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My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside

by sigkill 13y ago

My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country. This is not a slander, but they genuinely think that since they're Americans, they need to know only about their country. I do not blame them because when I was there I noticed that all news channels focused only on news in America. There wasn't even a half hour of 'world news' at anytime one would be free to watch the news. This is quite sad because the TV was meant as a way to inform the common people of things happening far away. Granted, the present generation can hop on to websites and read stuff there but honestly, the generation that actually votes and practically decides who's in the government are the ones who're not getting broad exposure to all news.

eru 13y ago
Our unAmerican perception is somewhat biased by how much we know about the US. Just because people from country A know a lot more about the US than then US people know about them, doesn't mean that people from country A are any more knowledgeable about country B than the US Americans are. But, of course, we from A still love to laugh about the dumb Americans.
Kurtz79 13y ago
"My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country" My interaction with my fellow non-American countrymen is that many of them not only are not interested in what happens outside their country, but also what happens INSIDE, unless this somewhat affects them directly (say, taxes rise). Of course an equal number of them are knowledgeble and really concerned about what happens in our country, and the rest of the world. And probably there are hundreds of variations beetween these two extremes. My hunch is that it's the same more or less everywhere around the world, US included. It's just naive to try to condense millions of people in a single (or two, or three) stereotype.
PakG1 13y ago
My friend who studied in the US said that Americans just in general have a view that they are different and therefore uniquely special. If you have that type of worldview, I imagine it's difficult to really think of the outside world much; perhaps it's even unnatural. edit: The thought that prompted this whole comment, which I forgot to write. 9/11 happened when he was studying at university. He said there was a big shock among all the students with whom he studied, and among the citizens in general. He said up to that point, Americans had felt that they were untouchable, and this event proved otherwise, really shaking their worldview. I found it most interesting that he said that Americans seemed to think they were untouchable in the first place. There is actually a term for how Americans view their status, American Exceptionalism (the term appears to have evolved over the years): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism This attitude is easily seen when they call their baseball championship the World Series, when the Miami Heat refer to themselves as basketball's World Champions, etc. In such an saturated environment, I imagine it becomes so self-reinforcing that you cannot blame some (but not all) of American citizens for just thinking the same way.
- rickhanlonii 13y ago
  To be fair, the Miami Heat are essentially the U.S. Olympic basketball team at this point, who won gold last summer, so in that sense they are the World Champions.
- sjs382 13y ago
  The Heat can call themselves whatever they want, but since 2009, the NBA championship banners have said "NBA Champions" rather than "World Champions". This was given some publicity at the time, though a quick search doesn't turn up any references, other than photos of the banners. As far as the World Series, is there any real dispute that it's effectively the world championship?
  - PakG1 13y ago
    What is the World Baseball Classic then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic Look, for the Heat, the interesting fact isn't whether or not the NBA acknowledges them as World Champions. It's that they referred to themselves as World Champions. That's what's interesting to me, the fact that this type of attitude can even exist. Whether or not a team can be called a world champion is probably up to two factors: 1) Is their league the best league in the world? 2) Is there no truly international competition that would be acknowledged as having a similar or higher level of competition? For example, for soccer and MLS, the answer is no for both questions because the World Cup and the Euro tournament are tops, with the World Cup being number 1. Even the Olympics can't come close precisely because FIFA disallows their best players from competing in the Olympics in order to make the World Cup a more spectacular event. And the MLS certainly isn't up to par with leagues in Europe. For hockey and the NHL, the answer is yes for both questions because the only other regular competition that comes even close is the IIHF World Championship, and it is a sub-par level of competition. The NHL tried to make their own World Cup a regular event with attendance from multiple nations, but failed to sustain it regularly. If they had succeeded, that World Cup event would probably be able to say that they crowned the real World Champions. The Olympics are the only thing that comes close, and that is heavily contingent on the NHL's willingness to send their players to the Olympics, which the NHL has repeatedly stated is an undesirable burden for them. For baseball, I think it's clear that the World Baseball Classic trumps MLB on both questions, and it helps a lot that MLB is a big contributor to the tournament so that the best players are sure to be there. For American football and the NFL, there's no argument. Superbowl = World Champs hands down. I'd say likewise for whoever wins the NBA championship. But there's a difference between knowing that you won in the best league in the world and are probably the best team in the world and actually publicly calling yourself the best team in the world when you didn't compete with anyone from other nations. The debate is further confused when teams have international players, so are players representing their cities (as in league championships) or their countries (as in the Olympics, World Baseball Classic, World Cup)? It's a lot of comparing apples to oranges, so the whole debate is very muddied, and sometimes I wonder why we even care about it. But the debate is what it is. edits for clarity
medde 13y ago
Where are you from and what is the most important thing happening in the world today?

by sigkill 13y ago

eru 13y ago

Our unAmerican perception is somewhat biased by how much we know about the US. Just because people from country A know a lot more about the US than then US people know about them, doesn't mean that people from country A are any more knowledgeable about country B than the US Americans are. But, of course, we from A still love to laugh about the dumb Americans.

Kurtz79 13y ago

"My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country" My interaction with my fellow non-American countrymen is that many of them not only are not interested in what happens outside their country, but also what happens INSIDE, unless this somewhat affects them directly (say, taxes rise). Of course an equal number of them are knowledgeble and really concerned about what happens in our country, and the rest of the world. And probably there are hundreds of variations beetween these two extremes. My hunch is that it's the same more or less everywhere around the world, US included. It's just naive to try to condense millions of people in a single (or two, or three) stereotype.

PakG1 13y ago

My friend who studied in the US said that Americans just in general have a view that they are different and therefore uniquely special. If you have that type of worldview, I imagine it's difficult to really think of the outside world much; perhaps it's even unnatural. edit: The thought that prompted this whole comment, which I forgot to write. 9/11 happened when he was studying at university. He said there was a big shock among all the students with whom he studied, and among the citizens in general. He said up to that point, Americans had felt that they were untouchable, and this event proved otherwise, really shaking their worldview. I found it most interesting that he said that Americans seemed to think they were untouchable in the first place. There is actually a term for how Americans view their status, American Exceptionalism (the term appears to have evolved over the years): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism This attitude is easily seen when they call their baseball championship the World Series, when the Miami Heat refer to themselves as basketball's World Champions, etc. In such an saturated environment, I imagine it becomes so self-reinforcing that you cannot blame some (but not all) of American citizens for just thinking the same way.

rickhanlonii 13y ago
To be fair, the Miami Heat are essentially the U.S. Olympic basketball team at this point, who won gold last summer, so in that sense they are the World Champions.
sjs382 13y ago
The Heat can call themselves whatever they want, but since 2009, the NBA championship banners have said "NBA Champions" rather than "World Champions". This was given some publicity at the time, though a quick search doesn't turn up any references, other than photos of the banners. As far as the World Series, is there any real dispute that it's effectively the world championship?
- PakG1 13y ago
  What is the World Baseball Classic then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic Look, for the Heat, the interesting fact isn't whether or not the NBA acknowledges them as World Champions. It's that they referred to themselves as World Champions. That's what's interesting to me, the fact that this type of attitude can even exist. Whether or not a team can be called a world champion is probably up to two factors: 1) Is their league the best league in the world? 2) Is there no truly international competition that would be acknowledged as having a similar or higher level of competition? For example, for soccer and MLS, the answer is no for both questions because the World Cup and the Euro tournament are tops, with the World Cup being number 1. Even the Olympics can't come close precisely because FIFA disallows their best players from competing in the Olympics in order to make the World Cup a more spectacular event. And the MLS certainly isn't up to par with leagues in Europe. For hockey and the NHL, the answer is yes for both questions because the only other regular competition that comes even close is the IIHF World Championship, and it is a sub-par level of competition. The NHL tried to make their own World Cup a regular event with attendance from multiple nations, but failed to sustain it regularly. If they had succeeded, that World Cup event would probably be able to say that they crowned the real World Champions. The Olympics are the only thing that comes close, and that is heavily contingent on the NHL's willingness to send their players to the Olympics, which the NHL has repeatedly stated is an undesirable burden for them. For baseball, I think it's clear that the World Baseball Classic trumps MLB on both questions, and it helps a lot that MLB is a big contributor to the tournament so that the best players are sure to be there. For American football and the NFL, there's no argument. Superbowl = World Champs hands down. I'd say likewise for whoever wins the NBA championship. But there's a difference between knowing that you won in the best league in the world and are probably the best team in the world and actually publicly calling yourself the best team in the world when you didn't compete with anyone from other nations. The debate is further confused when teams have international players, so are players representing their cities (as in league championships) or their countries (as in the Olympics, World Baseball Classic, World Cup)? It's a lot of comparing apples to oranges, so the whole debate is very muddied, and sometimes I wonder why we even care about it. But the debate is what it is. edits for clarity

medde 13y ago

Where are you from and what is the most important thing happening in the world today?