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Can you clarify more? My experience as an immigrant to America is that Americans tend to foster a culture of ultra competativeness on everything, including acad

Can you clarify more? My experience as an immigrant to America is that Americans tend to foster a culture of ultra competativeness on everything, including academics.

askmike 8y ago
As an (European) outsider who visited the US a number of times: In academic circles you are right, but college and university are so expensive that your experience only applies to the elite (who are called all the bad words from the article by the majority of the country).
aikinai 8y ago
The parent comment is extreme and ends in a baseless insult, so I definitely don't want to defend it wholly, but the gist is true. If you think Americans are competitive about academics, you're probably basing that on a very specific bubble. The "from a young age" mention is especially true; in most American public schools you basically cannot be both cool and get good grades, unless you hide the grades very well and show an appropriate amount of public disrespect for authority.
mnm1 8y ago
In my experience, children are bullied simply for getting good grades or looking "nerdy" even if they don't get good grades. Other children are proud that they get bad grades, proud that they are not learning anything, and they are looked up to by a lot of other kids. They dictate a lot of culture in schools. People who go to college or university are often looked down upon in many parts of the country and many people are proud that they did not attend, as if being stupid is something to be proud of. We have climate change deniers, anti vaccine people, and huge percentages of the population believe the earth is around 10k years old or that the world will end in their lifetimes. High school curricula is beyond simple, almost nothing is learned, yet we still have a huge percentage of the population that doesn't even graduate that. The discourse now even on college campuses has turned from education to political correctness. Students are afraid of even being exposed to different ideas, lest they be offended, as if they have a right not to be offended. Speakers and comedians are often cancelled if they are the least bit controversial. People think their beliefs are equal to facts and they should be treated as such. The media certainly subscribes to this in the name of fairness, conflating fact and fiction just like the masses it reports on. This is anti intellectualism through and through from birth to death. I'm not saying we are unique, but it certainly is ubiquitous in our culture here. It's difficult to deal with because often stupidity and cruelty go together and it's hard to discern where one ends and the other begins. I could continue on, but I think this is enough to get the point across.

Can you clarify more? My experience as an immigrant to America is that Americans tend to foster a culture of ultra competativeness on everything, including academics.

askmike 8y ago

As an (European) outsider who visited the US a number of times: In academic circles you are right, but college and university are so expensive that your experience only applies to the elite (who are called all the bad words from the article by the majority of the country).

aikinai 8y ago

The parent comment is extreme and ends in a baseless insult, so I definitely don't want to defend it wholly, but the gist is true. If you think Americans are competitive about academics, you're probably basing that on a very specific bubble. The "from a young age" mention is especially true; in most American public schools you basically cannot be both cool and get good grades, unless you hide the grades very well and show an appropriate amount of public disrespect for authority.

mnm1 8y ago

In my experience, children are bullied simply for getting good grades or looking "nerdy" even if they don't get good grades. Other children are proud that they get bad grades, proud that they are not learning anything, and they are looked up to by a lot of other kids. They dictate a lot of culture in schools. People who go to college or university are often looked down upon in many parts of the country and many people are proud that they did not attend, as if being stupid is something to be proud of. We have climate change deniers, anti vaccine people, and huge percentages of the population believe the earth is around 10k years old or that the world will end in their lifetimes. High school curricula is beyond simple, almost nothing is learned, yet we still have a huge percentage of the population that doesn't even graduate that. The discourse now even on college campuses has turned from education to political correctness. Students are afraid of even being exposed to different ideas, lest they be offended, as if they have a right not to be offended. Speakers and comedians are often cancelled if they are the least bit controversial. People think their beliefs are equal to facts and they should be treated as such. The media certainly subscribes to this in the name of fairness, conflating fact and fiction just like the masses it reports on. This is anti intellectualism through and through from birth to death. I'm not saying we are unique, but it certainly is ubiquitous in our culture here. It's difficult to deal with because often stupidity and cruelty go together and it's hard to discern where one ends and the other begins. I could continue on, but I think this is enough to get the point across.