cultural cringe
noun chiefly Australian /NZ
The view that one’s own national culture is inferior to the cultures of other countries: there are signs that the cultural cringe is on the retreat...
- The problem lies with the cultural cringe around our home-grown story telling.
- This will sound like deplorable cultural cringe, but, crikey, in this area the Poms just do it better.
- The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has been an important component in ridding this most talented country of the cultural cringe that for far too long saw us apologising for the quality of our artistic endeavours.
Origin
1950s: coined by A. A. Phillips in an essay of the same name.