You know, I actually agree with you on that. I don't think that I was making a judgment call, but my comment was informed by my personal worldview. Since I am an American, I obviously don't deal with Americans telling me I'm backward for my beliefs (well, I do, but that's more of a "this side vs that side" thing and not something that could necessarily be viewed as an attack on my culture).

I still think that the opera's response was the best one - again, if you're opening yourself up to everyone in the world, I don't think it's productive to just say "go fuck yourself" if you're met with any questioning. It's like going on your public TikTok account and saying something controversial and being shocked that there may exist people that disagree with you. And I think it's important to try and understand each other.

That being said, the people that typically complain about things like this are so militant and make no effort to try and understand the other side, so... yeah, I get where you're coming from. I would like to point out that I, personally, am not interested whatsoever in forcing the opera to stop doing what they're doing, and I'm actually disappointed that the end of the article they talk about making changes for future performances. But I think you're talking more about Americans in general than me in particular, right? If that's the case, you're absolutely right. I don't think anyone has any business trying to force their ideals on anyone else. And given the history of how Americans have treated Europeans... well, let me put it this way: I still don't think it's productive to be hostile to other people, but it's understandable.

I'd also like to thank you for a thoughtful response; it was actually pretty enlightening and helped me see your viewpoint more clearly, so I'm sorry if I seemed dismissive before.