Americans are ignorant?

Great Debates
1

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?

2

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

3

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.

4

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.

5

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

6

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

7

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.

8

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.

9

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.

10

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 .

11

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? :slight_smile: 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! :slight_smile:

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 :slight_smile:

12

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

13

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.

14

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.

15

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.

16

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.

17

You left out Jervis Bay, 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.

18

grins If you’re in Sydney I could do that in January! :wink: 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. :slight_smile:

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 :slight_smile:

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! :slight_smile:

19

… 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 :slight_smile:

20

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.