Is the average American really much more ignorant than other nationalities? (live in, military)

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by jm31828

I went to regular public school (moved around a lot, ended up going to 4 different high schools), and yes we had classes that at least partially included world literature, we had chemistry, geography, etc. Sure you can find ignorant people on the streets, it's easy to do a silly segment like Kimmel does, asking maybe 50 people those questions and finding the one or two dumb ones to actually show on the TV show, making people appear really stupid.

The fact is most people who go through high school here are fine. Geography is one that people always say we are so stupid with, but the fact is Geography was a required course, we had maps of the world and had to fill in the names of each country in the world along with their capital cities. So sure some/many people may forget much of this after leaving high school, but it was taught- and people did learn it. There are ignorant people everywhere, you can dig them up and put them on TV and of course they are going to make us all look bad. But I guarantee you will find this same ignorance in any other country- they just don't get put on TV as often, so people in those countries don't look as ignorant.

Yeah that's why I'm wary of those segments where they ask geography questions to random people on the street. We didn't even learn about capital cities in geography here, I learnt it all because I was interested in it. In fact we didn't have a dedicated subject called geography until high school, it was just called 'social studies.'

[jm31828]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I doubt it. At age 7 I could point to you where Paraguay or Afghanistan was on a map, and used to draw the world map for fun from memory.

And so do a lot of kids here in the US! Again, what you see on TV in those man on the street interviews are not indicative of everyone. They may talk to 50 people and find the 1 or 2 most ignorant to put on TV to give us all a good laugh. Starting as early as elementary school we had to learn the countries of the world and find them on maps, and that continued through high school- so sure there are people who forgot much of that as they got into adulthood, but this is standard in our education system (my family moved around a LOT, so I had experience with this in many schools in several states throughout my elementary/middle/high school years). So again the ones who can't find places as simple as England or France on a map are the very small minority here. I guarantee you'll find equally as many who are that way in any other country- they just don't get put out there on TV showing off how ignorant they are.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by weltschmerz

Not important? You're kidding, right? We are all citizens of this planet and it behooves us to be familiar with it.
I've met people who insist that America shares only one border with other countries, that Rome is the capital of Romania, that they speak Spanish in Brazil, among other assorted flotsam and jetsam of ignorance.
I met a fellow from Jersey who actually took Spanish lessons before going to Brazil. He wanted to meet some Brazilain hotties.

Screw the sugar coating and PC garbage! This sort of thing happens more often than some here may be willing to admit. I have a few examples:

1. I went to Seattle from San Diego. A friend I contacted when I got there asked what time it was there Attepmts to explain that they were in the same time zone failed until I carefully explained that it was on the west coast. This fact came much to her surprise

2. Speaking of history, there are many who cannot distinguish between the Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars. Quite frequently referring to the latter by the name of the former. A lot of things that are Mexican are erroneously referred to as Spanish

The average American is terrible at geography. Show them a map with just borders and no words and chances are they could not pick out most places without the names being there, even our own states.

[Southern man]

I'm an American and I don't know a lot about all the small countries that make up the world, but I have visited all 50 states in America and I suspect a majority of non-Americans have not done that.

[Ag77845]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

Screw the sugar coating and PC garbage! This sort of thing happens more often than some here may be willing to admit. I have a few examples:

1. I went to Seattle from San Diego. A friend I contacted when I got there asked what time it was there Attepmts to explain that they were in the same time zone failed until I carefully explained that it was on the west coast. This fact came much to her surprise

2. Speaking of history, there are many who cannot distinguish between the Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars. Quite frequently referring to the latter by the name of the former. A lot of things that are Mexican are erroneously referred to as Spanish

The average American is terrible at geography. Show them a map with just borders and no words and chances are they could not pick out most places without the names being there, even our own states.

If your job requires you to travel, you will learn. If someone can live happily without knowing too much about the map, then he probably doesn't need that sort of knowledge in the first place.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by Ag77845

If your job requires you to travel, you will learn. If someone can live happily without knowing too much about the map, then he probably doesn't need that sort of knowledge in the first place.

Fair enough

[Supine]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I'm not American but Americans are often singled out for their ignorance - especially geography, history, current events.etc. At least from people I know, mostly online, I haven't found Americans any more or less ignorant than most nationalities. Honestly, there are plenty of ignorant people here in Australia.

Do you think there's any truth to the idea or is it anti-American propaganda?

Yes there is truth to it.

Bearing in mind a few things. A lot of people in the developing world are not educated passed a few grades in elementary school. So, a lot of them will be ignorant of a lot of subject matter usually learned through institutes of formal education.

But I think people reared and educated through grades 1 through high school graduation in Latin America tend to have a much stronger grasp of geography. I often have remarked to my professors in the U.S. that are originally from Latin America and the Caribbean (or Africa and India as well) that I'm American and I don't know geography well.

And I think I tend to be better than the average American (by average I mean that middle line, so, some further right and left of it) with geography. I'm sure there are Americans much better at geography than myself. But I know for a fact there are plenty worse than me too.

The history and world events issues I'm not so sure about. That comes with a lot of biases, subjectivity, and propaganda all over the world.

For example, the "Vietnam War" from an American perspective is essentially an American (not Vietnamese or South Korean story) story. The American Revolutionary War does not conjure up images of Spain sending black and mulatto Latino troops into Florida as allies of the Americans against the British.

I'll hazard a guess most nations tell stories of "history" from their nationally biased perspective. Which is understandable in some ways.

Contemporary world events requires good journalism and sources too. A lot of nations probably don't do so well in that.

[Supine]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Americans who graduate from high school have shown, in many reliably normed surveys, to be among the lowest in acquired knowledge about history, geography, math, and science. By logical extension, one can maybe conclude that this ignorance ripples out to the general population.

From my own personal experience, Americans I have met in youth hostels while traveling exhibit, relative to European travelers, only the most basic patchwork of knowledge about literature, art, and the human condition, and carry an extremely heavy baggage of misconceptions about the world that they have been spoonfed by an entrenched media subjectivity.

A majority of American that I am in contact with seem to have an understanding of the world that can be summed up by "it's Obama's fault".

LMAO. You must have been conversing with some of the conservative Catholics online that I have?

I remember some white woman telling me before Obama got in office Black-Americans were financially prosperous, owned business and so on. LMAO.

Even "Catholic history" to them = white American Founding Fathers, guns, and the Republican Party.

[Ag77845]

Americans are more knowledgeable when it comes to automobiles and guns. World geography happens to be an area where Americans are not very good at.

Do average Europeans and Asians know a great deal of guns?

[Mac15]

Originally Posted by Ag77845

Can Europeans identify Arkansas, Vermont, South Dakota, Oregon and Colorado correctly on the map? I guess many confuse Washington DC with Washington state.

Yes.