The problem with you people is you use generalizations.
Chuck Klosterman was on This American Life with this thesis about assumptions: "Whenever a given stereotype seems right (or wrong), it's inevitably a coincidence; the world is a prejudiced place, but it's prejudiced for the weirdest, least-meaningful reasons imaginable."

The first half of that sentence is an interesting point, but the second, and I say this as a white guy, is a very white guy thing to say. It presumes stereotypes all have the same impact, and confuses the incoherent or absurd content of a stereotype with the actual motive for expressing it. It is weird to say Jews have horns, but the reason for saying so is hardly lacking in meaning.

Klosterman was reading an edited version of his Esquire essay about a trip to Germany. He concludes by listing random observations about Germany and says "I suppose I could use these details to extrapolate various ideas about life in Germany. I suppose I could create allegorical value for many of these factoids, and some of my conclusions might prove true. But I am choosing not to do this. Because-- now--I can't help but recognize all the things Americans do that a) have no real significance, yet b) define the perception of our nature."

Klosterman supports this idea with highly selective anecdotal generalizations about how German stereotype Americans:

During a weekend in Frankfurt, I went to an exhibit at the Schirn Kunsthalle art museum called "I Like America." This title (as one might expect) was meant to be ironic; it's taken from a 1974 conceptual art piece called I Like America and America Likes Me, in which German artist Joseph Beuys flew to New York and spent three days in a room with a live coyote and fifty copies of The Wall Street Journal. (This piece was a European response to the destruction of Native American culture, which made about as much sense to me as it did to the coyote.) The bulk of "I Like America" focused on German interest in nineteenth-century American culture, specifically the depictions of Buffalo Bill, cowboys, and the artistic portrayal of Indians as noble savages. It was (kind of ) brilliant. But it was curious to read the descriptions of what these paintings and photographs were supposed to signify; almost all of them were alleged to illustrate some tragic flaw with American ideology.

And it slowly dawned on me that the creators of "I Like America" had made one critical error: While they had not necessarily misunderstood the historical relationship between Americans and cowboy iconography, they totally misinterpreted its magnitude. With the possible exception of Jon Bon Jovi, I can't think of any modern American who gives a shit about cowboys, even metaphorically. Dramatic op-ed writers are wont to criticize warhawk politicians by comparing them to John Wayne, but no one really believes that Hondo affects policy; it's just a shorthand way to describe something we already understand. But European intellectuals use cowboy culture to understand American sociology, and that's a specious relationship (even during moments when it almost makes sense). As it turns out, Germans care about cowboys way more than we do.

Beyond the greater contradiction of the essay, this paradox of a literal, reductivist reading of art used to accuse Europeans of being too literal and reductivist struck me as a shithead move.

[Digression: Dude, they're not saying Americans themselves think in terms of cowboys and indians, it's a metaphor for how American xenophobia appears to others, i.e. killing and romanticizing the other in a self serving way.]

There's a fine line between iconoclast and reactionary and it can trip up rebel writers if they can't admit this. For example, Klosterman's "regular guy" reaction to Beuys peice is posturing for a man with multiple books of cultural critique. He got the point, but didn't like it and tried to pass off patriotic resentment as disdain for effete artistic obscurity.

Klosterman recited his rhetorical contortions in a smug, slightly whiny, voice - superior about not being superior while indulging the thing he was denying. His attempt to unsettle preconceptions came off as jerkwad contrarianism. Just kidding. Or am I?

It was an off note showing the flaws of This American, but the rest of the show was far better. I'm not familiar with Klosterman, but I'm glad to know I don't have to make his work a priority.