Why are Americans so completely ignorant about the rest of the world?

This is a question that has bothered me for a ong time.Here we are in the beginning of the twentyfirst century with access to the most modern communication devices accessible to everyone, with well stocked libraries in every small town of the country and well equipped schools that are the envy of the rest of the world. Yet,
we seem unable to produce citizens who cannot even point to Iraq on a map when our country has sent an expeditionary force over there.We seem unable to teach our children to take an interest in the world at large and they are not interested in anything except the current pop stars or Hollywood stars.

Two incidents within the past ten years should illustrate my point.
My daughter's seventh grade class was recently asked to name an Arab country.Fully sixty percent of the class said Israel.

Second, on a business trip to China five years ago, I had an occassion to go to the Mongolian border area.I met a very fine gentleman and while talking with him (he spoke only halting English)
I happened to mention that I was from a small town in Michigan called Kalamazoo and was certain he had never heard of it before. To my astonishment he said, "yes, Kalamazoo, home of Upjohn Pharmaceuticals and Western Michigan University". I was simply stunned.When the rest of the world displays such in depth knowledge about us and we flaunt our ignorance as though it were a badge to be worn proudly, we will always fall for con artists like Bush-Rove-Cheney when they prescribe
that we have to hit Iraq in order to stop terrorism.

I do not have a solution for our "invincible ignorance" about the rest of the world.I think it exhibits a mixture of superiority,xenophobia, racism and an attitude that nothing worth talking about happens anywhere except the U.S.

and the fog of materialism.


on edit---I sing in your key.

Ever see what passes for "World News" on the American Networks? (esp the cable networks)

Its like 60 seconds of total fluff: "In Taiwan they made the worlds largetst pizza, swimmimg monkeys at the hot springs in Japan!"

Also, maybe it has to do with how much more what our govt does effects others, relative to how what they do effects us. That's not an excuse but it could be a factor.

And we have "interests" in many more places, I imagine, than most other countries; still, not an excuse.

It's US verses them. To most American's the difference between New York State and Ontario and Bavaria and the Punjab is nil.

They will never travel there, will never meet anybody from there, and couldn't tell you three things about "there"

It's all about ME and what I have and what I can get!!

Who has the biggest, the most, the fastest........but no competition for knowledge.

I live in NJ, half the people I know couldn't point to Delaware on a map, let alone Iraq.....

I do try to engage friends in discussions of world events, it just seems most of them couldn't be bothered, maybe they're just too busy, worrying about where they're going to get next month's rent money in a Bush economy?

"The fog of materialism"

here in NJ with the incredible ethnic mix, home of US operations of so many European and Japanese companies, so many US multinationals, Indians, Arabs and South Americans owning so many businesses... people would have a clue.

Nope. Even the ones who travel overseas are full of "so glad to be home."

They don't even bother to go to the excellent Japanese and Korean restaurants in Ft. Ree and around Mahwah. Or the Indian places in Edison. Or anywhere else.

I live in the Iselin section of Woodbridge, and most of the Indian places are here, on Oak Tree Road.....

As a matter of fact, a friend of mine, from back in high school, his Uncle owns (or owned), a little place called Shalimar, check it out sometime, if you're ever in the area.....

is to require travel outside of the US (no, not just to Canada) for all youth. Of course I know this is impractical but I swear that the main difference I see in people who are aware of the rest of the world is that they've actually traveled outside of the US. Maybe somehow it makes the world more real to them?

This is a nation of instant gratification. No one has time to look at the big picture because they are so self-absorbed.

It is interesting that someone brings up this point as I often complain that the masses of Americans are just ignorant. Anyway I was having a discussion about this with a coworker who is Hungarian. His perspective is that we have it so good here that we stop paying attention. He said the same thing is actually happening to him. He has it so good living here in the US, that he gets busy with taking his kids to soccer and karate and worry about work and doesn't keep up with all of the politics and the world news. When he lived in Hungary he said that they always followed that. So his opinion is that life over here is even that much better than in Europe that it encourages laziness.

I feel another issue is that Americans tend not to travel. And when they do it is usually not internationally. An Australian friend mentioned that he feels that there is so much to see here in the US that most people don't look any further than our borders. So I think their are many factors actually.

Maybe if we fully funded Title IX though they our teachers would have the resources to encourage a curiosity in our children to correct this instead of the leave all children behind philosophy adopted by the current administration.

For over 100 years, the American educational system has seen one of its primary tasks as assimilating immigrants from elsewhere, to turn them into "good Americans" who speak English and are productive citizens. There are thus two areas of emphasis in the schools: the United States and how to get a job. People see geography and world history and foreign languages (along with music and art) as "not useful for getting a job," so these subjects get short shrift.

Meanwhile, it is to the advantage of the elites if the common people don't know about the rest of the world. For example, what if everyone knew that four to five weeks of paid vacation is normal in Europe or that there are good reasons for anti-Americanism in some parts of the world?

You can go to any country in the world and see American TV shows, often dubbed into the local language. Yet we can't get foreign TV shows (or sometimes even movies) until they have been remade with American actors in American settings, not even if the original was from an English-speaking country. Before the spread of cable TV, you had to go to PBS to see British TV, and it's only rarely that you see programming from Canada or Australia anywhere.

Personally, I've seen a couple of Japanese dramatic series that I think would appeal to at least a segment of the American TV audience, but they'll never be shown here. (However, I'm convinced that the now-defunct series The Profiler was a remake of a Japanese series--same type of main character, same plot premises.)

Okay, maybe showing a Japanese series would be stretching it, but why does Hollywood feel that it has to remake The Office (which I"m sure they will ruin with their heavy-handed approach to comedy), Touching Evil, Cracker, and Whose Line Is It Anyway, all of which are just fine in their original British versions? God forbid that mass audiences should see something that isn't American.

Sorry, I'm ranting now. :-)

You're dead-on accurate.

I was over 20 years old before I even heard of something like the Value Added Tax, which is the predominant taxation system in Europe and far more equitable, imo, than the systems we use. For the so-called elites, it would not do for the common individual in the US to understand that these different forms of taxation exist.

I am always astonished at people's ignorance about the world that surrounds us. Whenever I would meet people from other countries, it was so neat to discuss world politics with them and the differences between our culture and theirs. Of course we have lived in a university-heavy area for many years, so there are many students from other countries that we encounter. My so works in an office that is chock-full of computer types from other cultures. How can we ignore the world in this type of economy? It seems that we do this at our peril and perpetuate our ignorance.

They weren't all that either.

The American tv show I remember being on prime time tv there was the Jetsons. They only had a handful of stations.

Also, the people were completely ignorant of our political system. Everyone wanted to know who the next president was going to be, Carter or Kennedy? I kept telling them Reagan would win and they didn't understand that he was running.

Once they learned who Reagan won, oh how they hated him there. Way worse than Bush. The German opinion was all pretty unanimous. If they didn't anger the East Germans too much, maybe they could get trade increased, and maybe even get East Germany to allow some relatives to emigrate. They were scared that Reagan and his missiles would make the Russians mad enough to close the border crossings even tighter, or even worse end up in a war on their land.

I wonder today if all those guys who were sure the wall would be there forever and so would the USSR feel different today about Reagan. I remember the little "nuclear: nein danke" buttons and the giant Reagan masks in the marches.

Anyway, living in Austria, I didn't see them as oh so worldly either, and they had giant advantages over us. The biggest one was that their society was so homogenius. Every family in my village had lived there for generations. There were no immigrants. There were no minorities. I bet it's different today though.

the other aspect of Austrian xenophobia is unlike the Germans, the Austrians were considered a conquered nation in WWII, though they welcomed the Germans with open arms. Hence they were never subject to de-Nazification and there is a great deal of racism and RW tendencies in their society. They still have a difficult time with accepting minorities (mostly Turks and Eastern Europeans). It's no surprise Jorg Heider was elected in Austria.

I have worked for Irish and Scandanavian companies during my career, and their world view is a lot more open and their societies a lot more accepting of minorities, even though they are still pretty damn homogenous. Same goes for all the other non-Germanic European countries. I think France may be the exception-there is a lot of anti-Arab racism there, though it's not so apparent in large urban areas.

is a great example of a Euro popular show that pitted ordinary inhabitants of various towns from various European nations in silly team games, very good natured and funny. THAT was thirty years ago!

When America finally got around to stealing the concept years later they missed the entire point of the show. Only celebrities competed with the usual talky ingratiating PR ops. No ordinary people. No community building. ALL the "frontieres", the borders between classes etc. were safely up, and the show fizzled into the usual grave and back to "American Gladiator", thank you.

Now we have "reality" shows that show what Robert Paxton in his recent comments on the differences between America and Nazi Germany summed up as "extreme individualism" a polar opposite of community spirit and community priorities. That is why things have gotten worse in curious ways, though extremes tend to resemble each other in results and effects. All cult, no reality. All passion, no person. Hatred and fear and glamorous walls to sustain the unsustainable.

And the political conmen on the right, mainly, who love to use such fools and lead them any way they choose.

n/t

he was never outside the US, Xcept across the border 2 score, B4 he was set up to B prez. I am continually amazed at the lazi ignorance of these shores. How can U understand what the US is doing 2 the world, if U don't know, or care, about the other people in it?

Our boy king visited Scotland as a young lad, and hung out with the Gammel Family (oil, CIA-connected family, big money, etc.).

The young master Gammel, (visited by our boy king for a summer), later went to the same school as Tony Blair.

So, while not widely travelled, our boy king made some of the necessary royal connections while still a lad.

They can't even teach us our own history .

All the reasons given here are good ones and influence the way Americans see themselves and thus how they fail to see the rest of the world, but what leads to that is the way Americans are inculcated.

Consider:

I graduated from high school in 1987. At the time I graduated, I had had exactly 18 school weeks of required, directed education into world history and culture -- eighteen weeks for the entire history of the world. I had opted to take a full year course in world geography, during which the geography of North America, focused on the United States, consumed fully half the course. (We spent one week on Africa.)

By contrast, I had taken various courses, most of them required, covering everything from the US government, culture, history, geography, literature, etc. each and every year from the time I was in 1st grade until I graduated high school. The way these courses are taught, and in the present day tested thus demanding that they be taught this way, the United States is at the center of everything.

I knew more than the average bear about the world because I had an English teacher that introduced us to "world" literature, especially translated German, Russian, and French, and I taught myself a lot. I went to scholastic meets as our school's representative for current events, and I tended to blow away the competition, in part because I was aware of things like the fact Iran is a largely Persian, not Arab, country, and I could actually spell Shiite without giggling.

Our public education system produces students that can't tell us who the 16th President of the United States is. It's no wonder they know nothing but what television news feeds them about the rest of the world.

BTW, this is not a criticism of teachers. It is a criticism of the system.

least one foreign language?

I dated a girl who has been raised in Russia, and she spoke English fluently. She was raised under the Soviet system, and in order for her to be allowed to advance to higher levels of education, she had to know at least English. There were a lot of bad things about the Soviet system, but they got this one at least partly right.

She also knew more about American history and culture than most Americans I know. She'd learned all that in her courses that taught English.

"Why bother studying a foreign language? Everyone in Europe can already speak English!"

When I was requesting my classes for eighth grade, way back in 1986, I had an elective slot open. Being in love with foreign languages, I chose Spanish. The problem was, I had also requested French. When I handed my requests to the clerk, she narrowed her eyes at me and snapped something to the effect of, "You can't do that! You can only request ONE foreign language!"

And all of the kids behind me in line looked at me like I'd grown tentacles.

The thing was, IT WAS AN OPEN ELECTIVE SLOT. There was no reason for me not to be able to request two languages if I wanted. I was told later that they probably thought two foreign languages at a time would be too hard for me, but looking back I realize that's total bullshit. To reference Eddie Izzard, how the hell do the Dutch learn 4 languages by the time they're old enough to spark up a fattie? And everybody knows you learn languages faster when you're young.

I just think there are too many fuck**g rules (obviously, since I'm an anarchist), plus there's just an aversion to anything weird, or out of the ordinary, or God forbid, foreign. And it infects the entire culture. Too many paternalist, arrogant, authoritarians telling ME what I should learn.

Fuck 'em all anyway.

When I was in high school we watched the news on TV as it was the only thing on, on all stations. Our life was more in order, and people ate at same time.We saw news at movies and since most movie were show in studio owned houses we saw a set of news shows that were alike.Schools also had us learn about the world. So then you get a family like mine that was into all that stuff but 40 years later things were not the same. Know one had to watch news as you could see any thing you wished, and movie owned by studios were long gone and school were not backed up by families to learn any of this world stuff as they were not interested. What was learned at schools seem to have moved on. I do not think people do not know as much but just different things. It is a joke with people from other counties how little we do know. I had a friend from Canada and she used to say "meet my An. friends, and she know where Can and its cities are' that gives you an odd feeling when said. If you do not get that stuff in school years I am willing to bet you do not bother to do it after.

And one of my neighbors is a Union representative... he didn't know who Karl Rove was, or Ambassador Wilson's affair, or the voting machines problem. THAT IS scary. He should know better.

at my own former ignorance. I have a degree in History, I read all the time, and I've travelled all over the US, but I knew practically nothing about the place I live in now, or the region. The Middle East is absolutely fascinating, and I had no clue. I'm embarassed because I never thought to be interested, I just had a few vague notions.

I am so happy that my daughters are going to grow up with a broader view of the world than I did. They play with kids from every corner of the globe every day, and they don't realize how much they are learning from those children, but I do. I remember how provincial EVERY ONE seemed when I got back to the mainland after living in Hawaii; it will be so much worse now. My husband doesn't believe me because he's never done anything like this before, but we are going to feel like aliens ourselves, with our families.

The one defense I have (against the embarassment of being ignorant) is that I know how much you learn when you travel, and I have always loved to travel.

to do, as the above poster mentioned, in part with the educational system. But as a not so well traveled parent of two, on a very limited budget, I have always pushed for my boys to be open to the world. To be curious about the planet as a whole. And to my pride, they are pretty well rounded in that department.

It started with curiosity and then to appreciation for things that were unique to them. Then to reading and watching news and current events, then to the computer. But by then, the love of learning about new things was set. So I think, a solution can be found in us the parents or guardians. Learning is a cheap as a newspaper or a television show. It's our job to lay down the foundation for the road we want them to travel on.

What did the other 40% say?

As far as I can tell the Human race is doomed.

It's like were all in a car doing 100 miles an hr headed straight for a brick wall & everyone's arguing about who gets to sit where.

We are fucked.

The dumbing down of Americans is on purpose IMO
It's much easier for the elites to manufacture consent from a disinterested ignorant populous.

know the difference of new mexico and mexico and where they were located. we live in texas. i shake my head

i had my 7 year old tell them the difference of the two and where they were

was something I developed during my years of living in the USA in a defence against the abysmal ignorance of Murkins, most of whom believed that Australia was a land somewhere in Europe, filled with crocodile wrestlers and kangaroos.

It began when the loans officer at the bank asked me if I understood the idea of loans and did we have banks in Australia? This was too good to miss, so I told her we had recently opened one in Sydney, as Australia had just abandoned sea-shells as a medium of exchange. But getting there was hazardous as the pathway (we don't have roads) led close to the harbour and crocs in breeding season were a problem. I got the loan, probably out of sympathy.

Later I told one listener how we crossed from Sydney to Perth (she was astounded by the distance of some 3,000 miles, having zero idea of how big the place is) by Kangaroo-drawn stage coach, pulled by six pairs of our largest 'roos, the Red Fliers of the Centre, tethered to the coach by rubber strands, and each pair trained to leap together so as to minimise the whip-lash effect. I was about to develop the entire curriculum of 'roo-training when she began to suspect I was not being entirely truthful.

I may be to blame for a shit-load of messed up beliefs about the land down-under.

place on earth, and foreign languages are not encouraged..

A secondary reason is that international travel is beyond the financial reach of the "ordinary" people, so they travel to the bahamas,take a caribbean cruise or go to Mexico, and think they are "world travelers"...

Our media does not inform us about the international news, so we are uninformed and uninterested..

Plus... world history is HARD..it's not very complimentary to us, so the school districts see no reason to stress our place in the world..

Another thing is this... schools are teaching to tests these days, and the school day/year has not been increased to allow for MORE learning, so the kids are actually getting less..

Back when I went to school, we had chapter tests, mid terms, and a standardized test in the spring...and a final.. The standardized test was strictly to show where we ranked.. No one lost their jobs over our results..schools did not lose funding over it... kids were not flunked because of it..

Our teachers were interested in teaching us things, and we still had time for recesses in elementary and gym class every day in junior and high school.. These days, schools seem to have little time for real teaching.. I was appalled when our youngest would tell me that they were studying this or that..and instead of assigning the BOOK, the teacher would show them the MOVIE... He was always pissed at me when I would make him read the book too..

Never in history in a "democracy" have so many people been subjected to such a stream of propaganda carrying political memes propagated from the "top down", instead of from the "bottom up".

Here in America, most working people are disconnected from informal "bottom up" political opinions of their fellow working class Americans. Political opinions are frowned upon in the workplace. And they do not get that much "bottom up" political opinion at home, because much of the political memes are delivered via the TV and movies, large urban newspapers, and talk radio. Naturally, because those media venues are costly, high-barrier-to-entry media venues, they mainly propagate political memes that are friendly to those who have lots of money, from the top down. These media venues comprise the AMerican political propaganda system. In particular, talk radio is able to very effectively communicate top down memes to commuters who are held virtual captives during ever-increasing commute drive times.

In societies that are more neighborhood-oriented, village-oriented, tribe-oriented, the propaganda systems are less effective. THat is because the people are able to communicate with each other informally, on their front porches, at their church/temple (where attendance is much higher than it is here). In those informal venues, propaganda systems funded by wealth have less power and have competition from the political memes propagated from tbe bottom up. Here in AMerica, most of the political memes are propagated from the top down, from the elite to the workers.

Take a look at Western Europe, Canada and Australia. They are definitely less propagandized. This may be partially due to the fact that their large metro areas are less sprawl-y. They depend more on public transportation and many more people actually walk to work and to shop and so forth. They are more neighborhood oriented than is America. Also many of their media venues are publicly funded, and therefore are less friendly to top down memes.

ALso, in Western Europe, the people there have been united by two world wars, which tossed them all together in strenuous circumstances. They are united from the bottom up, at least to a greater degree. Whereas we Americans in the past have spread out to conquer the wilderness, and we were only pulled together from the top down through imperialist top down political memes.

Thus, in countries such as those in Western Europe, they have socialized medicine, and their children grow taller (the average Dutch male is 6-1), and even though they smoke much more, they live 2-3 years longer. Also they have a far more extensive social safety net (unemployment typically can last for years); welfare is far more easily obtained (e.g., young, able-bodied, single males may obtain welfare).

This is the result of the different propaganda systems.
Natually, those who run and control the American propaganda system have little interest in spreading knowledge about countries with different systems. That would be counter to their own interests.

:toast:

Unfortunately for us...
:eyes:

I was at a client updating one of the new laptops they had gotten and the guy I was working for told me the end-user was taking it to France. When I finished, this end-user came to pick it up and I asked him "is this vacation or business?" He said, "business, I would never go to France on vacation".

Another person nearby chimed in, "why on earth would anyone want to go to "Europe for vacation?"

I thought to myself..."you stupid ignorant dimwits."

. . . about anything, not just geography, history, and current events.

It's all about celebrities, sports, and possessions.

Bush embodies this lack of intellectual curiosity completely. He seems proud to say he never reads the papers, doesn't "do nuances," and can only deal in terms of black and white.

People identify, even glorify, with his intellectual disinterest. The Republican Party is the world's foremost bastion of anti-intellectualism.

I am being facetious of course, but I have noticed this trend as well. Dealing daily with the general public in my profession, I have noticed that my foreign born clients are much more intelligent than American citizens. Even the children are more knowledgable the the average US adult.

Americans are self-absorbed with the attention span of a rock. Our spelling and grammer are atrocious. We are incapable of understanding and answering the simplest of questions. We ask questions and do not bother listening or thinking about the answers. I see this all day, everyday. We cant think, we cant talk, but we can talk without thinking. Manners and civility are lacking as well.

I do think that the television has something to do about it. I stopped watching when the war started 2 springs ago, I have noticed an increased clarity of thinking myself. Of course, I spend more time reading and writing so that may have something to do with it.

Sorry, I couldn't help pointing it out, given the context ;-)

:shrug:i guess your didn't get the memo.
ignorance is also a privilege.

and need to grow up.

is not fashionable in America, circa 2004.

about other places. The don't affect us directly in any meangful way, so we don't care.

I've always been something of a wierdo for enjoying learning about other places and cultures. I really don't have anyone to express that interest to.

summers off and we should teach along the same guidelines other countries do. But ignorance continues to breed subservient behavior, and we certainly don't need Americans thinking independently do we? That would make it difficult for the Bush monarchy to control the world. I will never understand why Americans don't stop for a second and ask themselves why we have one family controlling the world. The same thing amazes me when adults cannot speak correct english and it's the only language they know. How did they get through our education system and come out with the education of a third world country? How is that possible?

happened recently, IN my Frame of Reference in the US...so the Public is Oblivious to US History and the traditions of other parts of the World..and that includes if you live in the South, SouthWest, or New England..

Folks who are voting aren't always in touch with the Business Community in the US but those who are...are Bushies and Corporatists who are better educated and linked up with Globalist Companies...to further their Worldwide Commercial Interests.

And...those interests, btw, have nothing to do with overseas History and Tradition, so those kids don't Care if our Kids are Educated.

:shrug:

It is more like the corporate media and its owners and managers have certain interests at heart--their own. And if they introduce other viewpoints, they dilute their own propaganda.

In a way, the American news and audiovisual entertainment (TV, movies, radio, etc) that we all get is somewhat of a commerical advertisement in and of itself. They are promoting a viewpoint and selling a product, a certain point of view, just a like a car ad for a Ford sells the Ford. You would not expect a Ford ad to start talking about a Chevy, would you?

Likewise, American news will not give much time to foreign viewpoints.

Orwell 1984

addition to curiosity.Because Americans in general think their shit doesn't stink, you can rule out humility.Curiosity about others is also an endangered species in this country when we think that others are not as good as we are.Our children are constantly surprised to learn that children from China, India and Japan excel in academic work
and when they cannot compete with these children, promptly proceed to call them nerds.The same nerds have kicked our asses in Silicon Valley and many research institutions.I am sure that our enforced ignorance about other countries and their cultures are going to produce many more nasty surprises in the years ahead as China and India are racing to produce more and more engineers and research scientists while we continue to produce graduates of advanced basketweaving.

This is where you lose me...we are not here to "produce" anyone. We must let them decide for themselves
what they will become with only our influence rather than our dicate. God bless us all each and every one.

That, as you rightly state, is for each individual to determine for him/herself.What I meant to say was that we provide incentives for people to learn the hard sciences and engineering so that our economy can benefit from their expertise much as China and India are reaping the rewards of their investments in people's education in these fields.