never admit their mistakes and always consider their own opinions to be correct. They have a unique way of thinking. However, we need to respect that.“
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„why respect self-rightness?“
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„We are living in their country, and no one is forcing us to live here. If that’s the case, then maybe it’s better not to live in this country. Here is not the Netherlands. Let’s not forget, here is a former Soviet country. What can be expected?“
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„don’t take me wrong, but this has nothing to do with former Soviet country. Admit that you are wrong is a pillar of the normal behavioral attitude to be honest and gain respect from other people. And sorry to repeat my comment ‘to be a former Soviet country’ seems to me ‘another’ of the excuses to do not admit to be wrong. Moreover, the Soviet union went away 35 years ago, time to get up and walk alone, I would say.“
„From my part, as quite an extrovert who meets new people quite often, I can say that I’ve observed similar traits in general (except for a handful of people, as always).“
„I have been dealing a lot with LT Paštas, and with them it is CONSTANT.“
„Common weapons : fuck off if you don’t like this 🤣“
„It’s a Baltic thing imho 😃 at least Lithuanians and Latvians are like that in my experience. Some kind of complex that a foreigner cannot criticise your place (they might quietly agree with you even)“
„Lithuanian nature, especially for people who didn’t travel abroad they think they understand everything but in reality zero mentality even educated people with high degrees the same, but not only lithuanian most of countries which were in Soviet union the same, and very easy to change their words and promises“
„It has nothing to do with nationality, but with stupidity and lacking of self esteem and reflection. Such people you will find everywhere, no matter what country nor citizenship or nationality 🤷.“
„Reading from an imaginary vocabulary.
Lithuaniasplaining:
Phenomenon mostly shown with foreigners, where a local Lithuanian national answers to a sound or critical remark about the local culture or society, labelling it with phrases as “you don’t understand”, “you don’t live here, you don’t get it”.
E.g.:
Foreigner:
“I think it is incredibly sexist that you label a married woman with a different surname than a non-married woman. What do you think about that?”
Lithuanian, Lithuaniasplaining:
“You don’t understand, you are not from here.”“
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„it’s not sexist, it just clarifies the relationship between people so it’s not confusing. Without that you can’t tell how people are related to each other, in western cultures it’s also true that women change their name upon marriage, but if the name is grammatically the same, taking my name for instance, if my wife was named “Barvainis” and my daughter and sister were also named that, you couldn’t tell if it’s the wife or the daughter or the sister of me and it’s just to clarify the situation because the Lithuanian language seeks to convey information with as few words as possible. Having my daughter Barvainytė, and wife Barvain(ien)ė simply clarifies who is blood related to whom. Guys don’t need to change the name grammatically since their name stays the same for their whole lives. Now you can argue that women shouldn’t change their names at all and that it is inherently sexist for families to live under one name, but the way Lithuanians do it is just more efficient than western countries systems.“
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„Hey Wes, tbh I don’t even have an opinion on that topic, I just made an example to prove a point“
„I think natives cover natives. I do not know, how natives think about fellow natives in this case. And is there difference between older and younger citizens?“
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„I’m a native and the communications/customer service/courtesy culture here sucks. The older generation is the worst for that, the younger ones can be hit or miss.“
„Yes I have found this to be true 👍🏼“
„I think this goes back to that they were beaten as children everytime they were wrong or did smthn wrong, so now being wrong for them feels like a horrible sin. Lithuanians are so traumatised you’ve no idea 😅 that’s why alcoholism is so high here. I lived in Uk for 13 years and I felt a massive diffrence.“
„I think it is a cultural trait, related to something larger in the culture that is rarely spoken of. Underneath the masks of modernity, it is fundamentally a village culture – the social norms are meant to maintain order and harmony in a conservative, monolithic village-sized community. One feels constantly watched by the whole community and shame is a core device here (“ką žmonės pagalvos”). The cost of admitting being wrong is greater in a “village” culture than in a “city” culture – you can get a bad reputation, lose face, or even be ostracized. So people will only admit failure in informal settings, but in public situations they will try to appear right even when they know they are wrong“
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„I would argue that it’s a soviet culture more than a “village” culture.“
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„it is possible but I have noticed similar cultural traits in Turkey which was never Soviet“
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„I’m Italian from a small village and I confirm this is pure “village” culture, Soviet Union might have been an aggravating factor though.“
„I cannot imagine any country whose inhabitants universally agree or admit when they’re proven wrong, but I would pivot on that point by saying there is a tendency, especially amongst older Lithuanians, of ‘moralizing’ others —quickly pointing out perceived shortcomings rather than understanding individual circumstances. This habit, as many Lithuanians have shared with me, is an unfortunate remnant of the Soviet era, when institutions often cruelly moralized and lacked compassion. Thankfully, this is slowly fading, but this “you’re always in the wrong” mentality can still be seen in everyday life.
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It’s a frustrating imbalance, but this isn’t to say all Lithuanians are this way—things are changing as compassion and flexibility grow in the modern culture. But moments like these remind us of the importance of empathy and moving away from judgment-based systems that don’t account for individual realities.“
„Typical generalising bullshit, wtf is this“
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„I lived in Russia and there was less bigots.“
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[Marius]
„I mean who prohibits you from leaving this ‘God’s forsaken country’ and going back to highly civilised and cozy russia? like just fuck off, nobody wants your hypocritical ass here.“
„even it is definitely couldnt be a quality of all nation, i rather agree.
a lot of gazlightening instead of sorry what we can do to fix it.“
„It’s not only a Lithuanian thing.
In Germany it’s also unheard of to admit even small mistakes.“
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„My opinion: Many Lithuanians are fighting an old, misplaced sense of inferiority and many Germans have an old misplaced sense of superiority.“
[Gintarė]
„This happens in any country. Everything deprens on with what people you surround yourself 🤗 I surround myself with amazing, intellectual people and have 0 issues.“
„That’s not much about being Lithuanian but more of an introvert issue, or lack of social skills.
Go try talking to some Lithuanians who had to develop social skills due to their jobs and you will see the difference.
They don’t mean to be rude, they just so introverted, most of them don’t know how to handle conflicts smoothly. You will see the pretty much same with introverts of any country.
As a mild introvert myself, I also gained that skill much later in my life.“
„I saw it in Asia. Maybe it was passed with sanskrit?“
[Simona]
„There’s people of similar traits and characters everywhere no matter nationality, so it really depends on the situation and the person. I would advise not to interact with the rude ones… mind that Lithuania is infamous for topping the charts for suicides so imagine the mood that you might be arguing against… so don’t overthink about the grumpy ones, for this we have a good old advise “Duok durniui, kelia” – “stupid ahead, give way”“
„Just food for through – which culture accepts its mistakes? I think it is just human nature“
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„an example
We have a communal secure yard.
One of the businesses nearby was allowed to use it for an event.
After the event they didn’t close the gate, leaving the yard open all night.
When I told the owner of the business, his response was . “So what? Nothing got stolen” in a civilised country I’d expect “sorry, I’ll talk to the staff so it doesn’t happen again”“
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[Vaida]
„making comments such as ‘in a civilised country’ and insinuating that Lithuania is not such, is exactly what you’re saying – being rude. Please mind your own ways of expressing yourself while commenting on others responses.“
„I live in Lithuania since 2010 and I met various people.
In my opinion it’s only a cultural differences.
But in general, Lithuanians are peaceful people and they don’t seek problems.
“Teik to” – “prašau Ahmedai, einam iš čia” 😃“
„Cultural trait. As well as “thank you”, “excuse me” and so on. You will not hear those words often. No empathy, either.“
„You do need to understand that many eastern European countries did not have the opportunity nor the means to learn emotional intelligence and other skills required to be able to say ‘I was wrong’ without shame and feeling less. The younger generations started to change that but in general, such level of self awareness and confidence wasn’t something that people learned nor it was encouraged. I come from such a country and I noticed the same behaviour there, in LT and other countries from the East. People in the West tend to do better at the self awareness side of things but you can’t really say everyone here is emotionally intelligent and such. These are my observations after living on both sides of Europe.“
„I chalk this behaviour up to Lithuania’s national victim complex. People who constantly feel sorry for themselves have a hard time empathising with others. And I notice in LT, the collective misery and self-pity party makes it so that many can only find joy in the misery of others. It’s quite sad“
„You probably haven’t been to the Balkans yet.“