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Yeah, I also agree with Tiger Beer.. countries like the US, UK, and France are admired all over the world, so it's no wonder they are like worlds to themselves..
Americans are far more ignorant not because of their fault.
Their media and papers are not focused on international events, except for very large papers from very large cities.
There may be some truth to this. I'm a longtime native of the Washington, D.C. area. We have the Washington Post, which is supposed to be one of the top newspapers in the nation. Plus, it's such a political city and has foreign embassies from just about every country in the world. So, there's potentially a lot of exposure in that way to countries outside the U.S., which probably isn't the norm in most other places in the U.S.
On the other hand, people living in, say, some small midwestern U.S. city could probably care less what's going on in the east or west coasts of the U.S., let alone in foreign countries that are oceans away.
Last edited by BigCityDreamer; 01-02-2012 at 11:41 AM..
Americans are far more ignorant not because of their fault.
Their media and papers are not focused on international events, except for very large papers from very large cities.
They are a Nation-Continent, they couldn't care less about abroad unless it affects them directly.
Here we are exposed to every idiotic things that happens in Samoa, for example.
If you take a paper from Miami, for example, it will only talk about Israel and Cuba, the rest of the world can go to hell.
Then large sections about plants, etc.
^^^ this.
In most media ( TV, radio, news paper ) the international section is very, very small. Like there is nothing happened worth talking about.
Also the TV program " I am not smarter than ... " show people with pretty embarrassing level of knowledge....
The many inventions, such as the TV, the telephone, the radio, the World Wide Web, the light bulb, the jet engine, the submarine, the worlds first programmable computer, the steam engine, modern Ice Cream, gravy, the lawn mower, the light switch, penicillin, football, rugby, cricket, tennis, boxing, ice hockey, not to mention, arguably, the single most important thing to occur on earth: the Industrial revolution
British culture is also admired across the world, the accent, the history, the architecture, the beautiful towns and cities (London, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, York) and the stunning countryside (Lake District, Highlands, Pennines) - you get the idea.
So, what is the UK admired for? Surely it has nothing accept chavs, drunks and expensive public transport.
Last edited by dunno what to put here; 01-03-2012 at 12:39 PM..
"Educated" and "ignorant" are not necessarily antonyms.
I was guided through the Amazon by a man who did not know what country he lived in until he was 16 years old and had never been to school. My ignorance was humiliating.
I drove my car across the trackless Jordanian desert whose features shift daily, accompanied by two truckers who navigated by the stars. My ignorance was mortifying.
I've known people who have never been to school, but can speak four languages fluently and play several musical instruments and heal the sick and wounded and take a car engine apart and put it back together and build a house. My ignorance was embarrassing.
"Educated" and "ignorant" are not necessarily antonyms.
I was guided through the Amazon by a man who did not know what country he lived in until he was 16 years old and had never been to school. My ignorance was humiliating.
I drove my car across the trackless Jordanian desert whose features shift daily, accompanied by two truckers who navigated by the stars. My ignorance was mortifying.
I've known people who have never been to school, but can speak four languages fluently and play several musical instruments and heal the sick and wounded and take a car engine apart and put it back together and build a house. My ignorance was embarrassing.
Maybe most humans are very educated about certain things and very ignorant about certain other things?
Self-deprecation is one thing, but the complete lack of self-respect of the modern Brit is a sad state of affairs and it is the reason you have yob culture and chavs with their ASBOs today.
If you want to see what that will result in, look no further than American ghetto culture. At least that can be explained by a history of oppression while the White Brits are doing to themselves out of a misplaced sense of guilt over imperialism.
What should Brits be proud of? They invented the concept of equal rights starting with the Magna Carta. Even with the negatives of colonialism, everyone who lives in freedom from despotic rulers and popes in this world has the influence of England to thank for it.
"Educated" and "ignorant" are not necessarily antonyms.
I was guided through the Amazon by a man who did not know what country he lived in until he was 16 years old and had never been to school. My ignorance was humiliating.
I drove my car across the trackless Jordanian desert whose features shift daily, accompanied by two truckers who navigated by the stars. My ignorance was mortifying.
I've known people who have never been to school, but can speak four languages fluently and play several musical instruments and heal the sick and wounded and take a car engine apart and put it back together and build a house. My ignorance was embarrassing.
This is an absolutely fantastic post. Bravo.
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