Cultural Questions, What do you wanna know? ask them here

[vlad321]

goforgold said:

vlad321 said:

I have been wondering about something for a bit now, maybe it can be explained, because it is most definitely culture.

I have lived in the US for about 13 years now, and at first I thought the stereotypical, golf culture, etc. type of Americans were just pure idiots. Then I realized they aren't any more idiotic than elsewhere. So I decided they were just uneducated. But that is also false, they go through high school, some through college, and while the education system is utter crap, the middle and upper classes are very much educated.

Most recently I came to the answer I wanted to, and realized that they are just ignorant. Not stupid, or uneducated, but ignorant. Furthermore, they WANT to be ignorant of what happens in the world. The US is the only country where "ignorance is bliss" has been used for anything other than an insult that I have heard. Why is that?  Culturally, what drives the middle and upper class, golf culture, of the US to embrace ignorance?

Almost all reasons that lead to the hatred of America abroad seem to originate from this, so I am just wondering where it comes from.

Edit: I am not generalizing to all Aemricans, just a huge chunk. There are plenty of worldly americans out there and I have as much fun socializing with them as anyone from Europe. People here should know who I am talking about. I'm talking about the type that went to or send their kids to finishing schools and private schools. The type that hovers over their children and tries to make play sets safer by removing everything, because god forbid their child falls down and scrapes a knee. Whether you like it or not, those types of people are basically the majority, then again maybe CA, CT, and the south haven't given me a big enough sample size to base this opinion on, but in those 3 areas by far the majority fall in the label of ignorant.

It was something I've wondered about as well, I mean I always question why we are the only country that uses the illogical standard system over the metric. But the answer always seem to be because it's different from everyone else, and that being somewhat "American" we take pride in it and that pride turns into smugness, and that leads to ignorance.....massive ignorance. The problem is that the rest of the world seem to moving more towards unification, so often it becomes USA......and the rest of the world. Now I think it is completely stupid, unification almost always leads to progress, I mean it took the 13 colonies to unite in order to gain it's freedom and independence.

I guess it's because America was a country that didn't need anybody for anything. So we became close minded to everyone else. Either way I wished we stop :/

That explains a lot about the ignorance that pertains to the outside of the US. However there is ignorance that pertains to the inside of the US as well. People are just ignorant of situations of other states, and they don't even care, or outright refuse, to learn about it. Hell, in Georgia, people don't even realize/know what the situation is in Atlanta and either think it's worse than it is, or think Atlanta is a nice and happy city. It's like "ignorance is bliss" is their motto, and something to strive for. I mean damn, there are people in Atlanta neighborhoods that don't know shit about Atlanta past the edge of their neighborhood.

Edit: What further makes this weird is that these people are good people. Good hearted, genuinely caring people who would act if they knew what was going on.