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Comment by dr_ | Hacker News Reader

"Be patient if Americans are ignorant of some aspect about your home country. Use the opportunity to educate and share, just do so in a polite and brief manner."

Citizens of other countries always like to point out how Americans are ignorant of other nations and their cultures, oftentimes failing to realize that within their own nation poverty is rampant and the majority of the population remains illiterate (yes, although I was born American my ethnic background comes from one of these such nations). Yet because of our standing in the world as a superpower, and because so many people from so many countries end up moving here - we are expected to be experts on the cultural sensitivities of all these countries. Americans are more open and willing to learn, I find, than pretty much any people anywhere in the world.

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I agree with you.

My own "disappointment" is not with 'regular joe' Americans, but with educated Americans. Being from a large city in India, I know from personal experience that majority of the people with college education, especially technical education are knowledgeable about things outside their own country at least in a conversational level, if not they want to know more. I cannot assume the same with Americans. I felt astonished that people who have degrees from top technical universities have lop sided and often dated views of the rest of world.

Many time they are not even ready to acknowledge that things can and often are done better outside their own country. The sense of NIH is very strong.

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?

> 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.

Nothing 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.

I 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.

My 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.

Many time they are not even ready to acknowledge that things can and often are done better outside their own country. The sense of NIH is very strong.

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. ;-)

I am Danish but "left" the country 7-8 years ago. The last few months I've been back to prepare for my move to the US, which will be my second time living and working there. It's remarkable how absurd the Danish world-view appears to me now after living abroad in several very different cultures. The social welfare system is more attractive than ever, but the provincialism, the we-are-the-best attitude, and the subtle and overt xenophobia is staggering. One thing I realized with some sadness on this most recent stay is that I doubt I will ever able to move back, if only because the woman I plan to marry would be treated as a second-rate human being.

I'm American but grew up in the Canal Zone. I've been in Germany a lot the past two years. My girlfriend is German and lives in Berlin. My impression is that Germans really do believe they are the best. They will never say so publicly but deep down they really believe it.

My girlfriend's dad joked about Americans and hamburgers. I offered to make him one since he'd never had one. He emphatically said no. I'm a picky eater and hate cabbage. I politely declined to try some of his dishes because of the cabbage thing. He asked if Americans were always unwilling to try new things. I pointed out that he wouldn't try a hamburger and he got upset. He didn't see it as hypocritical. (It didn't bother me that he didn't want to try one. I don't care what people are or aren't willing to eat.)

There were other things and then it dawned on me. He really thinks his was is the best and can't understand how someone would think differently. He was in the Wehrmacht and his attitudes gave me a creepy feeling.

I know this is anecdotal but I've gotten this impression from many Germans of different ages. Germans think they are better. It cracks me up when I hear Germans talking about American arrogance.

> It cracks me up when I hear Germans talking about American arrogance.

Oh, most Americans are definitely arrogant on their country's behalf. You're not off the hook. :)

> He was in the Wehrmacht

Wait, what?

Yeah, he's a WW II vet. My dad passed away in December and he was a WW II vet. My dad fought the Germans and he never said a bad word about Germans or Germany. None that I ever heard. My girlfriend's dad? I've heard plenty from him about Americans (in a negative sense).

My girlfriend's dad fought on the Eastern front and he tells stories about how uncivilized the Soviets were. He doesn't say the word but it sort of hangs in the air unspoken; untermensch. He was also in the Auschwitz area for a while as a guard. It's tough being around him and I avoid it as much as I can. It's very uncomfortable.

Please don't portray your girlfriend's dad's attitude as the attitude of the entire German population! No offense, but the way you're talking paints a very negative picture of some 80 million people. I realize this is obvious to everyone reading this, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I take it he's thrilled his daughter is dating an American - son of an Allied veteran, no less?

Sorry if I'm prying, I'm just fascinated by living history.

No, he doesn't seem to mind me. He does have his prejudices with regard to America. (The amis is the derogatory German term.)

Two months ago I had lunch with him, another former Wehrmacht soldier and three women from that generation. The other guy was extremely rude. He said many derogatory things about Americans and American prisoner of war camp guards (my dad was such a guard after the war). I don't speak German and didn't know about this until after the dinner when my girlfriend interpreted for me.

I was pissed at her for not letting me know what he said until after he left. She didn't want a scene to be caused. No one in the group said anything to the man or to correct him or to say that he was full of shit. They all kept cheerfully engaged in conversation.

What's amazing to me is that the great crime of that generation was silence. Few spoke out against racist talk. Few stood up against foolish rantings. Sixty years later here was a group of Germans from that generation still afraid to speak up. Still afraid of causing a scene (and my girlfriend too!).

It was absolutely shocking. I was really pissed because my dad had died a few weeks earlier and it was hard to hear this stuff from the likes of these people. No Wehrmacht soldier has the right to call another uncivilized and he did call Americans uncivilized.

The whole thing caused me to reflect a lot. It's something I'll never forget. My girlfriend's generation suffers from what I call "the German guilt thing". Her father's generation doesn't seem to have ever come to grips with what they did.

This is all anecdotal of course. But in my dealings with other Germans it's clear to me that Germans on a whole do think they are better (or their way of life is better) than anyone else. They won't say this anymore but deep down there appears to be an "uber alles" bent.

Other people have different experiences and come to different conclusions than me. This is all just my opinion. I guess the crux of what I'm saying is that it is easy to feel superior and such arrogance isn't limited to Americans. There are lots of examples in the history of the world of such thinking. It's bad whenever it occurs and the worst form of it is to ignore it in your culture while condemning it in other cultures.

You might have a thin skin. Old soldiers (and old people in general) say outrageous things all the time. My grandpa is also a ww2 vet and busts out new offensive material every time I visit. Even the hyper educated oldsters do it. 8 years ago I went to a lecture by James Watson and he spent the whole 45 minutes making racist jokes about Asian people...

Whatever you do, don't ever visit Australia.

Your last sentence seems to imply that I do have a thin skin. It's possible. It's also possible that the generation of Germans that brought us Auschwitz is a disconcerting one to me and justifiably so.

Would you have lunch with Rudolf Hoss and be pleasant to him? What about a guard there? Perhaps the discomfort in me has to do with the fact that so many Germans committed atrocities and my conclusion is that I am no better. That is, in the same situation I would have done the same thing.

I could have a thin skin. By the way, my experience with men who saw combat - real combat - don't talk about it. The will tell a few anecdotes but nothing to do with combat. The ones who talk about their war experiences usually aren't the ones who actually did any fighting.

Thank you. I knew there was something interesting to learn from the story as soon as you mentioned it, and here it is. Thank you for sharing.

You're welcome!

Wehrmacht: german armed forces in the 30s/40s.

You run across WWII vets all the time in america, is it so stunning that there might be vets in Germany as well?

Yes, thank you, I know who the Wehrmacht were. I paid attention in history class.

More so I'm just surprised when I run across any veteran of WWII. FYI, no you don't run across WWII vets "all the time." Most of them are in their eighties or nineties at this point, and there aren't too many people of that age, let alone specifically WWII vets.

Mainly I was just surprised by a very random piece of information. You certainly don't hear about the German veterans of WWII in America all that much. I hope you're bright enough to figure out why.

Here, it is not at all uncommon to hear that somebodies grandfather is or was a vet. There were something like 15 million of them just from the US as I recall. For someone a decade or two older than myself (he says it was her father, not grandfather, so you can get a good guess at their ages...), encountering veterans would be only that much more common.

"You certainly don't hear about the German veterans of WWII in America all that much."

"My girlfriend is German and lives in Berlin."

I am under the strong impression that her father lives in Germany....

EDIT: Furthermore: "The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935-1945 is believed to have approached 18.2 million." With numbers like that, this hardly seems like such a particularly odd occurrance.

Hearing that someone's grandfather was a vet is quite common, yes. And the number is 16 million. That said, most of them are dead now. So these days, for someone like myself - barely thirty - it is, in fact, quite uncommon to run across a living WWII veteran. I never have, and neither has anyone I know. I assume things are different for people in older generations. In other news, the sky is blue.

And yes, I am well aware that the father mentioned lived in Germany. Not only did I pay attention in history class, I can also read.

Is there some reason you're being condescending?

"Not only did I pay attention in history class, I can also read."

"Is there some reason you're being condescending?"

Are you fucking serious?

I was asking someone else a question about their story, and you respond by acting like I've grown a second head for being curious, and giving me a definition of a basic term related to the discussion.

So, yes. Yes I am being serious.

The worst part is I think you don't even get it.

Well, one thing that is odd is that I'm under 40. I didn't mention this though. But I did grow up in the Canal Zone and have a colonial/imperial perspective on the issue of national arrogance.

Did it occur to your girlfriend's Dad that the name "Hamburger" might indicate something about the origin of the dish? I wonder if that would impact his interest in trying it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger#First_beginnings

You might enjoy Whit Stillman's movie Barcelona which is partly about inter-cultural romance, as well as the cultural role of hamburgers. After mocking McDonald's and hamburgers while dating in Barcelona, in the final scene of the movie, they enjoy a real burger from the grill and decide it's pretty good after all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLMsavNEZ1U

    I agree with this, but I haven't actually 
    been to a country that wasn't like that.

Poland. Supposedly (haven't been there myself) China too.

> 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. ;-)

You should visit the third world more often. At least here in Brazil many people believe everything is run by incompetent crooks and if they could just get out to foreign countries they would see what actual management and order are. (this is only partially true, specially as the country seems to be quickly decrooking in many levels)

Hmm, true, especially as far as opinions about governments go. Even in Europe, most of my Greek relatives have views like that on the quality of their government (moreso lately, for obvious reasons). But they do still have rather strongly positive views on how Greek culture stacks up. The consensus seems to be that Greek government is incompetent, but the Greek people and their culture are the world's best.

I don't know where in India you are, but I've spent 2 months there and have encountered my share of educated Indians who, for example, didn't know where or what Austria is or that Israel has a lot of Jewish people in it (or even what Jews are). Another example off the top of my head was an educated engineer (who went to graduate school) who didn't know what the Roman Empire was.

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.

India is a bit like America in the fact that it is huge and multicultural, and you do not need to leave in order to travel, in my experience.

(incidentally, from Ireland, I must admit I had met and drank beer with several Israelis years before I knew anything about the whole Jewish thing. It's pretty easy to ignore history & geography when you are younger.)

I'm from Bangalore.

I know about Austria (and it's infamous son), Israel and it's formative years and it's current influence on my country and middle east. Also, as a South Indian, I know that Jews have lived in my part of the country for nearly two thousand years. Of course, I may be atypical.

My point is that I'm yet to meet atypical people like myself in US even in handfuls after three years of living here and travelling to many big cities.

I am surprised to hear that, since my 2 visits to the US were much briefer than the time you spent there and I have met many such people.

Speaking as an American who has spent time in Mexico, Spain and Ireland, and has traveled to southeast Asia: yes, Americans do sometimes have an arrogant view of the world.

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.

I think a lot of the beef with "typical Americans" is with your last type. If you get off the coasts you can find a whole bunch of Americans who are seemingly proud of not knowing anything about the rest of the world.

Not surprising when you consider that most people came here to get away from something, (poverty, repression, etc.) For no small number of Americans, the rest of the world is a proxy for "that place my ancestors left because it sucked ". The US was isolationist before it got dragged into the world wars, and has become interventionist not because it's interested in conquest, but because the past century has taught it to fear what happens when it's not.

Well, in my experience at least, the people I'm griping about are pretty far from "off the boat". They see themselves as natives, and their ancestors left europe 150 years ago because it was a totally different place then. Not much to do with their current viewpoint on, say, Brazil or China.

The idea I was trying to express is about 3rd, 4th, etc. generation immigrants. By that time, the information the trickles down in your family lore boils down to "it sucked, we left, good riddance". I think the combination of "we left, we kept getting dragged back to fight wars, and we ended up on top" (grossly over-simplified), leads to a unique and odd "background vibe" to the culture, which seems more pronounced in long-term 'natives'. I think people who are more recent are more cognizant of the subtleties that exist.

You know how people fight over things that happened hundreds of years ago? Its like that. When people who have been here for 100+ years hear about "family history" it often involves stories of say the potato famine in Ireland. While intellectually they understand Ireland is no longer like that (indeed they may even have visited it to get in touch with there roots). Emotionally they have a lasting impression of a America being the promised land. Their ancestors fled elsewhere to come here, thus here must be the best.

The main and important exception to this is of course African American's.

And Native Americans.

My father's side of the family came to America about 100 years ago from Sweden. They settled in North Dakota, one of the dreaded "flyover states". My great-grandfather apparently didn't tell his children anything about the home country, nor did he teach them Swedish. He wanted them to focus on being Americans, rather than trying to be Swedish. These days, we eat lutefisk on Christmas Eve and that's about it.

> If you get off the coasts you can find a whole bunch of Americans

No, actually you won't. Most of America's population lives within two hundred miles of it's coastlines. This group of proudly ignorant people is therefore much smaller than they're stereotypically thought of being.

Having driven from Richmond, Virginia, to Anchorage, Alaska, twice, I can first-hand confirm that there is a LOT of empty land in the heart of North America.

It is because of these trips that I no longer worry about global overpopulation and just look at people quizzically when they start talking about the topic.

It isn't empty, it is farmland. Space to live is low on the list of scarce resources that will cap population growth.

Wow, that's a pretty insulting statement. What is your source for this belief?

It's a statement about stereotypes and why the stereotype is disliked.

I can recount some anecdotes that fulfill the stereotype if you'd like.

I grew up in North Dakota and haven't found anyone who was "proud" of not knowing about the rest of the world. In a lot of circles it is a point of pride to know a whole lot about where your ancestors came from. I find the generalization particularly insulting and mostly untrue.

It might be helpful to remember that historically, most people who came to America as a chance to start over and leave the past behind. People who were doing well usually didn't migrate to the US. In my family, the men's of "We were kicked around until we came here, then we did well," is very strong. So much so, that I'm the first one to travel internationally, except for military service.

I really get what you are saying.

Most of the recent immigrants to US from India are "economic" immigrants who have no bones with their motherland. They just came to a place with more headroom.

So, a lot of Indians are not eager to get rid of their cultural identities as fast as many European immigrants.

s/men's/meme/g (Damn autocorrect)

Well, you certainly don't sound very open to me. No one expects you to be experts. It's just that some Americans regard America as the central of the universe and never bother to learn about the most basic facts about "the rest of the world".

Many immigrants complain about the ignorance because some americans have ridiculous ,false or outdated stereotypical information about their countries. It's no doubt that America has the most intelligent people in the world but it is also not too hard to find a lot of arrogant and dumb people (maybe including you?).

So just because they are from a mostly poor and illiterate country, and let's say if some americans assume they are hardcore communists if they are from china or they are terrorists if they are from a muslim country or that all indians smell curry, they don't have a right to be disappointed? What does it have to do with their poverty and all?

I know you parents might fight and work very hard to escape their poor nation and come to america in order to give you a good life. Well,you are "American" now and seem to have totally forgotten your root. But at least have some respect. Don't be too arrogant.

I think a lot of this has to do with the cultural starting point in the U.S. The idea of American exceptionalism is quite common amongst the political punditry. Say something often enough and it begins to get believed.

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.

Personally I've always found it annoying when my countrymen are taken to task for being 'ignorant' of another country's culture. As I have to constantly point out to people from other countries - you're aware of so much in American politics because, like it or not, we're a (if not the) world super power right now. There's one (or a handful) of us, and hundreds of other countries. I can't be expected to be conversant in the politics and culture of all of them and still live my life. If someone insists on pressing the point, then I just pick a random country off the top of my head and ask them how much they know about it's culture and politics.

Usually that gets the point across. I also like to flip it around and point out to them that we're a nation of 300 million people, more divided and complex than they usually realize - and I almost never have a problem getting that point across pretty quickly. Most people from other countries who think they know a lot about America don't know as much about us as they think they do.

It's not that Americans don't want to learn about other countries - far from it. It's just that there are hundreds of them paying attention to us, and as citizens, we just can't individually return the favor and learn the ins and outs of all of them.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that there's noone on earth who grew up in one country, moved to another one, and managed to completely forget about salient facts like the poverty level in their original country.

People tend to forge their identities when they feel inadequate about their past. As an immigrant privy to no Americans present get-togethers, I see it all the time. The same people who lump all Southerners or Midwesterners into a overweight, bible thumping yokel stereotype, will froth at the mouth about Americans' ignorance of latest political discourse in their small corner of the world. People from predominantly white countries will claim that the US is less cultured because there is too much brown immigration. People who didn't have toilet paper back home will talk about the lack of museums. And so on and so forth.

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.

Well, I'd never claim to be so rational as to have excluded emotionally-self-serving reason entirely.

I just thought the original post came across as having the same sort of stereotypes that it decried, so responded with a little snark. :)

Well, I've often liked your posts so I presumed you are a rationalist. Let me keep my delusions, please!

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you maybe don't know that many people from overseas.

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.

Careful, that limb might be thin. I live in NYC, remember? Just looked around my immediate office, there are 4 people from 3 different countries within 10 feet of me. (well, one of them's out today, so 3 from 2 countries unless we expand that radius to 30 feet, but you know). They all know the difference between 1st and 3rd world.

Most Americans do have quite a slanted and often factually incorrect view on the situation in Palestine (been there, seen the wall, the checkpoints, the very blatant racism and the total lack of opportunity). Not to say that the typical Iranian is likely much more enlightened on the subject, but someone else being dumb doesn't make you smarter. (also, on your tu quoque in regards to Iran, there's not a lot to defend about that country but at least they give equal legal status to all people within their borders, kurdish or baluchi).

Any viewpoint that starts off with "Americans are so much more enlightened than any other nationality" is probably an extremely unenlightened view, is all I'm saying. The chinese guy upthread got it better than I did.

Any viewpoint that starts off with "Americans are so much more enlightened than any other nationality" is probably an extremely unenlightened view, is all I'm saying.

I'm not taking this view at all. I'm just pointing out that while the direction of ignorance varies widely, the magnitude varies less.

People are lazy, and ignorance is the result of laziness. I don't think the US is particularly exceptional in this regard.

"(also, on your tu quoque in regards to Iran, there's not a lot to defend about that country but at least they give equal legal status to all people within their borders, kurdish or baluch"

Try being Baha'i in Iran. I know several refugees from Iran who would vehemently disagree with your statement.

Baha'i's a religious status, not an ethnic status. Not that I'm defending religious discrimination or anything, but that's orthogonal to the point I was making about treatment of occupied ethnic substates. Points taken that discrimination exists everywhere, is officially sanctioned many places, and certainly that the islamic republic isn't the model state.

It is surprisingly easy to forget about poverty if you live shielded from it. You see a lot of this in brazillian urban upper-middle class, specially in the south.

The patients of foreigner isn't tested by what Americans don't know about their home country, it's tested by what Americans think they about foreigner's home country.

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