What are you smoking?
I guess this is ridiculous American propaganda…
Non-US dopers - it’s not true, though. Don’t waste your time and money getting here illegally just to have to go back home for housing, food, and cell phone. You probably have health insurance better where you are, too.
I don’t think a useful discussion arises from an anti-USA thread which this is in danger of becoming. The United States contributes generously and massively to United Nations programs dedicated to treating sickness and disease in third world countries. Without them, the UN would be a pale and ineffectual talk fest.
If I can point to the one thing which I admire about the United States it is the selfless giving to nations in need. Cynics immediately say “but they do it for oil/minerals/trade” etc. Nonsense.
The marines who died in the Beirut bombing, who died in Kenya, who died in Mogadishu - boys from Kansas, Illinois, Oregon…they weren’t protecting American business or even the projection of power. They died trying to help foreigners because that is what their country asked of them.
Respect.
Don’t quite a lot of countries give selflessly in that way? The US is not unique at all in that regard, and acting as if it is is exactly the kind of propogandising that this thread was about, even though (I think) you’re not American.
And given the subject title this thread has been remarkably free of America-bashing. It’s possible to criticise one aspect of a country without bashing the whole place.
I don’t think pointing out false marketing is anti-American, unless our propaganda is so effective that any criticism is considered unpatriotic.
Case in point: Yeah, the US gives a hell of a lot. Because we’re so rich. Compared to our ability, though, not so much.
In terms of foreign aid by GDP, the US ranks #19, below powerful countries like Luxembourg, Sweden, Iceland, and Portugal. Even if you measure it by giving per per-capita GDP (how much Americans individually contribute), we’re still behind just about every European country. For every dollar we spend helping other countries, we spend 22 times more protecting ourselves from them.
But that’s just development, right? We’re better when it comes to saving people from disease and sickness? Well, in terms of absolute contributions to the World Health Organization, we do rank #1, again because we’re so rich. But if you look at voluntary contributions – the amount countries give above and beyond what is required of them by their UN membership – I just picked a few random countries to look at – the UK gives slightly more than us per GDP. Canada, slightly less. Belgium gives 1.4x the amount we do per capita, and Pakistan? Nearly 8x more.
Perhaps a case can be made that American individuals give more (compared to the US government), but I haven’t seen the data so I don’t know.
It’s not exactly much more powerful WITH us in it. We tend to upsell their resolutions when they align with our goals and we can use them to condemn some other country, and then ignore the same body when those resolutions criticize our actions. Another thread.
Please explain.
This myth exists in every English-speaking country with lots of immigrants. Every one; I’ve heard it from Canadians, Australians, and Britons. It’s not at all an America-only thing.
The Americanism that has risen up to really bite us in the ass is the idea of the rugged individualist, going it alone, never compromising,ready to fight for ideas that are not fully thought out. Commercials for automobiles, lately, are really pounding on the idea that compromise is evil. Compromise is how this country was founded. Working together to find functional compromises is how democracy works! This image of the infallible Marlboro man is not doing this country or , for that matter, the world any favors.
Absolutely but please understand that threads on SD criticising America often dissolve into abuse rather than informed debate.
I was startled myself when on a Sudanese ferry years ago to be challenged by students about New Zealand’s support of the 1980 Soviet Olympic Games. Something I disagreed with but was still proud of my country. And this was in the most remote and poor place on Earth at the time. Very weird.
Oh well, just trying to balance the energy.
So…getting back to the OP who was asking (if I understand him correctly) what American life inculcates which the larger world regards as incorrect.
Two thoughts:
American history is so large that there is no room to teach history from throughout the world.
Oh pleeassee.
The Greeks and the Romans and the Phoenicians and the Arabs and the Palestinians and Egyptians and the Persians etc etc make Americans look like pre-schoolers.
American history is interesting in a local two-semester sense but its inconsequential. Other nations don’t study America at all except for Civil Rights which along with apartheid is (to be honest) a little like a view into an alien world. It is hard to believe these systems actually existed.
I’ll agree with all that and add:
- the War on Drugs (a huge waste of money that does nothing to tackle the issue and is really about politicians making empty promises.)
Secondly the USA saved our asses in the big wars.
Utter bollocks. And insultingly so to the thousands of British, French, Gurka, Australian, Canadian, Indian and other Commonwealth men who perished in those wars.
The Great War was from 1914 to 1918 and my nation has memorials to it in places where villages have ceased to exist. It was the War to End all Wars.
The Second World War was from 1939 to 1945 and that is how the world remembers it. To recuse this conflict to '43-'45 is arrogant and absolutely unforgivable. Try explaining that to the Dutch Resistance or the occupants of Auschwitz/Birchenau. Or the Russians.
I would like to add, America officially entered the war on Dec 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I, personally, haven’t heard much in the way that America bailed everyone out of the wars, but I’m sure that sentiment is out there and many fall for it.
So European countries never had racism? And its quite silly to not study American history (or virtually not at all)-it has been significant both for its role in starting the 19th Century era of liberal/nationalistic revolutions (with the American Revolution) and by the virtue of being a Great Power since (probably) 1848, a superpower since 1945, and the sole superpower since 1991.
If you are referring to teaching American history to American students, I agree. I believe that every country ought to teach its history to its students.
But if you are proposing teaching American history to non-American students, then I disagree. As I said, “I believe that every country ought to teach its history to its students.” Remember that in addition to teaching their own history to their students, such countries likely also want to cover the rise of western civilization through the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans; and (for English-speaking countries) such things as the development of the Anglosphere’s common-law legal system (which the US uses), the unions of Germany and Italy, the rise of communism starting in the Soviet Union, and World Wars I and II. If, in doing so, there is no time left to teach American history, then then I think that other countries can safely avoid American history.
I’ll admit that I love American history. I study it on my own, and have for years. However, I never had the chance to take a formal course on American history at my Canadian high school. I could have taken it as an elective in my third or fourth year of my undergrad, but did not. I did write a few legal research papers on American legal history when I went for my law degree. What gave me the basis for those papers was my self-study; had I not self-studied, I would not have been able to do so.
In short, Americans might be surprised to find how little their history is studied outside the United States. They may feel that their history is something the entire world studies; but if my experience is worth anything, that is not the case.
What about the fact that American history is so darn interesting.
Take the “Wild West” era of the 1800’s. There’s nothing else to compare. Canada, right to our north, had none of this. Australia had some.
And other countries’ histories are not as interesting? Canada had the coureurs de bois, the voyageurs, and Alexander Mackenzie. It had the drive the build a transcontinental railroad to keep our territory out of American hands; a company that traded in Canadian dollars or beaver pelts, as you pleased; provinces that joined Confederation at various times and for various reasons, much like American states did; and the backing of the British crown.
“So darn interesting”? Maybe you’d like to study Canadian history to understand how we got from there to be an independent nation, trusted and listened to on the world stage, with a currency that is regarded by the world community as rock-solid.
In the case of Canada, we had the experience of looking south. The prevailing attitude was that we did not want to follow in that path. So, we raised the NWMP (today, the RCMP, or the “Mounties”) and took steps to avoid the “wild west” that our American friends enjoyed (or not, depending on how they dealt with one another). We learned from your mistakes.
It seems to me that many Americans have been brainwashed by propaganda into believing that they live in the one and only “free” nation. There’s a lot of shouting about “freedom” and “liberty” without any further explanation. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? In what way is the USA more free than any other country?
It’s as if they have been taught that every other country in the world is a North Korea -style dictatorship.
Haven’t seen that in a long time, but yeah.
I was thinking about this the other day. How long did all of that cowboy bullshit last in the U.S.? 25 years, tops?
Exaggerated and overhyped, a relatively short period with comparatively few people and little lasting impact beyond its own relentless celebration. Most modern nations with a colonial history had something similar, they just never got stuck there mentally: it was seen as a period to progress from, not worship. I think the American propaganda that scares me the most, though, is the fetishisation of the military.