“feels more dignity getting beaten down and bullied by strangers or peers than confronting them openly or berating them publicl” is rather hyperbolic and (in my opinion) doesn’t capture what’s going on here.

I think this speaks more to a culture of thinking of other peoples’ experiences/rights/feelings as well as their own.

Whenever I drive in the US I’m always staggered by just how selfish people are on the roads, for example. Is another car very clearly merging onto a highway where it would be easy to make enough room for them to merge? In the UK, 90% of the time the cars on the highway will make room. In the US I’ve literally never seen it happen.