steve hyde wrote:...now I see the inflammatory comment was about geography. Surely the U.S. isn't least educated. Saying that is bound to start a fire. I overlooked that when I made the reply to Roger...
Yeah, inflammatory when people are predisposed to reflex national identification and defensiveness.
I would say of the the rich, developed countries Americans are certainly (on average) the most apathetic about knowledge of international matters and social critique. I think this is undeniable. All countries have their faults, but again this is not a moral failing of middle America or the MTV generation, this is how they grow up, the ideology of a society formed by people and forces greater than any individual.
Again, this is not just Von Trieresque ruminations from across the Atlantic, my experiences at University in America were uniquely depressing. But then again I went to school in an International School in Singapore so maybe my expectations of worldliness were set sky high!
I mean I was subjected to un-ironic questions continuously like:
"Are you glad to be free now you are in the USA?"
"Don't you wish you had elections like in America?"
"Where in Europe is Singapore"
"Why do British people have black teeth"
etc. etc. ok a bit of sour grapes, but for Christ's sake these are University students. It's like they absorbed nothing but MTV for the entire 20 years of their life!!!