Getting to Know Americans

My personal observation is, the majority tend to forget all the bad and remember all the good about their former home, and conversely, pick out all the bad and none of the good of their new home. It may be hard for you to believe because you are a rationalist, but it's very common.

My Iranian ex girlfriend often liked to point out how Americans are ignorant of other nations and their cultures. Her most common criticism is that Americans didn't know a lot about the occupation of Palestine.

Strangely, she seemed more or less unaware of Iran and Iraq's occupation of Kurdistan, and was only peripherally aware of Iran's occupation of Baluchistan [1].

I've similarly met South Americans, and even one Indian (!), who made serious comparisons between US poverty and true poverty. You can only make a comparison like that if you forget what true poverty really is.

[1] This was only by chance - her uncle got sent there as part of his term of forced labor in the army.

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?

I agree with this, but I haven't actually been to a country that wasn't like that. Certainly here in Denmark, many Danes are quite certain that Denmark is run better than any other place. ;-)

All of these examples or equivalents never manifested themselves when I was in the US.

Many (upper class) Indians are extremely ignorant about the world outside of India.

On the other hand, knowing about other countries doesn't come as naturally here. If you live in Europe, you can take an overnight train ride to any one of a dozen countries, with whom you share a currency and often a closely-related language. An extreme example is Andorra, nested between Spain and France, where even before the Euro, they were too small to bother having their own currency, and natives basically can't get by without speaking French, Spain and Catalan, at a minimum.

Contrast that with someone who lives in Iowa. You can drive for days in any direction and not leave the US. You live in a huge country with lots of geographical and cultural variety. Your country is wealthy enough that you'd never go abroad for your job or education unless you were explicitly trying to see the world. Learning another language is wonderful and enriching, but there's no real economic reason to. And there's no doubt in your mind that your country is safe from foreign powers.

I'm not saying "let's all be ignorant of other people," but for many Americans, awareness of other countries is like a gold star of educational achievement, not an everyday necessity. I was eager to expand my horizons, but for many people that's just not on their priority list.

And besides, some people are just not curious about anything.

There was a time when it was common amongst the Chinese intellectual class to think China was the best. In the 1400's Chinese emperors acquired a very anti-foreign attitude and Chinese exploration declined rapidly. Roman citizens thought Roman civilization was the best. My point is, imperial arrogance is common.

Not to mention the clockwork nature of their transportation system... And the Alps... gah, what I am doing sitting at this desk?

At the same time, social events in general happen always an hour or so later than announced, except for small gatherings and things with a fixed timeframe such as going to the movies. As a naturally punctual person I've arrived in birthday parties thinking I was being fashionably late and found everybody still pre-shower and the place a mess.

When a family member invites us over for 7:30, they mean 8:00. If you actually arrive at 7:30, they're still getting ready themselves.

What is very valuable is to describe them in terms of how they are different from your culture.

Thus compared to Asia they are very sarcastic, and compared to Britain hardly at all.

Of course, a combination of traits brings strengths that are more than the sum of their parts, and concomitant weaknesses. For example, the US is a great market for consumer goods (and thus entrepreneurs), as individuals seek their own immediate gratification and the promise of salvation/transformation through buying something new - all while supposedly contributing to the greater economic welfare (there being few if any other widespread, concrete, social goals). But it is far from a given that this way of life is at all viable, even in the course of one human lifetime, never mind a few centuries. As some scholars put it, every society confronts (and creates) large collective problems; the US has consistently chosen individualist capitalist technologist solutions, and it remains to be seen whether that approach has a long-term future.

So "the top 1%" is probably not accurate.

Really bad example. The US has the most progressive tax system of the entire OECD. The only countries that come close are Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html

Here is data on the top 1%. Specifically, they earn 20% of income in the US, but pay 38% of taxes.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

I'm not sure why you believe the military gives preferences to the top 1%. As far as I'm aware, the military is strictly egalitarian (being based on fairly rigid performance criteria) with the sole exception of having racial and sexual preferences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

I suppose it's technically correct, but it doesn't sound good at all. Especially since they already just used 'Americans' in the title. "People of the United States" or something like that also reads better.

Sure, citizens of other countries in the Americas could also be called Americans, but in reality, if you're trying to actually communicate clearly with other people, rather than score political correctness points, you would not use that term for, say, a Canadian or a Brazilian, because there are already perfectly good, more specific terms for citizens of said countries.

Likewise, if you were really trying to talk about the commonalities of everyone from Alaskans to Argentinians you'd presumably use something like "peoples of the Americas".