This is absolutely the biggest problem I have with Argentina. While people from other Latin America countries tend to complain about Argentine arrogance, it's not really the arrogance that's the problem. The real problem is that, for God knows what reason, Argentines are encouraged to act as if they've got everything figured out at all times, even when they haven't got a clue what they're talking about. If there's one thing that I would tell anyone heading to Argentina for the first time to expect, it's this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
When one chooses to be both ignorant and arrogant, there's really no way forward. And Argentina as a whole will continue to shoot itself in the foot as long as this sort of thing is encouraged. Brazilians are quietly going about making their country into a South American superpower--and building all sorts of advanced technology like the fleet of planes that Aerolineas Argentinas just bought and components for the International Space Station--while Argentines continue to mostly just make noise about how everything is "the best" in Argentina. It's dumb. Argentines need to find some humility fast and start learning from their neighbors.
SaraSara, you write often about the benefits of tight-knit families and communities in Argentina, and I agree that these are usually good things, but not always.
My brother-in-law's Argentine mother can't stand visiting her family in Argentina (and, now that her mother has died, she probably won't ever be back). The entire family works for the family company (they put up buildings, I think) and they are all well-educated in their particular fields and have plenty of money (and, from what I've heard, they were seriously rolling in it during the "one-to-one"). But they are also incredibly narrow-minded people and see anyone leaving the family to go live elsewhere as a betrayal. One cousin decided to take a job offer in Atlanta and took his family to the US and the rest of the family threw a fit. When he and his family failed to adjust to life in the US and returned to Argentina, they were met with "I told you so" gloating from the rest of the family and he was given a lower position in the company than the one he left.
Families who provide unconditional care and support, regardless of what an individual family member chooses to do with their life, are good; families full of spiteful, jealous, ignorant jackasses are, well, less good. "Lifelong friends" can also often do a pretty good job of holding one back or, worse, leading one astray. Happening to know someone when you're a child doesn't automatically make them a worthwhile friend when you're both adults.
And close families or communities who are suspicious of, or less respectful of, anyone outside of their circle of trust can end up doing or condoning some pretty dumb things. For example, you wrote the following on that recent dating thread:
Pretty creepy. And yet another self-destructive Argentine behavior. A foreigner could visit Argentina looking to potentially invest millions in the place but get scammed so much by short-sighted locals that he or she gives up and moves on to Brazil or Chile.
Again, I do think that supportive families and communities are usually good things but you really seem to be painting too rosy a picture of "lifelong friends and caring relatives" in Argentina at this point. I mean, you argued above that, amongst other things, "security and safety" are a "poor trade-off" for the closeness of family and friends. Really? I think plenty of families huddled together in corrupt, dangerous places throughout the world would gladly spend a bit more time apart if they could trust that the people they care about (and everyone else in their country) were safe and secure and had all sorts of great opportunities and laws were enforced equally for everyone and so on.
But, anyway, there doesn't have to be a trade-off. People can have close families AND security and safety AND cool electronic toys AND all sorts of other things. Maintaining all of it requires effort, of course, but the idea that people in developed countries are sacrificing relationships with family or friends in exchange for gadgets or whatever is a bit silly.
