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America is special. We're special for a lot of reasons, including 'soft power' (e.g., the most watched movies in the world are from America), 'hard power' (our
by smanek 16y ago
America is special.
We're special for a lot of reasons, including 'soft power' (e.g., the most watched movies in the world are from America), 'hard power' (our military is more powerful and more likely to be used than any other plausible combination of nations I can think of), and economic power (our GDP is on par with the entire European Union. It is significantly larger than Brazil, Russia, India, and China's combined).
For these reasons, most every educated person in the world knows more about America than almost any other country (excluding their own and a handful of neighbors). I don't understand why a citizen of country X is surprised that most Americans don't know much more about X, than they they themselves do about Country Y (where Y is roughly of equal importance as X, but is on the other side of the world).
I've met Brits who were insulted that I only know who their Prime Minister is and what the major parties are, while they are familiar with the intricacies of American politics (upcoming elections, controversies, major players in each party, etc). Yet, they almost always know absolutely nothing about Brazilian politics (while I also know Brazil's major parties and President). Why is it so difficult to understand that, to an American, British politics are about as important as Brazilian politics are to a Brit?
- alextp 16y ago> For these reasons, most every educated person in the world knows more about America than almost any other country (excluding their own and a handful of neighbors) At least in brazil people seem to know more about america than the rest of the country, specially in the richer and more educated regions in the south and southwest. Everyone I talk to is far more likely to know who is the president of the US or the governor of california than who is the governor of Piauí or the vice-president of brazil.
- FraaJad 16y agoNothing that I can disagree with. And that's one reason why I have become a little bit of an American myself by not giving a hoot about what Americans think about India.
- nooneelse 16y agoI think that "country X vs Y" stuff is much of why, when an American is ignorant about facets of another country/culture, they don't default to feeling like they are in some way at fault for that ignorance. That isn't the same thing as being proud of their ignorance (which is around in America, but much less common than one might fear), it is a reasonable position to have. Any time spent learning about the details of some other culture/country is time not spent on learning about another. Faced with the abundance of sets of details to learn, and with little to make one country/culture's set of details stand out as the one an American might want to learn, lack of self-recrimination is a pretty healthy response. Maybe it would seem more polite if American's made like they were embarrassed about the ignorance when it comes up, but that would go against being honest.
- smanek 16y agoMy point is that Indians (for example) aren't embarrassed by their ignorance about Brazil (for example), but expect Americans to be embarrassed by their ignorance of India.