The rest of the world is not a homogeneous place. 55555 specifically mentioned living in a "conservative" culture. Living as an American in a country like Bangladesh can be quite nice, but you really don't want to be a persecuted minority, or gay or similar there. That is NOT something America should learn from. A lot of countries are simply less developed, both economically and socially. There is no need to glamorize it.

That said development is not a simple linear scale. Each culture has good things others could learn from, but it's wrong to see low development level as some kind of purity.