Americans are ignorant?

[Asylum]

I recently got into a debate with someone who was from another country about Americans' ignorance of topics outside of the U.S. He had the opinion that the majority of Americans don't care what happens outside of our borders, and that this was indicitive of his and his countrymen's superiority over us (or my opinion of what he was saying at least).

This seems to be a common opinion among many foreigners: we know more about America than America knows about us, so therefore: Americans are ignorant.

I do agree with the sentiment that many Americans do not know what goes on outside our borders but should. But I think that applies to the majority of the population of any nationality.

In other words people have a tendency to be aware of only that which affects them (or their country) directly. And since the U.S. has so much influence and has its hands in so many pots (so to speak) it's only natural for almost every citizen of the world to be at least somewhat up to date on what we (the U.S. and its population) are doing; conversely, however, usually when a smaller country, with less influence, does something, it has little to no impact on day-to-day life in the U.S. so therefore most Americans remain blissfully unaware of outside events.

I'm not trying to start somekind of anti-foreigner rant here (I'm from western MD, and it's next to impossible to not meet intelligent, thoughtful, foreign nationals here, so I DEFINITELY have nothing against someone from a foreign country). Just looking for input.

Thoughts?

[Violet]

Just a few thoughts. I know several people working 2 jobs. Their hard earned tax dollars go to helping other people in other countries. They don't have time to even listen to U.S. news.

The only people I met in Europe who seemed informed about U.S. news were people in London. Locals in other countries were just enjoying their lives, and many expressed no desire to visit the U.S. Especially in Spain.

The U.S. contains many immigrants, and many first generation people. There is much interest among these groups in news of their family countries.

FWIW

[Neurotik]

I lived in London for three months over the summer. They definitely think that Americans are ignorant about other nations. Of course, I tried to point out two things.

One was that America is as big as the continent of Europe. We have a LOT more going on in our country than they do in theirs, so it's easy to be self-absorbed.

Two, I've found that the average Londoner was pretty ignorant about America. I was greeted with disbelief when I told them that the majority of Americans don't carry guns on them on a daily basis. Their media gives that impression.

Also, almost no one had a firm grasp of the US system of government. Not even close. And I was working in frickin' Parliament.

To be blunt, people like to think that they are more worldly than Americans because it makes them feel superior. In reality, everyone is about the same.

[Asylum]

Actually, to be completely honest, I don't have a firm grasp of how Parliament works so I gotta let it slide if they don't know how our government works.

[Neurotik]

Well, my main objection that they would sit there and criticize it without knowing how it actually worked.

[Mersavets]

I heard a hypothesis once that the reason Americans were so ignorant is because there is so much going on in their own country and so there is little room left for attention to be paid to the rest of the world.

Upon further reflection though, this strikes me as complete bullshit. The ignorant Americans I have met certainly didn't seem to be suffering from any kind of information overload. On the other hand, I have met Americans who had vast knowledge of the rest of the world in addition to the deep(er) insight they had into their own country. Humans aren't computers; there is no upper limit to the capacity of information that can be stored. It seems to me, that the more you know, the more you can know.

Europe has a far greater dive rsity, population, history and area than The United States and yet that doesn't stop them from having better knowledge about their home as well as America sometimes.

The same goes for Australians although to a lesser extent perhaps. I've seen tele vision footage of little Indonesian kids pointing out all our states and capitals on a map in class. I doubt there would be many Australian kids who could even come close to guessing where Jakarta is. And still fewer Americans I imagine. Indonesia is some thing like the fourth most populous nation in the world and yet there is at least one American out there who still believes it is part of Malaysia!

If we don't devote more time to understanding and learning about the rest of the world, we'll find we'll have to spend more time bombing it.a

[Asylum]

Originally posted by Mersavets
Europe has a far greater diversity, population, history and area than The United States and yet that doesn't stop them from having better knowledge about their home as well as America sometimes.


But that's kinda my point. Europe is packed in so tightly you almost have to know what your neighbor is doing. And the U.S. seems so omnipresent (or at least that's how it's presented here) that people in other country'sy have to know what we're doing.

[elucidator]

Well, of course, they know more about us than we know about them. We broadcast our culture all over the world. Take the phrase "OK". If you say "OK" to mean "yes", you'll be understood from Mongolia to Kenya.

Which is why they hate us rather than hating each other.

[Lemur866]

Here's the thing. The relationships are assymetrical. Sure, the Dutch know more about America than Americans know about the Dutch. But EVERYONE knows more about America than they do about the Dutch, except the Dutch! Everyone in the world knows about America, so Americans should keep track of every dinky country out there?

It's like this. Everyone in America knows something about New York. People in every town in America. Does that mean that everyone in New York should know everything about every town in America, just to be fair? The people in those little towns know about New York, but they are just as ignorant about everyone else's little town as the New Yorkers are.

[don't ask]

I'm in Australia and I'm often amazed at how much I know about America. I think it's largely from the continuous input from movies, books and television.

I watch Jaywalking and am stunned at what some Americans don't know about America let alone other countries.

I sometimes find out the size of some city in the USA and am surprised how small they are because I've known the name so long like Flagstaff AZ, Bangor ME, places in Texas like Amarillo, Galveston, Lubbock, Waco. I feel like all these places should have millions of residents but they don't. But I've heard about them often in songs and Lubbock = Buddy Holly.

Recently at work someone asked what are the 50 states in the USA. One person said that they thought there were only 48. After we convinced him that it was 50 we worked out every one of them with no reference to any books or the internet.

Now I'm sure if someone had asked the names of all of Canada's provinces we would have struggled.

Now tell me all the states of Australia, and name every city with a population over 80,000. No way, and why should you know, and you won't be able to use songs or movie titles to prompt you like we could with the 50 states.

Although Americans may be getting dumber (http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr000518.asp) .

[Caiata]

*grins*

South Australia
New South Wales
Queensland
Tasmania
Western Australia
Victoria

Mainland Territories:

Northern Territories
ACT

Y'all have Christmas Island too, don't ya? :) And several other off-shore territories that I can't name from memory ... do you know ours? *grins*

Population over 80,000 is difficult - but I'd say, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Alice Springs, Perth, Adelaide, do you count the "Gold Coast" as a city area? I know it's the counted as one "population area" on the census but I'm not sure if that includes Brisbane ... er, anyway ... Melbourne ... that's about all I can name. Doubt anyone can name all the American cities with an over-80,000 population though ... not even the most knowledgeable American! :)

Though I'm sure this effort doesn't count - I am moving to Australia next year *grins*

-----

Back on topic - about Americans being ignorant.

Perhaps we don't know as much about the rest of the world as the rest of the world knows about us. I will attribute part of that to the predominance of American media in the world market. I can't even get BBC here without paying a tonne extra to my cable company (which is a shame, I'd much rather watch bad news if it's delivered to me in a British accent *purr*).

But I would say that part of the problem is our cultural attitude toward education and toward the rest of the world in general. Most people, unless they've taken some form of history lessons in University, will only be armed with the knowledge they have from history in elementary (K - 12) school. While the early civilisations like Rome and Byzantine and Greece are discussed, it is not in any way a lengthy discussion. There is much more focus on the creation of America, the revolutionary war, and our involvements in the world wars. The coverage of the latter point is usually slim - you learn a lot about the battles, and what ships were where, but not a lot about the political situations that led to the war, or what the other countries were doing.

I will admit to our public education system being profoundly lacking in this area. I would have loved to take a comprehensive course in world history or world politics. The closest I got was a "current events" quiz every Friday that was multiple-choice ... in 8th year. Perhaps part of the problem is that there is no absolute control over the curriculum, and the subjects vary from one school to the next, as do the teachers' capabilities and the teaching budgets. I don't know how the schooling systems in other countries work, however, so I can't say this is the reason or even a real reason, it's just what I perceive.

I too shake my head in awe at the people who can't answer questions correctly on "Jaywalking", but you must also remember that many of the people interviewed by Mr. Leno have seen the show before, and know that the only way to get on television is to give a stupid/erroneous answer, and that he doesn't air every interview he tapes. I'm certain that an overwhelming majority of Americans can, in fact, name the first president, or identify Abe Lincoln's portrait, etc. It's just not funny when they get it right :)

[Sir Rhosis]

In fact Leno did a skit in which the people on Jaywalking did indeed give correct answers, whereupon Leno's "thugs" beat them until they gave ludicrously wrong answers.

Still laugh just thinking about the girl who thought the inventors of the first motor-driven, heavier-than-air aircraft were The Righteous Brothers, or the guy who opined that six participants in the Million Man March dressed in combat gear, went to the top of a mountain and raised a flag (photo he was shown was the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photo).

Sir Rhosis

[don't ask]

Originally posted by Caiata
[BY'all have Christmas Island too, don't ya? :) And several other off-shore territories that I can't name from memory ... do you know ours? *grins*

Though I'm sure this effort doesn't count - I am moving to Australia next year *grins*
[/B]

My guess was American Samoa, Guam, Virgin Islands, Wake Island and Puerto Rico. I checked the State Department site and found 9 more.

Drop down the pub next year and we can have a schooner.

[chique]

This is just my own personal observations at work and YMMV, but this is what I've observed.

I was raised and currently live in an extremely rural area. I've also been fortunate enough to live in places like DC and Miami and Honolulu. What I've found is that it depends on who you run into.

You are not going to convince me that a simple shopkeeper in the Allier district in France is anymore aware of the world than a dairy farmer in the Limburg region of Belgium than a flamenco dancer in the Malaga state of Spain. Or a mechanic in central Minnesota, for that matter.

I say this as I pull out my atlas to find place names. Know what make me different from that Allier shopkeeper? I have an atlas and I'm willing to look something up to make a point.

Americans are not ignorant. We do, however, tend to be arrogant, which is a different point entirely.

[chique]

*sigh*

Hit the wrong button.

Anyhow, the point I was trying to make:

People tend to hibernate in the familiar. If the familiar is small-town locals, that's what you know and study. If one is fortunate enough to enocounter other cultures along this wild ride called Life, one tends to be more aware of what's out there.

[Darwin's Finch]

Originally posted by Lemur866
It's like this. Everyone in America knows something about New York. People in every town in America. Does that mean that everyone in New York should know everything about every town in America, just to be fair? The people in those little towns know about New York, but they are just as ignorant about everyone else's little town as the New Yorkers are.

Sometimes, it's amazing how little Americans know about other States in general. I have heard instances of folks on the East Coast who don't seem to get how big California is, for example. It's over 500 miles from San Francisco to San Diego, and that doesn't even cover the whole length of the state. California is larger than Italy. And, while there are certainly some informed non-Americans (and fellow Americans, of course) out there who know that sort of thing, I'd guess the vast majority of Europeans or Australians or whatever don't.

I would say that those outside of the U.S. may have an impression of the U.S., and may know some (or even many) details of the national government, culture (assuming one can even claim a universal "American culture") and such, but the details of state governments, for example, are probably unknown. Naming states in the U.S tends to be much easier for foreigners than for U.S. citizens naming, say Autralian provinces, simply because U.S. states are more autonomous than most other national provinces. Thus, they tend to have, to a greater degree, individual identities.

The United States also has a lot of output in terms of media, so it is natural that others will see quite a bit of us, but for the most part, what they do know is what they see/hear via said media. If you only watch a lot of Hollywood movies, for example, you'll get a very skewed version of Life in These United States.
Conversely, we don't get a lot of input, media-wise. I can get BBC America, and get a glimpse of what life is like across The Pond, but there isn't much else except for perhaps international segments on CNN. There are some local news shows which broadcast for specific ethnic groups, but those tend to be in the native language, so don't often provide useful information if you don't happen to know that language (examples locally include Vietnamese, Korean, and Iranian news shows).

As has been pointed out, the U.S. is a major player ion the world arena, so folks from other countries can't help but hear about us. However, until we get personally involved with other countries (as is currently the case with regards to Afghanistan and Pakistan), most Americans don't really give the rest of the world much thought. I would say it's more a case of Americans being disinterested than dumb (which is not to say there aren't issues with the educational system here). And the disinterest is due, in at least some part, to lack of exposure.

[ryoushi]

Originally posted by Caiata
Mainland Territories:

Northern Territories
ACT
[/B]

You left out Jervis Bay (http://www.dotrs.gov.au/terr/jervis/index.htm), which isn't surprising at all, since the only place I've seen it mentioned is on this site (and presumably other sites belonging to the Australian government). Apart from the people who live near there, I doubt anyone would know it existed (unless they cheated and looked up the goernment's webistes like I did)... it doesn't seem to get any media coverage of any kind.

[Caiata]

Posted by don't ask

Drop down the pub next year and we can have a schooner.

*grins* If you're in Sydney I could do that in January! ;) Too bad you don't have ICQ listed in your profile, I am always on the look-out for new Aussies to talk to. (Some would say I collect them, but I'm not so sure about that!)

------

Chique, I think you make an excellent point there, about the "studying what you know" bit, anyway. I must admit I was fairly unknowledgeable about the outside world until I met people from without the US borders. :)

I am not sure it is an entirely good thing, though, or that it is something that should be accepted. I'm not asking for all Americans to be history experts or to spend their time digging up info on countries they'll likely never visit, but I do think a little more attention could be paid to world awareness in our public schools without much harm. If we are, in fact, the "world superpower", it'd be nice if our populace knew at least a little something about what we were doing out there :)

For instance, my parents still think that Japan attacked the WTC because they attacked us in Pearl Harbour, and can't for the life of them figure out why Usama bin Laden wants "Pakistan" to be free when it's nowhere near Israel, and think it's awful that there are incidents of Amtrak spores being sent around the country in the mail *giggles*

(And worse than thinking Indonesia belongs to Malaysia, they think Malaysia - a country I'll be staying in for a bit this winter - is "bordering" Afghanistan because Afghanistan is in 'central Asia' and Malaysia ends in 'Asia' *giggles more*)

This isn't because of lack of media attempts to draw their attention to current events, but because they don't have the proper global-schooling background to know the difference between Palestine and Pakistan. I suspect they're not the only ones.

Having not been out of the country before, I won't be able to tell you all how others' perceptions of America measure up ... wait until I get back in February and I just might have some amusing anecdotes there too! :)

[Caiata]

... I didn't know that, even though my beau and I had contemplated spending a holiday camping there! Heh, I just thought it was a campground, not a territory!

So I guess I'm not an Australia expert ... yet! *blushes and wipes the egg from her face :)*

[casdave]

I always had the impression that in the US there is a two tier education system, partly dependant on money but also on things such as student scholarships.

As such there are those Americans who are very smart and do know as much and more than most world citizens, but for those whose parents could not afford the higher education fees then there is a tendency for intellectual limitations.
This seems to be true in the UK, if you left school and never went on to further education then foreign affairs are what you read in the lowbrow tabloid press, not exactly an informative source of information.

I don't know the percentages of those going into higher education but in the UK this is high, at least 30% and probably higher.

I think we in the UK have more access to higher education and I think that our televised news services, though fewer are, in the main, better on foreign affars than the US ones.

That said, when an issue that affects the US crops up the coverage you have is massive and in depth to the point of encyclopaedic.

If I'm wrong in any of my thoughts I would not be at all surprised.

[ruadh]

I can't find it on their website, but some time between March and July of last year the Guardian published the results of a survey in which British people were asked really basic geographical and historical questions about America. I mean, really basic.

You know where I'm going with this.

Of course, I'm sure Americans would do even worse asked the corresponding questions about Britain.

[mhendo]

It seems that i interpreted the OP a little differently from everyone else. Or at least, i interpreted the general direction of the argument differently.

The arguments on this thread have generally moved along the line posited in the OP, whereby:we know more about America than America knows about us, so therefore: Americans are ignorant.But the issue is, i believe broader than this. Of course it's natural that, on the whole, people in other countries will know more about the US than Americans know about those countries. Like it or not, the US is the biggest player on the global stage in many different categories.

As an Australian living in the US, it has been my experience that Australians generally know more about the US than vice versa. And this is, as i said above, perfectly understandable.

But rather than focus on the US versus "any other country" (like Australia or something), i think it's worth asking about people's general knowledge of and interest in the broad issues that make up truly international news. And it is here that the US suffers, partly due to its size, but also largely due to the emphasis of the US media.

International news in the US tends to concentrate on international stories that directly affect the country, whereas media outlets in many other countries (especially relatively unimportant ones like Australia - sorry fellow Aussies, but it's true) have a much broader focus when covering international news. What counts as news on the international stage is much more broadly defined in many other countries than it is in the US.

There is an interesting book by authors R. Wallis and S. Baran called The Known World of Broadcast News (London: Routledge, 1990), which compares broadcast news in the US and other countries, especially western and northern Europe, and finds that news broadcasts in the US devote a considerably smaller proportion of their time to international news than do European news outlets. They also concluded that the US stories were generally less comprehensive and gave less background.

Now, this does not mean that Americans are ignorant. The rise of the internet, and wider distribution of global news channels like BBC World Service via the cable TV system, means that many Americans are as well informed as any people in the world. Many of my American friends have a staggering breadth and depth of knowledge about global issues. But if you get nearly all your news from the network news programs, as many Americans still do, then it is likely that you will be less well-informed on international news issues than your counterparts in many other Western democratic countries. (I don't profess to know very much about news distribution in the developing countries).

I haven't touched on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the US education system. I'll leave that for another time, or for someone better informed than i am.

[Neurotik]

I think the real issue has been found here. US media sources really are rather US-centric. There is very little time and effort paid into really understanding what is going on in other countries outside of what is affecting us. The only exception that I can think of, having grown up in Southern California, is Mexico. The Los Angeles Times prints a LOT of news about the comings and goings of our neighbor to the south, whether it affects us or not. I suspect because of the large immigrant population. However, whether a significant number of people bother to read those articles I can't say. But I would suspect there aren't :(

The other fact of American omnipresence in world culture is also a factor. However, I'll again point out that a lot of the times this leads to erroneous impressions, such as the one that almost everyone is packing heat.

I'd address casdave's point about the two tiered education system, but it would take forever and I have to get going to practice. I'll just state that it's largely not true...if you would like me to get into it further we can start another thread if you'd like.

[Eliahna]

I've met Americans online who (say they) think Australia is an American state. I don't know if they're for real, but I've heard other Australians say the same thing.

I've also been surprised during the last few weeks to see Americans debating the morality of watching people starve on Survivor 3 when so many in Afghanistan are starving - completely oblivious to the fact that people were starving in the world before September, and will continue to starve long after Afghanistan has disappeared off the front pages.

[woolly]

Originally posted by Caiata
I am always on the look-out for new Aussies to talk to. Whilst hardly a representative sample, you could do worse than start with Dopers Downunder (http://www4.tpgi.com.au/brownlee/frame.html)

[Wumpus]

Here in Canada there's a show called "Talking To Americans." It's a Jaywalking clone where the Canadian host tells Americans on the street wacky things about Canada (e.g. the polar ice cap is split, and Canada wants assistance to glue it back together) and the foolish Americans believe him. Big yuks ensue.

The Canadians eat this stuff up. As a Yank living in Canada, though, I've been living "Talking With Canadians" for years.

Canadian: So, what state is Wisconsin in?



Canadian: Why don't more Americans speak French?
Me: Well, most Americans who learn a second language learn Spanish.
Canadian: [mildly outraged] Spanish? Why Spanish? I mean, Quebec borders on the US. They should learn French!



Canadian: Of course, one difference between Canada and the States is that we say "pop," while you call it "soda."
Me: Actually, I'm from Wisconsin, in the midwest, and I grew up calling it "pop."
[confused pause]
Canadian: But in the States they call it "soda," right?

[Fretful Porpentine]

I think there's ignorance on both sides -- hell, most people everywhere are ignorant about much of the world outside their own neighborhood. However (in my limited experience), American ignorance is more likely to take the form of simply not knowing anything about other countries, while people in other countries are more likely to think they know more about the US than they do.

For instance, the average American has no clue whether the death penalty exists in Spain. The average Spaniard not only knows the death penalty exists in America but has a strong opinion about it ... but if you were to ask him how often people are executed, under what circumstances, or what sort of public debate exists in the US about the subject, you'd get some seriously wrong answers. (During my first trip to Spain in 1996, I met several people who told me how barbaric my country was for hanging people. Although I'm personally opposed to the death penalty, I felt obligated to point out that the individual in question asked to be hanged.)

It's true that the American media gives a disproportionate amount of coverage to local and national news, and that many US schools don't require world history and geography when they should. I would like to see these things change, but I don't think it would cure ignorance in general. In some cases a little learning is a dangerous thing, and it's probably no worse to have an undereducated populace than a slightly educated one addicted to shooting its mouth off about how people in other parts of the world should be running their countries.

[RickJay]

Originally posted by Wumpus
Canadian: Of course, one difference between Canada and the States is that we say "pop," while you call it "soda."
Me: Actually, I'm from Wisconsin, in the midwest, and I grew up calling it "pop."
[confused pause]
Canadian: But in the States they call it "soda," right?

I'm a Canadian, and in all my life I've met maybe four other Canadians who could correctly cite the number of states in the United States. The usual guess is 51 or 52.

And you'd be amazed how many Canadians don't know how many provinces there are in Canada.

[Wiwaxia]

Originally posted by Asylum
This seems to be a common opinion among many foreigners: we know more about America than America knows about us, so therefore: Americans are ignorant.

I do agree with the sentiment that many Americans do not know what goes on outside our borders but should. But I think that applies to the majority of the population of any nationality.

First, let me state that I agree with you that the majority of people in all countries should have better knowledge about the rest of the world.

I'm a European. I have travelled extensively, I have many friends worldwide (not netfrieds - people I've met during my travels :D ), and I work in at international environment. Of course I can't speak for everybody, but I can give some anecdotal and circumstantial information. In my experince, many people do indeed view Americans as unusually ignorant. I often hear the expression "ignorant Americans". The epithome "ignorant" is in everyday language often as tightly connected to Americans as the epithome "polite" Frenchmen or "efficient" Germans. This is of course merely prejudice. But let's take a look at what this prejudice might be founded on. I don't think it's as simple as the OP states.

Some people might measure knowledge about the world in how much two people know about each others countries. IMO that's a very simplified and skew measure, and it's not my impression that a majority of people use this standard. In my experience, most people try to apply a more global perspective, and question how much the average American knows about all other countries than their own, comparted to how much the average Italian or Kiwi knows about all other countries than their own.

The Euorpean image of ignorant American is usually connected to Americans as less knowledgeble about other cultures, other languages, world geography and history. We are often stunned by American tourists who say things like "The Colusseum - it's more than a thousand years old" or "What a pity the Scots built this great castle so close to the railway station". Or when you talk about Uzbekistan and Azerbadjan, you get they reply "I haven't been to those cities". Also, many Americans, even young people, (and Brits!) speak only one language, whereas it's very common that younger North West Europeans or East Asians speaks 3 languages.

This in just anecdotes, and I'm not using it as evidence that Americans are indeed less knowledgeble - I just try to explain what factors I think forms this image.

I have not seen many controlled studies measuring level of knowledge or education. I remember one study where schoolchildren from different parts of the world (US, Africa, Europe and perhaps something more) were assigned the task of drawing a world map. Now, most children and many adults have a tendencty to draw their own part of the world as proportinally larger than it is. But the interesting thing here was that the American children made the largest distortion of their countries relative size, and also, they made more errors regarding the geography of the rest of the world. (I can check the reference if someone is interested, I don't have it available right now.)

Then I've read some studies on student achivements, off hand I only remember the Third International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS, but again, I can look up references should anyone be interested. One study of (I think) 11 countries showed that US students performed above average in reading tests. The TIMSS however, showed that US students performed surprisingly low compared to many other countries. The study sample was 0.5 million students from 41 countries. The US students only outperformed 4 countries in both maths and science - those countries were Iran, Cyprus, Portugal and Lithuania. In all, the students of East Asia outperforemd both European and US students with the exception of Hungary, Finland and I think Czech republic (perhaps I forgot some country here). Interesting to note is that rich European nations like Germany and Britain also scored surprisingly low compared to the East Asian students, although not as low as the US.

Here's a like I found about the TIMSS:
http://brookings.nap.edu/books/0815711832/html/7.html#pagetop

[mhendo]

I think we also need to be a bit careful about determining whether or not Americans are ignorant by referring to cultural forms like Jay Leno's "Jaywalking", or the "Talking to Americans" show brought up by wumpus.

Firstly, you never know how many people they have to interview before they find someone to say something really stupid. And secondly, "Jaywalking" is very wel known, and i'd be willing to bet that a lot of people know that they will only make it onto the show if they say something stupid or controversial.

An Australian show called "The Footy Show" (about football, approprately enough) used to do something similar on the streets of Sydney when i lived there, and probably still do. What made this show particularly offensive was that they would pick on recent immigrants and make fun of the fact that their spoken English was not very good. IMHO, you're not much of a comedian if you need to get your laughs like this.

[furt]

Originally posted by Wiwaxia
We are often stunned by American tourists who say things like "The Colusseum - it's more than a thousand years old"

You mean it's not?

[furt]

I tend to agree with most of the reasons stated above, but I'll add one more.

The US was settled by people who had the express desire of leaving the old world. Whether religious refugees, debtors, vagabonds, whatever, they generally shared the explicit feeling that Europe didn't have much to offer them. Successive wave of immigrants were mostly made up of people who were looking for new opportunities, new waves of living, etc. Moreover, they enshrined many of these values in their institutions. Should we be surprised that six or eight generations later, their children share their values?

Conversely,the people who valued tradition and history, who emphasized the collective good of the group rather than the bold individualism ... well, they stayed home.

The values that have made America a success (insofar as it is) are freedom, independance, and an optimistic orientation toward the future. Unfortunately, yes, that means they aren't as respectful of tradition, others, or the past as they might be. Nobody's perfect, and you can't have one without the other.


America is Elvis. We got out of town with nothing but determination, confidence, and a whole lotta sex. We went on to the big city, knocked 'em dead, worked hard, made it to the top with sweat and rhythym. And now we live in a big house with green carpet on the ceiling and 3 TVs, because we want to and because we can and because we don't give a damn if someone says its tacky. No, we never got any book learnin; never really wanted it.

And yes, we probably will die of a drug-induced heart attack in the bathroom.

[Asylum]

WiwaxiaI've read your post, like, four times and I'm still not entirely sure what you're trying to saying.

You state that the issue is more complicated than I stated in the OP and that you're not trying to say that Americans are ignorant, and then list anecdotes of ignorant Americans or incidents where Americans performed poorly in comparison to most people of other countries.

You were defininity driving somewhere with this, I'm just not sure where. Clarification?

[mhendo]

furt wrote:The US was settled by people who had the express desire of leaving the old world. Whether religious refugees, debtors, vagabonds, whatever, they generally shared the explicit feeling that Europe didn't have much to offer them. Successive wave of immigrants were mostly made up of people who were looking for new opportunities, new waves of living, etc. Moreover, they enshrined many of these values in their institutions. Should we be surprised that six or eight generations later, their children share their values?

Conversely,the people who valued tradition and history, who emphasized the collective good of the group rather than the bold individualism ... well, they stayed home.

The values that have made America a success (insofar as it is) are freedom, independance, and an optimistic orientation toward the future. Unfortunately, yes, that means they aren't as respectful of tradition, others, or the past as they might be. Nobody's perfect, and you can't have one without the other.I only agree with you up to a point here. I think you read too much of the modern notion of American "bold individualism" into the motives of the early colonists. Over the past twenty-five years or so there has been considerable debate among American historians over the extent to which liberalism dominated American thinking in the period before and after the Revolution, and the extent to which the concept of republicanism was dominant (note: these two terms meant something different then than they do now). The republican notion of collective good seems to have been very strong during the period, including the notion that all citizens needed to act not purely from selfish motives, but rather with virtue in order to maintain the republic's strength. The use of citizen militias and the opposition to a standing army were examples of a republican tendency that has its roots in the thinking of Macchiavelli.

(for those interested, some sources include:

Joyce Appleby, "The Social Origins of American Revolutionary Ideology", Journal of American History, vol. 64, no. 4 (March 1978).

Joyce Appleby, "Republicanism in Old and New Contexts", William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 1 (January 1986).

Bernard Bailyn, The Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution

Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution

J.G.A. Pocock, The Macchiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition

Daniel Rodgers, "Republicanism: The Career of a Concept", Journal of American History, vol. 79, no. 1 (June 1992).)


The preamble to the Constitution reinforces the idea of a collective good in the United States, calling as it does for the formation of "a more perfect union" and the promotion of the "general welfare". And if you go back even further to the Massachussetts Bay puritans, there was a very definite sense of community and the common welfare in their mission to America. They were chosen by God to be a beacon to the world. In the words of one of their leaders, John Winthrop,...wee shall be as a Citty vpon a Hill, the eies of all people are vppon vs; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee haue vndertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from vs, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake euill of the wayes of god and all professours for God's sake... (1630)

(spelling etc. is the same as the original)

On a more modern and prosaic note, i don't believe that Americans reject or even dislike tradition. Firstly, popular reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Declaration and the Constitution etc., show that tradition is very important in this country. The rush of wealthy Americans to purchase British titles in the 1970s and 1980s shows that many felt that financial success and American individualism were not enough, and that they needed a closer connection to the older traditions of Europe. And, like my own compatriots from Australia, Americans show considerable reverence for the age and tradition represented by European cultures and landmarks.

And i believe that a respect for tradition and a positive outlook towards the future are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

[Cuckoorex]

Originally posted by cazzle

I've also been surprised during the last few weeks to see Americans debating the morality of watching people starve on Survivor 3 when so many in Afghanistan are starving - completely oblivious to the fact that people were starving in the world before September, and will continue to starve long after Afghanistan has disappeared off the front pages.

It's not that people were oblivious to the problems before; they're simply forced to confront the moral problems now that the news has emphasized the plight of the poor and starving elsewhere.

(Making the moral problem worse is that the Africa Survivor features a group of people who are used to a relatively good quality of living, who go for a short while to "survive" wretched conditions that many people in Africa survive for their entire lives, and then they get to go back to their relatively good quality of living. And they do this to get $1,000,000, meanwhile such-and-such village could probably have food and clean water for a good long time for everyone in the village if they had $1,000,000 given to them just for "surviving.")

[Wiwaxia]

Originally posted by Asylum
WiwaxiaI've read your post, like, four times and I'm still not entirely sure what you're trying to saying.

You state that the issue is more complicated than I stated in the OP and that you're not trying to say that Americans are ignorant, and then list anecdotes of ignorant Americans or incidents where Americans performed poorly in comparison to most people of other countries.

You were defininity driving somewhere with this, I'm just not sure where. Clarification?

Thanks for reading my post. I'm sorry it's disorganised. I was trying to say:

1. There is indeed, in Europe, an "image" of Americans being ignorant.

2. This image might be pure prejudice or it might be well funded - but in any case I try to describe some stuff that I believe is causing this image, ergo the anecdotes and the studies.

3. Anecdotal evidence is typically what creates prejudice and incorrect generalization. It might be valid or it might not be valid. Studies of the type I referred to are in my opinion better measurements of general knowledge.

So, my idea was to show the reasons why I don't think the European image of Americans as ignorant is resting only at a person of one nationality judging an American from what the American knows about this persons country.

Rather, I think it's a mix between anecdotal evidence and in perhaps also the international education studies. (The TIMSS studies are rather well known among people who have the slightest interest for knowledge and education - they were all over the newspapers in several European countries, since the results were somewhat surprising and the fact that east Asian students were so dominating in performance, was a sobering thought for many European countries as well.)

Personally, I can't tell whether Americans are more ignorant that people from other nations. I don't have sufficient information to draw any final conclusions. The TIMSS studies are only measuring certain aspects of educational performance. Very important aspects IMO, but still only some aspects and we can't generalize the results of teenage student population to adults. From personal anecdotal experience (which I don't trust until I see it confirmed in controlled studies) it seems like Americans, at group level are less knowledgeble than people from Europe or East Asia. So you see what I mean - I have a personal perception, but I don't know if it's correct or not, and I believe many Europeans share my perception but some might take for granted that their perception is correct without further evidence.

The important question IMO is - if this would indeed be the case, what implications does it have? And if it's not the case, how do we get rid of this erranous belief?

[Odesio]

I was always under the impression that europeans have considered themselves more worldly and sophisticated then us since the beginning. Why expect them to change now?

Marc

[casdave]

Re: Thoughts from a European

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Wiwaxia
We are often stunned by American tourists who say things like "The Colusseum - it's more than a thousand years old"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


You mean it's not?



We have loads of Colusseums in Yorkshire and not one is older than 1930, most are now bingo halls since the decline of the Silver Screen.

[woolly]

we know more about America than America knows about us, so therefore: Americans are ignorant.
I'm not sure how you can debate this without resorting to appalling sterotypes or trivial examples.

Now I don't consider myself as ignorant but I'm certainly ignorant of the machinations of say New York parking regulations. Being conversational in say US politics and/or geography doesn't make me an expert on the US either.

IMHO, Americans are disinterested (note, not uninterested) and detatched from the consequences of US actions on those outside the US.

I'll try to illustrate my perspective with an analogy. Suppose you work in a small branch office in a substantial corporation, with many branch offices and head office on the east coast.

From head office comes a directive on a substantial, mandatory workflow/procedural change. Now this thing makes eminent sense and offers substantial cost benefits in head office where the tasks are handled by dozens of people, in two different departments, which happen to be in two separate buildings.

It doesn't do anything to assist you, because you do both jobs, and a couple of others. It's going to add a couple of hours to your workload. It certainly doesn't help that the deadline doesn't allow for the 3 hour time differential. It's not the first time this has happened. You need the money and other work is pretty hard to get.

Are you inclined to call them ignorant? Yep, you certainly will know more about them than vice versa.
Are they ignorant? Nope, a lot of smart people work at head office.
Are they inherently smarter than you? Nope.
Do you loom large in their frame of reference? Nope.
Can you do anything to change the procedure? Probably not.
Does being treated this way get up your nostrils? Yep.

What would you do about it?

[Laughing Lagomorph]

Originally posted by Wiwaxia

Also, many Americans, even young people, (and Brits!) speak only one language, whereas it's very common that younger North West Europeans or East Asians speaks 3 languages.

[/B]
Pity us poor people who learn English as our first language!

You are Italian. You grow up speaking Italian. You need to learn a 2nd language. What do you learn? English, of course. It is the dominant language in international business, science and to some extent (I hear) diplomacy. What's more, many of your friends speak it too, having learned it for the same reasons. This bascically holds true whether you are born in Spain, Germany, Russia, even someplace like Thailand or Nigeria...if you want to learn a 2nd language, English is your most logical choice.

Now, suppose you grow up in England, the US, Australia or as an Anglophone Canadian. What 2nd language do you learn? Well, lets see. There are more Chinese on earth than any other nationality, but they are (at the moment) mostly confined to China for economic and politcal reasons, so you are not likely to run into many of them. Japanese? In the 1980s it looked likely that Japanese would surpass English as a language of business, but a decade of economic stagnation in Japan has stopped that trend. German? This was a widely used international language in physics and chemistry in the early 20th century, but it has mostly been supplanted by English. Russian? Again, in the 80s, this looked like a good choice for science, but the collapse of the Soviet Union has made it seem less useful. Spanish? Good choice, at least in the US...Spanish speaking people are the fastest growing segment of the population. But not an automatic choice even in the US, and probably much less useful in, say, Australia. French? The international language of diplomacy...a century or two ago.

My point is that it is a little unfair to pick on people who speak English as a first language for not knowing more languages. They already speak the dominant language for business and science in the world. An English speaking American can converse with most of the people in two of the biggest countries in the world, which happen to be contiguous (US and Canada). He can travel hundreds of miles and still be able to speak the language. The same is true of Australia.

Having got all that off my chest, I must say that I am routinely appalled by how little most other Americans know about world affairs, history, geography. There are questions on "Millionaire" and "Jeopardy!" almost every week that I consider relatively easy or at least reasonable, that absolutely stump the contestants. Speaking of Jeopardy!, it recently got moved from its long time slot in the Boston area and got replaced by some show called "Access Hollywood", a kind of 60 Minutes for airheads, or for people who find "Entertainment Tonight" too challenging. The general trends are not hopeful.

[Asylum]

Wiwaxia, so what you're saying is part of the problem is the belief that Americans are not as well-educated as alot of other people? Actually I'd heard that before and it completely slipped my mind. Shoulda included that in the OP.

While this may be true with some countries, what about other countries that have this opinion of us, that have even worse education systems? I mean thinking Americans are ignorant that is.

As for if this viewpoint is unjustfied: yeah it is, it's stereotyping and that's always wrong. As for what to do about it: I think we're just screwed. Not all Germans are efficient and not all French are Snobs (U.S. perception on the second one) but they've been dealing with those stereotypes for years and I doubt that things are gonna change soon.

[meyer]

I'm a Canadian, and in all my life I've met maybe four other Canadians who could correctly cite the number of states in the United States. The usual guess is 51 or 52.

And you'd be amazed how many Canadians don't know how many provinces there are in Canada. [/B]

Okay, I don't know what part of Canada you've been living in, but 99% of the people I have ever met in Canada have known a great deal about the US.

I spent a great deal of my childhood in the Canadian prairies, in Saskatoon, which most Americans have never heard of, despite its population of nearly a quarter million people. One would be hard pressed to find an American city of that size that people the world over had not heard of.

Having said that, I found upon fleeing to the West Coast that even the rest of Canada does not feel it necessary to know anything about the prairies. At a party I even heard that another person was "morally opposed to life in Saskatchewan". Had she ever been there? - No.

I think the offensive idea is that, having decided a place is small and the actions of its people are immaterial, it is okay to ignore that place or even mock it. I am not demannding that every American (or Canadian) rush out to the library and read up on every country in the world, but a passing knowledge and a tolerance or even interest in local custom would be nice.
-----------------------

The Canadians and Americans share a continent, and no American I've ever come across could answer these questions:

1) Who is the Prime-Minister of Canada?
2) What are the major political parties of Canada?
3) How many provices are there in Canada? Territories? Now name them.
4) Who is on the $5 bill?
5) Who was the first Prime-Minister of Canada?
6) What is the capitol of Canada?
7) What are the 4 major urban centers of Canada?
8) Etc, etc, etc...

But I think almost all Canadain could answer the same questions about America. Yet Americans still have this attitude that we just don't matter. If they were just upfront about their ignorance I think it would be different. So I guess it's the arrogance factor that really gets me.

[KellyM]

Originally posted by Lemur866
Here's the thing. The relationships are assymetrical. Sure, the Dutch know more about America than Americans know about the Dutch. But EVERYONE knows more about America than they do about the Dutch, except the Dutch! Everyone in the world knows about America, so Americans should keep track of every dinky country out there?

The technical term for this is that America is a "celebrity".

[ElvisL1ves]

It helps to think of the US as more of a continent than a country, given the sheer extent of its geography as well as its population. It's as reasonable to expect an American to know as much about some state-sized country in Europe as someone there to know about particular states. Your average potato farmer in Idaho shouldn't be expected to know more about Ireland than your average Irish potato farmer should be expected to know about Idaho.

Consider that the US also uses the international language of convention as its own working language (not coincidentally, but that's just reality) and knowledge of it is automatically more accessible to others who know the international language. That is also why it matters less for Americans (or Brits, Canucks, or Aussies) to know a second language themselves - if they do, it's usually of marginal benefit, unlike English is to a continental European.

Add to that the simple fact that the bulk of the world's entertainment industry is in the US, and that the rest of the world experiences more American-made TV shows and movies and songs than vice versa, and that can lead to the impression that the rest of the world knows the US as a country better, too. But the misimpressions that result from that can be horrendous.

I see little to object to in observing that most people know their own geographic areas better than others. That criticism is easily reversed and irrelevant.

But I think we can agree that the problem isn't truly lack of knowledge, on anyone's part. That's easily fixed. The problem is lack of curiosity about the world, other people, and other viewpoints. No amount of force-feeding in school can fix that, nor can any amount of lamentations by those who are not willfully ignorant.

Btw, meyer, your Question #2 is a trick. There is only 1 major political party in Canada at present. There are a few semi-organized, ineffective whining clubs too, but they're currently irrelevant. See, some of us Yanks do know. I know your other questions, too.

[Orbifold]

Originally posted by meyer
7) What are the 4 major urban centers of Canada?
Slight nitpick: I'm Canadian, and I'm not sure how to answer this one. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver...exactly which city do you consider the fourth? Ottawa? Halifax? Calgary?

It's like asking, "What are the three major urban centers of the U.S.A.?" New York, Los Angeles, and...Boston? Philadelphia? San Francisco? Chicago?

[Neurotik]

Compare how many times Bush has been in the news compared to Chretien. How many times Washington, DC is in the news compared to Ottawa. How many times NYC, LA, Chicago or whatever is in the news or in the media in general compared with Toronto, Montreal, etc. Keep going.

Just because Canadians might know a bit about the US doesn't mean they came across that info by actively studying or becaue they actually care. It just means they have been exposed to it over and over again that they can't help BUT know about it.

Here's a quiz for you meyer

1) Who is the president of Mexico?
2) What are the major political parties of Mexcio?
3) How many states are there in Mexico? Territories? Now name them.
4) Who is on the peso? Doesn't matter the denomination, just name someone on any of the bills and which one he/she is on.
5) Who was the first president of Mexico?
6) What is the capital of Mexcio?
7) What are the 4 major urban centers of Mexico?

Mexico and Canada are on the same continent, so Canadians should be able to answer those.

Not so easy knowing a lot about another country when it isn't in the news 24/7.

[KellyM]

Originally posted by meyer
[QUOTE]
The Canadians and Americans share a continent, and no American I've ever come across could answer these questions:

1) Who is the Prime-Minister of Canada?
2) What are the major political parties of Canada?
3) How many provices are there in Canada? Territories? Now name them.
4) Who is on the $5 bill?
5) Who was the first Prime-Minister of Canada?
6) What is the capitol of Canada?
7) What are the 4 major urban centers of Canada?

All this proves is that Canada is less important than the United States. This should come as no surprise. And I don't see why Americans--or in fact anyone not involved in Canadian currency transactions--would care who is on the Canadian $5 bill. There's not much demand for Canadian currency in the United States, but (from what I've heard), there is quite a demand for American currency in Canada. Is that our fault? I think not.

Sorry, but our dick is bigger. You'll just have to cope with that.

[Odesio]

Originally posted by meyer


I spent a great deal of my childhood in the Canadian prairies, in Saskatoon, which most Americans have never heard of, despite its population of nearly a quarter million people. One would be hard pressed to find an American city of that size that people the world over had not heard of.


250,000 is a lot of people? Ever heard of Plano, Texas? Historically it is of little importance but it is a suburb of Dallas. Most people I've run into haven't heard of it and don't know that JC Penny, Frito-Lay, and a few other companies have their corporate HQ located in Plano. Plano's population as of 200 is about 222,000 people. I don't think anyone in Plano gives a second thought to people never having heard of them.



At a party I even heard that another person was "morally opposed to life in Saskatchewan". Had she ever been there? - No.


I've heard people bitching about humans living in Arizona. Takes all kinds I guess.



I think the offensive idea is that, having decided a place is small and the actions of its people are immaterial, it is okay to ignore that place or even mock it. I am not demannding that every American (or Canadian) rush out to the library and read up on every country in the world, but a passing knowledge and a tolerance or even interest in local custom would be nice.


Well I hate to say it buy why the heck should I care about Saskatoon? Most Americans know all they need to know about Canada. They border us to the north and every once in a while we find some of their change with ours. Livign in the southern area of the United States I can honestly say I hardly ever gave Canada more then two thoughts. I know more about England, Germany, China, and the former USSR then I do about Canada.



The Canadians and Americans share a continent, and no American I've ever come across could answer these questions:


We're hardly equal partners. And I don't say that meaning "Nanny nanny boo boo we're better then you." We have a population of over 230,000,000, we have more money then you, and we're better at projecting ourselves around the globe.


But I think almost all Canadain could answer the same questions about America. Yet Americans still have this attitude that we just don't matter.


Well let's face it, you don't matter as much as we do.


If they were just upfront about their ignorance I think it would be different. So I guess it's the arrogance factor that really gets me.

Why do you care so much about what Americans think? As I said earlier I'm hardly an expert on Canada. But everything I know about it points to it being a great place to live.

Marc

[super_head]

Hey, I'm American and I've heard of Saskatoon! I've been there too! Heck, I even got involved with a Canadian (which resulted in much heartbreak, and thus spawned my undying hatred of all things Canuck - just kidding).

As for Americans being ignorant - I have a story (which I believe I've shared in the past in one or another threads). My wife is British and, during the four years in which we lived in Alabama, she was asked four times by (apparently) educated people, "Where did you learn to speak English?"

They weren't joking. They were deadly serious. How do we know? Because they didn't understand why we were laughing when they asked the question - suddenly she and I shared that look that said "Oh, they're serious!" I shouldn't call it ignorance, because I'm pretty sure that even when I went to school in Alabama, we covered England pretty well in world history. So perhaps it's just raw stupidity.

As an aside, a guy in one shop asked her if her accent was German. Yeah, that's something to say to a Brit. :)

[KellyM]

Originally posted by meyer
[QUOTE]
I spent a great deal of my childhood in the Canadian prairies, in Saskatoon, which most Americans have never heard of, despite its population of nearly a quarter million people. One would be hard pressed to find an American city of that size that people the world over had not heard of.

There are 64 cities in the United States with a population of 250,000 people or more (according to the 1992 US Census population estimate). Can you name any interesting facts about Santa Ana, California (population 288,024) or Mesa, Arizona (population 296,645)? Which is larger, Kansas City, Kansas, or Kansas City, Missouri?

Odd fact: 9.5% of American households with an income under $12,500 per year own a horse.

[mhendo]

KellyM wrote:

Sorry, but our dick is bigger. You'll just have to cope with that. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes:
This thread started out with some interesting observations and some genuine attempts to discuss the issue sensibly. It's this sort juvenile defensiveness that contributes to the (generally unjustified) image of Americans as ignorant.

MGibson wrote:
Well I hate to say it buy why the heck should I care about Saskatoon? Most Americans know all they need to know about Canada. They border us to the north and every once in a while we find some of their change with ours. Livign in the southern area of the United States I can honestly say I hardly ever gave Canada more then two thoughts. I know more about England, Germany, China, and the former USSR then I do about Canada.It seems to me that if you think that this is all that Americans need to know about Canada, then you're not making a very good argument for American erudition. Never heard of NAFTA? Think it has no relevance to the US?

If you think that living in the south means that Canada has little effect on you, think again. Just one example: the US earlier this year imposed a tariff on Candian softwood lumber in response to what it said were unfair Canadian government subsidies to the timber industry north of the border. As this article (http://www.safnet.org/archive/canada901.htm) points out, many US corporations, employees, and homebuyers will be affected by this decision, including lumber companies in Georgia and other parts of the south.

I'm not interested in arguing the merits or the legality of these tariffs; i only want to point out that this issue and many others like it indicate the importance, for some Americans at least, of what happens in Canada. And i haven't even mentioned the myriad other economic, political, social and cultural ties between the two countries.

I'm not saying you need to take any particular interest in Saskatoon, or in Canada as a whole for that matter. It's totally up to you what you choose to focus on. But the fact that you don't take a personal interest does not mean that Canada's only relevance to the US is a shared border and some stray quarters in your laundry money.

There has also been a tendency among some on this thread to equate America's global dominance with some sort of innate superiority. I don't think anyone has made this claim outright, but some of the more defensive posts have started to slide into a language of natural superiority. I conceded in my earlier post:...it's natural that, on the whole, people in other countries will know more about the US than Americans know about those countries. Like it or not, the US is the biggest player on the global stage in many different categories.

As an Australian living in the US, it has been my experience that Australians generally know more about the US than vice versa. And this is, as i said above, perfectly understandable.But we shouldn't extend this global importance and visibility to an argument that implies that America and its people are more important in some absolute sense than the other peoples of the world. Economic and political power notwithstanding, the United States still has somewhere around 6 percent of the world's population, which leaves plenty of other people. Just because some of these people inhabit small and/or relatively powerless nations doesn't make them less important as people. Historians have fought over the past quarter-century or so to dispel the notion that history is only what is done by rich and powerful people. I think we would do well to remember this.

[Asylum]

Originally posted by meyer
[QUOTE]
I think the offensive idea is that, having decided a place is small and the actions of its people are immaterial, it is okay to ignore that place or even mock it. I am not demannding that every American (or Canadian) rush out to the library and read up on every country in the world, but a passing knowledge and a tolerance or even interest in local custom would be nice.


Actually if you look back at my OP I did make a comment that Americans know less about other countries than we should. But, as was pointed out (by several people, in a blunt kind of way) it seems that you know more about the U.S. because our country can have such a huge impact upon yours, but the opposite is not quite so true. For what it's worth however, I do think that Americans should know more about Canada and Mexico specifically. You're our neighbors for crying out loud.

plus when we get another expansionist itch and decide to conquer you guys it'd probably be a good idea to know your customs in advance ;)

[KellyM]

Originally posted by KellyM
There are 64 cities in the United States with a population of 250,000 people or more (according to the 1992 US Census population estimate).
I finally found the 2000 census figures for this. As of 2000, there are 68 cities with a population of 250,000 or more. There are nine with more than one million.

In comparison, there are 16 metropolitan areas in Canada with 250,000 or more (not including Saskatoon, which comes in just under 250,000), and only 4 with more than one million (Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, and Ottawa).

Note also that the American statistics are for incorporated areas, not for metropolitan areas. If we look at metropolitan areas, we find 147 with more than 250,000, 50 with more than 1 million, and ten larger than Toronto (Canada's largest). There are 156 metro areas the size of Saskatoon in the United States, including such well-known places as Utica, New York; Macon, Georgia; Fort Pierce, Florida; and Columbus, Georgia. What can you, o wise and enlightened Canadian, tell me about Utica, Macon, Fort Pierce, or Columbus?

I challenge your assertion that anybody could name something interesting about any randomly chosen US metro area in excess of 250,000 people. Even most Americans have probably never heard of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico (253,347, rank 142).

Sources: United States 2000 Census: Incorporated Places by Population (http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t5/tab02.txt), United States 2000 Census: Metropolitan Areas by Population (http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.txt), Canadian 1996 Census: Metropolitan Areas by Population (http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/People/Population/demo05.htm)

[mhendo]

Originally posted by KellyM:

I finally found the 2000 census figures for this. As of 2000, there are 68 cities with a population of 250,000 or more. There are nine with more than one million.

In comparison, there are 16 metropolitan areas in Canada with 250,000 or more (not including Saskatoon, which comes in just under 250,000), and only 4 with more than one million (Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, and Ottawa).You'll have to excuse me while i stifle a yawn. I realize that a couple of the Canadians on this thread might have brought this mind-numbing detail upon themselves by insisting that Americans know something about Saskatoon or Kamloops or Schefferville or wherever. But this whole "i know more about your small cities than you know about mine" routine doesn't exactly get us very far.

I didn't know, until i just looked it up on the Indian census (http://www.censusindia.net/) website, that India has 27 cities over 1 million, including six between 2 and 3 million, two between 3 and 4 million, three between 4 and 5 million, and two over 9 million. And all this in a country whose population is only 27.78% urban.

But so what? Not knowing this information offhand doesn't make me ignorant. I could still tell you something about Mahatma Ghandi's pacifism, the post-WWII independence of Pakistan, the current battle over Kashmir, and the state of the Indian national cricket team. But knowing this stuff doesn't make me especially smart either - i just happen to be interested in it.

If we start trying to determine the level of someone's knowledge by asking how much they know about cities with a population of a quarter-million people or more, we will likely be contributing to ignorance rather than combatting it. There are very few people in any country who couldn't benfit from knowing more about what's going on in the world.

I'd add one last suggestion. Many Americans have, like me, pointed out the relative importance of the US in world affairs. Well, given that this is the case, and that the US defines itself as a democracy of, by and for the people, maybe it is more incumbent on Americans to know what's going on elsewhere so they can make informed decisions when selecting the leaders who will have such an impact on the world stage?

[Neurotik]

Mayhaps, but I'd rather have a president who understood my interests than the interests of someone from another country. Now granted, it's important to know other people's cultures (and fun, too) but that's why the president has advisors.

On the other hand, if the pres doesn't understand what the people in the US want then its going to be awfully hard to set a proper agenda/goals.

[Odesio]

Originally posted by mhendo

It seems to me that if you think that this is all that Americans need to know about Canada, then you're not making a very good argument for American erudition. Never heard of NAFTA? Think it has no relevance to the US?


As if I need to be an expert on either Canada or Mexico to decide whether NAFTA is good or not.



If you think that living in the south means that Canada has little effect on you, think again.


I know it has an affect on me economically. There was at least one large Canadian based company in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area that had many buildings and American employees. That doesn't mean I need to know Canada's largest city, who their prime minister is, or who is on their 5 dollar bill.


I'm not interested in arguing the merits or the legality of these tariffs; i only want to point out that this issue and many others like it indicate the importance, for some Americans at least, of what happens in Canada. And i haven't even mentioned the myriad other economic, political, social and cultural ties between the two countries.


I understand that there are important relationships between the United States and Canada. I'd never argue otherwise. But I will argue that there's a lot of information about Canada that juts isn't important to most Americans. I can make the same arguement for Mexico.



But the fact that you don't take a personal interest does not mean that Canada's only relevance to the US is a shared border and some stray quarters in your laundry money.


Well I was only joking about the stray change thing. I realize that Canada is important and I actually like being on good terms with our northern neighbors.


But we shouldn't extend this global importance and visibility to an argument that implies that America and its people are more important in some absolute sense than the other peoples of the world.


Well to the people of the United States we probably are the most important. We tend to put our concerns above those of other nations.

Marc

[KellyM]

Originally posted by mhendo
You'll have to excuse me while i stifle a yawn. I realize that a couple of the Canadians on this thread might have brought this mind-numbing detail upon themselves by insisting that Americans know something about Saskatoon or Kamloops or Schefferville or wherever. But this whole "i know more about your small cities than you know about mine" routine doesn't exactly get us very far.
No, it doesn't. I think that was the point, sorta.

Yes, I, as an American, are not very cognizant of various statistical trivia about Canada, or in fact most other nations. For that matter, I'm not that familiar with such trivia about the United States, either. But I don't think this is all that American a phenomenon.

I don't have memorized the Canadian provinces or their capitals. But I do know, amongst other things, that the national capital is in Ottawa, Jacques Chretien is the current PM (even if I can't spell his name), the Canadian parliament is bicameral in apperance and unicameral in fact (the Senate being strictly a collection of powerless figureheads), and Canada forbids the importation of gay porn from the United States for no good reason.

As to my earlier flippant "bigger dick" comment: a lot of the time, the "ignorant 'merkins" rants that we often have to put up with from citizens of other nations often come across as a way for those people to regain superiority: "We're not as big or as powerful as those damn Americans, but at least we're smarter! Take that, you cultural imperialist swine." Maybe that's not what it is, but it sure as hell seems like it.

[Asylum]

As I noted above mhendo may have a point about Americans knowing more about foreign countries. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with him, but state your opposing argument rationally.

Also (being the peon who started this thread), I don't want this to turn into a Canadian/American pissing match. I don't think that anyone's done anything bad so far, but I really want info from people of other nations as well (everybody is of course welcome to post though).

Also mhendo you state that most of the people you know, know more about the U.S. than Americans know about Canada. I'm sorry but that's anecdotal, so I'm gonna have to ask for a cite, otherwise that argument doesn't hold much weight. You might know more about us than vice-versa, but that doesn't generalize to the majority of Americans or Canadians.

You may have something with your argument about Americans needing to be aware of the ramifications of U.S. policy. I have to ask if most Canadians (or any nationals anywhere) are aware of the consequences of all of their government's actions upon foreign countries. I think that people should be aware, but often are not because it doesn't directly affect them.

Maybe I shoulda made the Post Subject Americans are ignorant, but who ain't?

[mhendo]

Asylum wrote:

Also mhendo you state that most of the people you know, know more about the U.S. than Americans know about Canada. I'm sorry but that's anecdotal, so I'm gonna have to ask for a cite, otherwise that argument doesn't hold much weight. You might know more about us than vice-versa, but that doesn't generalize to the majority of Americans or Canadians.

You may have something with your argument about Americans needing to be aware of the ramifications of U.S. policy. I have to ask if most Canadians (or any nationals anywhere) are aware of the consequences of all of their government's actions upon foreign countries. I think that people should be aware, but often are not because it doesn't directly affect them.Well, with regard to the first paragraph, i actually referred to Australia, not Canada. And what i said was: "it has been my experience that Australians generally know more about the US than vice versa". Why does that need a citation? The words "my experience" make it clear that i was only presenting this as anecdotal evidence, not as a wholly applicable truth.

Unless someone has done a comparative poll with similar questions about each country, given to a similar sample group in each country, you're probably not going to get any definitive answers here. Looking back over the thread, it seems to me that, regarding the relative ignorance or otherwise of Americans, anecdotal evidence is about all that has been offered by anyone (except regarding the populations of various cities :) )

On the second paragraph, you are certainly correct that people in other countries are probably not well-informed enough about their respective countries' activities on the international scene. But it has been my argument all along that everyone could do with knowing more, as when i said "There are very few people in any country who couldn't benfit from knowing more about what's going on in the world."

It strikes me that if this thread is looking to investigate whther or not Americans are particularly ignorant, the answer always has to be "no", because it is so hard to arrive at any real conclusions about a country so large and diverse. About the only real evidence i have attempted to offer was in my first post, where i cited the book by Wallis and Baran that showed less attention to international news by the American media compared to its European counterparts. But i followed this citaton with the caveat:Now, this does not mean that Americans are ignorant. The rise of the internet, and wider distribution of global news channels like BBC World Service via the cable TV system, means that many Americans are as well informed as any people in the world. Many of my American friends have a staggering breadth and depth of knowledge about global issues. But if you get nearly all your news from the network news programs, as many Americans still do, then it is likely that you will be less well-informed on international news issues than your counterparts in many other Western democratic countries.Note the "if" at the beginning of the last sentence. Again, from a personal perspective, the best-informed Americans i know are those that go beyond ABC/CBS/NBC and get their news from a wider variety of American and international sources. I'd be willing to bet that the situation is similar in Canada, Australia, etc. etc.

[jshore]

[Forgive me if I am restating something that has been said before in this thread, but I was admittedly a bit to lazy to wade through all of it just to check...]

I think one of the things that I (as an American/Canadian dual citizen, but who has mainly lived in the U.S.) find annoying about the American mentality is a tendency to say that "America is the best country on earth" which in practice often means:
(1) I know nothing about other countries but I am going to make this claim anyway.
(2) I am unwilling to look at the way in which other countries do things, even in areas in which there are clearly deficiencies in my own country.

This, IMHO, is not a healthy attitude and it is one that seems to me to be less prevalent (although by no means absent) in other [mainly Western] countries that I have visited or interacted with citizens of.

[Asylum]

Originally posted by mhendo
[quote]
(W)hat i said was: "it has been my experience that Australians generally know more about the US than vice versa". Why does that need a citation? The words "my experience" make it clear that i was only presenting this as anecdotal evidence, not as a wholly applicable truth.

First off, my bad; you mentioned Canadians in the post and I jumped the gun. However what my point was is those kind of comments are the exact ones that I want to explore. Dropping more of them doesn't further the argument, I don't think.


Unless someone has done a comparative poll with similar questions about each country, given to a similar sample group in each country, you're probably not going to get any definitive answers here. Looking back over the thread, it seems to me that, regarding the relative ignorance or otherwise of Americans, anecdotal evidence is about all that has been offered by anyone (except regarding the populations of various cities :) )

True, there has been tons of anecdotal evidence given on this thread, but I am also looking for other opinons on the matter. But the difference with yours (I thought) was that there had already been links to tests that showed a rough equivilency between Americans knowledge of Canada and vice-versa. Seeing something that contadicted previously given stats made me raise an eyebrow and hence ask for a cite. Furthermore I confused your post with Meyer's post on the first page of the thread. So I've fucked up twice.
bad asylum, bad!

However that's the sort of thing that I'm looking for; either more coherent arguments for or against Americans' ignorance, or some type of stats that can be used to further the debate. Sorry for getting on you.

[Asylum]

Originally posted by jshore
I think one of the things that I (as an American/Canadian dual citizen, but who has mainly lived in the U.S.) find annoying about the American mentality is a tendency to say that "America is the best country on earth" which in practice often means:
(1) I know nothing about other countries but I am going to make this claim anyway.

Well that's one of the counter-arguments. Alot of the same countries do the exact same thing.


(2) I am unwilling to look at the way in which other countries do things, even in areas in which there are clearly deficiencies in my own country.

While there are some Americans who do carry that opinion, there are many more who do not. Look at the current debate in the media to extend our school year to twelve months. That's in response to looking at countries that score higher than the U.S. scholasticly and seeing what they do differently (Japan).

[meyer]

First off, I have to say that I am sorry I started this we-know-more-about-your-small-cities-than-you-know-about-ours thing. What I was actually getting at, which I realize was kind of confusing in my first post, is that even in other parts of Canada people don't know about the prairies. The point is that a lot of people just decide that where they are is the center of the universe and knowledge about other places is completely unnecessary.

So, it doesn't really bother me when people ask whether it is -40C year round, or whether we have electricity, but it bothers me when people say things like "Saskatchewan? Why would anyone ever live there?". I have heard this from Canadians, Americans, and Europeans.

I think that Americans just tend to have this arrogant attitude that they are the best country in the world. I know they have a high population, and economy, but there are reasonds that many of us choose to live elsewhere, and thats okay. Its okay to love the USA as your homeland, but allow us to love Canada as ours, and maybe learn something aobut us as neighbours.

Thats what I was trying to say in my first post, and upon rereading it I realize that I obscured that with the 7 questions about Canada bit. Sorry.

[Googler]

The foreigners I have met (almost everyone) have this view that people in US are ignorant than in other countries. There *must* be some truth in it to generate such a widespread feeling.It seems a couple of Americans asked one of my Indian(the Asian country :)) friends whether Indonesia is a different country or the same as India. Whatever you say,this is a little too much. :)
Actually, US is the target for such complaints mainly because it is a country of inhabitants from all over the world and one place in the world where you can find people from all continents relatively easily.And may be one reason why Americans are expected to be more knowledgeable regarding other countries.
on a side note
There is only one National newspaper in the US(USA Today: and it is rated well below other newspapers in a recent research i came to know in my university ).thats quite surprising, no? does that mean that Americans are more localized in reading news even within the country.?

[KellyM]

Originally posted by Googler
The foreigners I have met (almost everyone) have this view that people in US are ignorant than in other countries. There *must* be some truth in it to generate such a widespread feeling.
Uh, no. This is argumentatum majorum, a well known logical fallacy.

There is only one National newspaper in the US(USA Today: and it is rated well below other newspapers in a recent research i came to know in my university ).thats quite surprising, no? does that mean that Americans are more localized in reading news even within the country.?
No, it means that certain prominent "local" newspapers are broadly read throughout the country. E.g. the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal (which is really a "national" despite its name), and the Christian Science Monitor (also a "national"). USA Today (also known as McPaper) is garbage fit only to line birdcages (it's not suitable for wrapping fish because of the colored inks, which are toxic.)

[pennylane]

I'm sorry I only have anecdotal evidence to add, but this is a subject in which I've been interested for several years. When I moved to France from Pakistan, I was asked the following questions:
- Is it hard being a woman there?
- What is life like under martial law?
- What do you think about Benazir Bhutto?

When I moved to America, I got the following:
- Do you have electricity there?
- Do you have television there?
- Do you know what Coke is?
- How come you speak English?
- I have a friend from Pakistan, his name is X, do you know him?
- I know Pakistan is a pretty big city, but what country is it in again? (This from a Yale graduate.)

I've found that Americans, on average, seem to be less-informed about the world in general than people in other countries. I don't know why this is, although I have noticed that the media in America seems to focus less on the outside world than it does in other countries. (I suppose this could be because America is so much larger and there is so much more going on in America, as some of you have pointed out.)

However, I don't think that Americans are arrogant. Every American who asked me one of the "ignorant" questions I listed above was extremely eager to learn about other parts of the world. Of course there are Americans who go about saying that America is the greatest country on earth, but in my experience almost everyone thinks that whichever country they happen to have been born in is the greatest country on earth. (In fact, the only people I have ever met who don't think that are Americans.) The only reason patriotism looks bad in an American and not in a Frenchman is the fear that America truly is the greatest country on earth, that American culture is spreading at an alarming rate, that even people in Muslim fundamentalist countries want to watch American movies and eat American fast food.

Americans are also criticised for their lack of international travel, even though many of them have visited areas within America which are much more varied and diverse than the average European will see in a trip around Europe. A European could see London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels all in one weekend. An American has to get across the Atlantic Ocean first.

The argument that "non-Americans know so much about America, but Americans know so little about them" is obviously flawed, as has been pointed out here. But it, too, works to strengthen the idea of Americans as ignorant, arrogant people.

In my opinion the "ignorant American" stereotype has some validity, but is exaggerated due to the biased perception of America in the eyes of the rest of the world.

[VeraGemini]

meyer:

Speaking as a native of the Southern US, married to someone from Saskatchewan, who has spent time in Sask. visiting the inlaws and talking to people, it seems a lot of people there have the same perception you do: That the rest of the world neither knows nor cares about your province. While I'm not knowledgable enough to say that attitude isn't at least partially justified, and I can sympathize, living in a state that has a relatively small population, it's not as bad as you (and the rest of the province) seems to think. I'd say most Americans have heard of Saskatchewan, (even if they can't spell it :D)have a general idea of where it is located, and have probably heard the names Saskatoon, Regina, and maybe Moosejaw. Speaking for myself, I know I had. Before my first visit up there, I expected that things wouldn't be too different from "here", except that it would be a little colder. And I was right. Well, other than that putting gravy on the french fries thing. That's a little weird :D

[occ]

Originally posted by super_head

As for Americans being ignorant - I have a story (which I believe I've shared in the past in one or another threads). My wife is British and, during the four years in which we lived in Alabama, she was asked four times by (apparently) educated people, "Where did you learn to speak English?"


Aside: Did they know she was from England, or did they merely ask because she had an accent? The reason I ask is, think about how Europeans are portrayed in American cinema: they usually have a generic British-ey kinda accent. So its possible that people just came to the assumption that she was "European", and not specifically English.

On the other hand, maybe they were just being dumb.