Very good answer. I agree with the impression that things have dumbed down considerably. (Then again, haven’t people been saying that for centuries? Things were always better yesteryear…) I think part of the problem is that we can’t deal with failure – so instead of flunking people who can’t cut it, we dumb down the material, and pour tons of resources into bringing the least of us up to average. I didn’t have to work too hard in college, but I always got good grades – not because I’m brilliant (I’m not), but because, frankly, it wasn’t all that hard. Lots of other people I know had similar experiences.
Would Americans please, please , stop saying this?! It is incredibly obnoxious to go around claiming that our nation is the greatest in the world. More than obnoxious, it’s downright meaningless. Greatness is something that is so subjective that no actual meaning is transmitted. We might have the greatest GDP in the world, but we certainly lack in terms of social governance.
In response to the OP, no most Americans are not stupid. While it certainly may seem like that from time to time, as is the case with the election of our fabulous president, I think that our population is at least as well informed as the populations of most other nations.
Isn’t Iceland the oldest continuous democracy in the world?
In my experience Americans are no more or less stupid than any other people. And most definately they tend to be much more articulate than most other English speaking people (including the English).
Many Brits and Australians I have known are convinced of the stupidity of Americans but they are just making a popular ignorant assumption based on bigotry. Most of these people have never been to the US and have never actually known any Americans. They tend to be just as stupid and ignorant as they assume Americans to be.
Also I think that many American TV shows are stunningly stupid (eg Saved By The Bell) and may give outsiders the impression that Americans are stupid for watching / making such TV shows. But they fail to notice the first rate American TV shows such as Six Feet Under, Band of Brothers, House, or The Twighlight Zone.
Uh huh. We started out as the cast-offs from the “civilized” countries of Europe. It wasn’t pretty, but we hacked out a political system that spread around the world. We’ve even managed to crush a few of our enemies into self-actualized world powers. During the 200+ years that marks our time in history we’ve produced a society of inventors second to none. It wasn’t intellect that drove Henry Ford to perfect mass production, it was the freedom to succeed. 3-axis controlled flight came from a couple of bicycle makers. 44 years later we broke the sound barrier. 22 year later we landed on the moon. The space program produced the micro-chip which evolved into the personal computer which gives people from all over the world the ability to criticize the country that invented the internet.
In short, Globalization don’t mean squat to people who spend endless hours every day exploring their potential.
However, in fairness to the future, I’ll remember to check on my country’s progress when “globalization” manages to produce another nation capable of a multi-vehicle pile-up on Mars. I suspect we’ll be there to investigate the accident.
I think Americans are not as smart as one might predict we would be, based on our GDP. I think we have entirely too much “candy” in our environment. Why eat veggies when you can feast on junk food? Why tune into Meet the Press when you have six ESPN channels at your disposal? Why patronize a library when Wal-Mart is open 24 hours a day?
Why bother questioning governmental policies when it’s more fun and less mentally taxing to ridicule celebrities’ clothing choices?
Take away some of the distractions, and you’ll see more informed Americans. Good luck doing that, though.
Hey, I am not disputing American ingenuity. What I am saying is that our system of teaching is so inadequate that we are breeding the majority of our populace into the underclass. That doesn’t mean that the Henry Ford’s of the nation won’t still crop up, nor does it mean that every American will be a member of that underclass, but a lot of people will, because we put more importance on the ability to take standardized tests than we do on actually learning skills.
I’d also like to point out that we didn’t do it on our own. We fought a revolution for sovereignty, and as part of the peace settlement we agreed to protect certain foreign property interests, thus the rise of the American corporate state, which is both our greatest asset and greatest weakness. We didn’t stick it to the European aristocracy as a lot of people like to believe, because who do you think those rich foreign investors were?
And let’s not forget that we basically inherited the British Empire after World War II. We’re a part of the Anglosphere, which has been a strong co-prosperity relationship between all the Anglo former colonies of the British Empire.
If that is so, then they haven’t gotten very far in their exploration.
That shows a profound ignorance of globalization. It’s not about countries putting rovers on Mars, it’s about corporations. There are two commercial spaceports being built in this country, one in Texas and one in New Mexico. They are going to be competing with space stations in China, Russia and Europe etc… The essence of globalization is that the location of those space stations isn’t all that relevant because the investors in large scale operations like that are from all over the world. You’d have to look into who the major investors are, and also find out what funds are owned by whom. I’d imagine you’d find that they are from everywhere. The spaceships will be using a combination of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Mitsubishi and Virgin parts. Those parts will be designed by engineers from everywhere.
Globalization means the obsolescence of the nation state. It doesn’t “Produce” nations. In some ways it’s going to be like America everywhere, but those people who are dependent upon the current American educational system will be handicapped except for those few bright kids that recognize that it’s BS.
There will be one easy determiner of global awareness in the coming economy. Those that know what the term “Forex” means, and those that don’t. Which will only matter for the next couple generations as the idea of “foreign” will lose a lot of it’s meaning.
Erek
Monstro: I don’t think that’s it. Europeans may pay a lot more attention to governmental issues, but Europeans expect more from their government than we do. I’m speaking of averages, of course. But there are a lot more “rugged individualists” here, and they just want the government to leave them alone-- which ours does a lot more than European governments do. So, as long as the government doesn’t f*ck things up too much, a lot of people just don’t care.
As bad as things are in Iraq right now, there is no comparison to how bad things were in Vietnam, and no comparison to the scale of the casualties either. Yet during the Vietnman War, everone had an opinion and many people took that opinion to the streets. If the Iraq War were to turn into a real Vietnam, I have no doubt there would be lots of consiousness raising going on again.
No, that’s not true. Since I defined how I’m using the word “stupid” fairly clearly in my OP, I’ll assume you haven’t read it.
There is certainly some vagueness to my definition, but it has nothing to do with comparisons, or intelligence relative to another population.
This goes for everyone. How does comparing the US to other countries answer the question of whether the American people are well-informed/intelligent enough to make reasoned political decisions? It seems to me that either they are, or they are not, depending on what level of information/intelligence you think is required to make a reasoned political decision.
Yeah, I used stupid because I thought it was the best word for the definition I wanted–ignorant doesn’t quite capture the intelligence aspect.
Americans aren’t stupid by any means.
But they do come off as quite childlike, in kind of an endearing but sometimes annoying way. Like the clueless girlfriend who is so cute when she asks you how to wash dishes, but ten years later drives you up the wall.
America is a unique place. We live a life that is reproduced in only a few select nations. We don’t live in the same world, the same mindspace, that the rest of the world lives in. 1/3 of the world is either India or China. Another good chunk of it is South America, Africa, assorted Asian countries and Eastern Europe. The world is poor. The world is happy to see a paved road. The world buys it’s food from open-air markets. The world owns two or three “big ticket” items, like a television or refrigerator. The world fully expects a taxi driver to pick up additional passangers along the way.
We eat food out of little boxes with complicated wrappers. We produce whole trashcans full of waste on a daily basis. We drive everywhere. We live in bizarre “communities” where every house looks the same. We take a lot of pills. We have hundreds of TV channels. We practice a dying form of a dying religion with great fervor. We buy our stuff from bizarre flourescent lit places that are open twenty-four hours and are surrounded by a sea of parking lots.
In short, we live in a bubble. When we eat a meal, we know the restraunt has packed numerous health inspections, and the raw ingredients was also inspected, adn the farmers are regulated. It’s hard to get yourself killed in America. It’s hard to see something that somebody didn’t plan for you to see. The arrangment of our houses, the layout of our stores, all of this is merticulously planned. It’s like living with a bubble around you. A huge buffer zone. A dreamworld.
And a lot of people, coming from different places, don’t “get” it. We appear to be concerned about extremely unconcerning things. We appear very disconnected from reality. Even basic things like the soil of the earth are strange to us. We spend our time fretting about food that comes from boxes and having strange obsessions with seemingly entirely artificial things. And it is wierd. There are only four or five regions on earth where most people live like this. It’s confusing and offputting.
And it naturally leads people to think they know a little more about life than we do. I don’t think they are right- we know what we need to know for our lives- but all the talk of Henry Ford in the world won’t change the fact that I just drank a glass of wine- one of the oldest and naturalest products in the world- from a sterile plastic bag encased in a splashily printed box that I bought in a giant store that had eighteen different kinds of boxes to choose from.
I guess I see a difference between having an opinion and being informed. I think Americans aren’t starving for opinions–if we lack our own we can borrow the views that are foisted upon us by the media. But we do, as a group, lack informed opinions.
I think the reason there isn’t a lot of “consciousness raising” now is because a lot of us are simply not informed. We don’t know what’s going on in Iraq beyond the headlines we see on the yahoo homepage. We may feel that the war is bad or good, but we can’t construct a good argument for why we feel this way.
I’m telling you, if it weren’t for the SDMB, I would fall into this camp.
I don’t know how we compare to Europeans or others, or how we compare to our counterparts in other timeperiods. I actually don’t care. But I do feel that we are dumbing ourselves down with all of our luxurious trappings. If you have an Ipod plugged into your car radio, when do you have a chance to listen to NPR? If you have a 1000 channels on your satellite TV, are you going to be content with watching the CBS Evening News? I see the wretched scenes around the world on CNN, but all it takes is a click of the remote and I can emerse myself in cartoons. All day long. Our parents did not have this luxury. It was harder for them to escape current events.
I don’t know what it is, John Mace. But it certainly seems to me that we are much more apathetic than our predecessors. I don’t even think a “real” Vietnam War would rally us. I just think we’d retreat into our Ipods, video games, and cellphone conversations.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! — and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
-- Allen GinsbergIceland was part of Denmark until the end of WWII.
No, I don’t think most Americans are stupid.
I’ve met a lot of Americans, I read about Americans, I’m friends with some Americans, I read a lot of American newspapers and I’ve read up on your history.
I think Americans are intelligent, decent, friendly and they have a great sense of humor [Hi, Jackmannii! :)]
Yes, there will be stupid Americans. Like there are stupid Europeans. Like there are stupid people everywhere.
Ummm…Where was I?
Thank you!
Those stats can’t be right. Two of the countries’ averages would put their average citizen at mildly mentally retarded. To be accurate all the tests given would have to have been identical - and the blurb below seems to indicate they weren’t - except for the languages they were administered in.
Americans aren’t stupid on a whole, but many are severely lacking in common sense and are very self-centered…both of which lead to making some really poor choices.
Good point.
Yea it sure is obvious which 50% is above average intelligence when ever Im asked if we all live in igloos or not. I was actually asked this several times even after I explained what eastern province was on my license plate of my pick up during a recent trip south. The absolute kindest people I have ever met live in The U.S. God bless all of you and what a great forum site I sure am looking foreward to ribbing a bunch of you. Hey if Stephen Harper wins we will probably end up joining you. That would make us almost brothers lol
Yea it sure is obvious which 50% is above average intelligence when ever Im asked if we all live in igloos or not. I was actually asked this several times even after I explained what eastern province was on my license plate of my pick up during a recent trip south. The absolute kindest people I have ever met live in The U.S. God bless all of you and what a great forum site I sure am looking foreward to ribbing a bunch of you. Hey if Stephen Harper wins we will probably end up joining you. That would make us almost brothers lol
;j
The media obviously wants to perpetuate naivete and guillability in the populace in order to increase consumption. As with every country, there are intelligent individuals who see through the veil and others who want a thicker piece of material with which to blindfold themselves.
Sefronia
mama’s worry was a burden
they had seen her everywhere
and since her little one was now a dead man
they patted his back
and she though
why did she let them?
Sefronia777.com
2/8/06
Let’s evolve together