cultural cringe
n. The belief that one's own culture is backwards and unsophisticated compared to other cultures.
Examples
2002
The problem is essentially a British one. The French value the creative and cultural importance of their fashion industry too much ever to entrust it to amateurs, no matter how lustrous their names might once have been. That we view things differently is to do with a sense of inferiority, which induces a cultural cringe in fashion folk.
—Colin McDowell, “The eye of the beholder,” The Spectator, April 13, 2002
1998
Bryan Palmer (Letters, 3 January) complains bitterly about the involvement of the Queen in the issue of a new Australian service medal. He seems to think that it is an example of a foreign monarch interfering in our domestic arrangements, the cultural cringe at its worst.
—Peter Mackay, “Nothing wrong with Queen's role in medals,” Canberra Times, January 08, 1998
1981 (earliest)
Australians, in those days, used to suffer dreadfully from what Hughes calls "cultural cringe."
—Paul Richard, “The 'Shock' Treatment,” The Washington Post, January 10, 1981
Notes
This phrase is used most often in Australia (and is due, one supposes, to a lingering embarrassment over their penal colony roots).
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