| HappySqurriel said:
Most people in most countries are fairly ignorant about large portions of the world but they tend to be fairly knowledgeable about portions of the world that have particular meaning for their country or in their personal life. The United States is unusual because people get by without needing to know anything about the outside world. There is a joke I have heard several times which, while not entirely fair, is loosely related to this topic. The Joke is "What do you call someone who only speaks one language? An American" ... The same can be said in most English speaking countries because (for the most part) British and American economic dominance over the past centuries has resulted in most of the world adapting to us to some extent. On a cultural level something similar can be said about Americans; while most of the world is bombarded by American culture in movies, music, books and videogames Americans tend not to pay attention to a lot of what is happening in the rest of the world. Many good movies from around the world are watched throughout the world and then are "re-made" for American audiences, often being changed fairly dramatically to suit American tastes. |
I didn't mean Canada was ignorant of the UK and France, I meant that all three have people that are ignorant of many other countries same as the US. I will agree that the US isn't bombarder with with other cultures but there is a growing amount of people seeking foreign culture like films and music. Fact is, before now it wasn't affordable to watch films from over seas because no US company would import them. With the internet now more and more people are experiencing foreign intertainment, with subtitles.
I agree now that you weren't trying to be a prick but there are many on the site that think less of USA simply because we don't like football/soccer as much and say crap like we are mindless sheep that buy any crappy tech or we're all arrogant a**holes. I can't count how many time I have seen Americans called mindless sheep I mean, that's the only reason we buy the Xbox 360 apparently. We're all idiots.
