I’m Canadian and I don’t think that Canada is “the best country in the world”, though I do believe that Canada is one of the best. I also believe that I’m bloody fortunate to be a Canadian. I am also fully capable of looking objectively at the facts about my country and others.
What I completely fail to get, however, are the stereotypical Americans (that is, US citizens) get the idea that they are, bar none, the best country in the world and that everybody else strives to be either American or just like Americans. Well, I sure as hell don’t aspire to that, though there are things that I did admire about the US and its technological and military capabilities.
Does anyone teach Americans that the US health care system is possibly the most dysfunctional in the western world, that the rest of the western world doesn’t have the gun crime issues that the US has, or are the factual things just completely disregarded?
I don’t know when it starts, but by the time we get in kindergarten, the indoctrination is well underway. That’s when we stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.
I’ve often said that Americans are every bit as indoctrinated as the citizens of the Soviet Union were. We are taught at an early age that we are great and any criticism is jealousy. We are taught that we won WWII and everyone wants to be us. Look at Hollywood, freighters are either childlike and yearn to be American like Sam Neil’s character in the Hunt for Red October, or sinister like every Arab in every movie ever made.
We live in Ohio and vacation in Canada every year, simply because we love the scenery and lakes and stuff. Mainly in the La Cloche area of Ontario. We just got back from a one week vacation in Whitefish Falls. On the way up we spent the night in Toronto, and last night (on the way down) we spend the night in London.
Having said that, there are definite differences, mostly subtle. Things in Canada are not as well… refined vs. the U.S. Everything is a bit rougher around the edges in Canada, so-to-speak. But is Canada better, or vice-versa? That’s a matter of opinion. Personally, I’d rather live in the U.S., because I believe the U.S. offers the best opportunities for people who want to better themselves, and has a higher standard of living for those w/ college degrees.
To answer the OP: I’m not well traveled, but I do think the U.S. is the best country to live in, for me. I like my guns, and I like my freedom, and I can’t think of another country better suited for my needs.
American schools focus almost exclusively on American history and it is a very selective history at that, things like slavery, Jim Crow and the treatment of native Americans are largely glossed over and presented as resolved issues. It’s not a culture that encourages introspection. I think part of the reason Trump was able to rise so quickly is because the disconnect between the propaganda and reality has become so stark people are embracing fascism to reclaim an imagined past.
ETA we are also a country that equates materialism with happiness and poverty with moral failings.
Well, the first part is nonsense. US industry arguably won WW2. But no, many happy successful nations and their citizens are happy where they are. Just that if you live in a not so happy nation, which isnt very successful, like say Mexico- they want to come here, and who can blame them?
But the French- for example- think similar. Many “First World” nations are happy and think their nation is just peachy keen- just like the US does.
And you are fortunate- but so are people in the UK, France, Germany, etc. Not so much -for example- Ethiopia-and many other nations
I dont know many who are that chauvinistic. Yes, the US (unlike Canada- which is a very nice place to live) is a Great World Power- in fact maybe the only top world power in the Free World. But we have our issues too, and the happiest nations are mostly in Scandinavia. Heck the USA ranks down around the 20th or so.
So, other than the MAGAs (and note the last A stands for “Again”), every American I know admits that sure the US is a great nation, but not even close to being perfect.
Overall, counting all nations, for homicide rate, the US comes in at 145 out of 205. Not very good, we are in there with Bermuda, Greenland, and most of the Americas- the big exception is Canada of coursed, at 86. Still that means there are 85 nations with lower Murder rates, like Australia.
Kinda outdated and getting more so- in Canada many schools play “O Canada” and the students are expected to at least stand.
Outdated- world history is taught. British schools- for example, lean heavily on their own history, just like the US does.
To be fair, for about 100 years it seemed like the rest of the world was telling us we were the best country in the world. It was usually the first choice of anybody who left their own country for a better life. The aftermath of WWII made it almost undeniable. It’s just become rote dogma for most Americans even though we are exceeded by other countries in nearly all categories except military and finance.
55 years ago, when I was in high school, World Civ was a required subject in 9th grade. IIRC, it was supposed to be world history (mainly Europe and the Middle East) through the 19th century; my class made it as far as Napoleon.
True, but we dont do badly in- for instance- happiness. I mean there are some 200 nations or so and we get in there somewhere around #20. Incidentally Canada and the UK are ranked slightly lower than the US
The US and other countries like Canada are places where someone can emigrate, move and live wherever they want, hopefully find a community of similar folks for support, and a decent job to provide for their family. Many small shops are run by people who were not born here. We called this the American Dream and hopefully it still exists.
It seems like Europe with their smaller countries are wrapped up by their past. I doubt I would be successful moving to Greece and opening Mixdenny’s Octopus & Chips shop.
Me as well, and for a time it was actually true. In WW2 our parents generation beat the world and rebuilt it. The society they had of course had flaws, but as a whole it was one of the greatest generations the planet ever saw.
We have since lost that greatest and fail to admit to ourselves, which is hurting a lot of people.
Some years ago I interviewed a company’s Taiwanese researcher when he gained American citizenship. He went into great detail about how elitist Taiwanese society was and where family connections often dictated what opportunities you had. Meanwhile, in America he got to enjoy the benefits of a university education (he had a Ph.D), and his heavily accented English was accepted here, and he loved the opportunity to have a great job and own a nice home.
In all it was pretty much the same points my grandfather, who immigrated here in 1908, liked to tell anyone who’d listen.
For me, it’s not that America is not the best, it’s that the whole notion of a best country is silly to begin with. There are many different ways you could measure a country and it’s highly subjective which are most important.
It’s akin to asking who is the best person.
The answer is me, obviously.
And tbh the america #1 thing is ironically the cause of many problems now. Because most countries, if they lag in some way, they acknowledge it and try to copy from countries doing that thing better. The US rarely acknowledges such things.
And it’s an implicit reason for not adopting things like UHC. If the #1 country has a private insurance model, well, that must be the best model then.
I don’t recall being formally taught in school that the US is the best country, but it was hard to miss all the mentions of this superlative or that superlative (industrial capacity, winning WW2) that one could easily get the impression that the US was best at everything. And I also got this distinct sense that this was an excuse for some of America’s cock-ups like slavery or Vietnam. Sure we muffed those, but look how amazing we are in every other sense.
It’s also a way to explain why we’re the biggest, most dominant, etc. It must be because we’re the best, because if we suck and we control everything, that raises uncomfortable questions about how that situation came to be. Better just to say that we’re biggest and dominant because we deserve it.
Moreover in civics class, I recall that it seemed impossible to separate the explanation of why things worked as they did from why this was the best solution and hence the only solution. You could come away with the impression that no other country had a democracy or a constitution or founding fathers. There’s a quasi-religious character to it, and this was frequently echoed in the press. As far as scrupulousness about bias goes, back then nobody batted an eye about openly stating that the US was the best, blessed by God as it were.
So there was definitely this ongoing drone of “America is the best” background noise, and not infrequently in the foreground. I think this was also amplified by the Cold War, because back then there was this omnipresent knowledge that we were in an intense rivalry, which created an imperative to understand why we were fighting it at all, which is because our way of life was better than the Soviet way of life, and the concept of “better” got confused with “best and flawless”.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from.
By first grade I was happy I was in Hall 3 because we had no demerits for noisy traveling.
In highschool I was proud of what school I was from for all sporting events and contests.
I see no reason not to be proud about where I’m from. I’m an Arkansan and an American southerner.
Does not mean I don’t realize what’s wrong with my country. And vote and do what I can to make it better.
I thoroughly believe there is American exceptionalism. And I’m hopeful it will raise its head to get us through this trying episode. Some where, some how.
Not just silly, but actually childish. It’s akin to claiming my dad can beat up your dad and my mommy’s the prettiest, it’s just not how adults understand the world.
“Exceeded by other countries in nearly all categories except military and finance” isn’t remotely true. America isn’t the best at everything, but neither is it the worst at everything. It dwarfs many other countries in a number of important categories.
For example in scientific research, at least until the Trump admin started stomping all over it, the US dominated to a comically absurd degree, like 10x more consequential published discoveries than every other country combined (much of it courtesy of immigration and brain-draining, yes, but it counts).
Given that the US has a unique combination of land, resources, population, freedom to innovate, and strategic geography, it would be very surprising if it weren’t absurdly dominant in numerous different categories. That kind of natural advantage isn’t easy to squander entirely, though at the moment we certainly seem to be doing our level best to ruin things.
These three words are powerfully baked into American culture.
There is no other country which describes itself as offering a dream to everyone born there and eveyone who immigrates there.
American history is taught in schools as a dream coming true. A dream of freedom.
The Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower dreaming of freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence while the Minutemen grabbed their muskets, all to create the American dream, of freedom. The constitution and Bill of Rights were written to guarantee the American dream of freedom. The cowboys and settlers of the wild west were living the Amrixan dream ,of freedom. The immigrants came to Ellis Island to live the American dream .
The national.myth is all about The American Dream.
It starts in school, it gets reinforced by Hollywood.movies.
It ain’t exaclty true…but myths arent about truth. They’re about dreams.