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They mostly just care about america, and that's mostly the only country they make reference to on tv shows and on the news. America isn't a very worldly country.
They mostly just care about america, and that's mostly the only country they make reference to on tv shows and on the news. America isn't a very worldly country.
It's just a massive country. When you grow up there, there are very few if any references to the mass majority of the different regions of the U.S. either.
That being said, I've lived abroad for nearly 15 years in many different countries and continents - South America, Europe and Asia. It's all the same in that regard. I was amazed at how completely unknowledgeable people were about Asia when I lived in Spain, for example. But it makes sense.
The only really worldly nation I know of if the UK, mostly because of it's commonwealth and colonies, which it often records the news about.
I also find Scandinavian countries to be worldy, perhaps because their populations are so small. But once you get into France size or Germany size, you see much less biligualism and more insular-ness.
The U.S., much like China or Russia or Brazil...is just so massive. You can easily travel 1000 kilometers, and still be in the same country, much different than Belgium, for example, 100 kilometers from many different nations. That being said, even small nations generally have most of their knowledge only about the countries just bordering it, not necessarily intimate knowledge and information about far, far away countries and places.
Why are Americans focused on America? The same reason Chinese are focused on China and Italians are focused on Italy.
Good point!
When people say 'why is America so focused on America', what they are generally trying to say is 'why isn't America more focused one ME and where I live!' hehe
I guess that it's a question of the media.
When you read any European or Latin American local paper, you'll find it plastered with news from all around the world. Most people knows what is happening in very remote corners of the world.
In some of those countries, international news were and are used as a curtain to hide local and national problems.
If you read an American local paper, let's say the Miami Herald, you'll find mostly local information or very localized information about Israel and Latin America, the rest of the world does not exist.
I guess that papers from "Middle America" include far less foreign news.
The UK was like that some years ago.
I remember that once the big telephone cable that communicated UK with Europe broke for some reason, and all the papers in England published "Europe is incommunicated".
They mostly just care about america, and that's mostly the only country they make reference to on tv shows and on the news. America isn't a very worldly country.
Well, I can only speak for myself as an American, but I am and have always been not only interested in other countries and cultures but sympathetic to their struggles with the United States. Many times reading the history of our relationships with other cultures and nations my take on right and wrong has made me side with the other country or culture instead of my own.
And in that light, I agree with you. There are highly nationalistic attitudes by a large swath of Americans, usually on the Right of the political spectrum.
The Political Left in the U.S. is much less likely to fall into Jingoism.
When people say 'why is America so focused on America', what they are generally trying to say is 'why isn't America more focused one ME and where I live!' hehe
I'm sitting in japan right now and watching CNN. I can't get anything domestic, it's all about Japan and Libya all the time and has been for three weeks.
According to the commercial though, I can watching something called 'African Voices' this weekend though.
I once heard some European blowhard talk about how much more "sophisticated" and "worldly" Europe is compared to the United States because Europeans travel internationally more often than Americans. You wanna know why Europeans do more international travel? Pick a random point in Europe, and then pick a random point in the United States. Travel 300 miles in any direction from the point in Europe, and you'll probably cross an international border. Travel 300 miles in any direction from the point in the United States, and you might cross a state line. (France is the largest country in western Europe, and it's still smaller than Texas.)
I think all Nations tend to be inward looking but I would agree that the American Media seems to be overly so. To be fair to the US , it is almost a continent in itself , vast and with huge geopgraphical and in many ways cultural differences so in a way America is its own isolated Island so to speak.
Most people wherever you go tend to be focused mostly on their own problems and issues, it seems quite a normal part of human nature to me. America by its sheer vastness and its lack of neighbours is possibly even more isolationist because it can be I suppose.
ALL of us could do with a little more openess and knowledge when it comes to the rest of the world. But yes I must admit I find American News singularily uninterested in Foreign Politics and current affairs and am often surprised at how little Americans seem to care, never mind know about the rest of the world.
When it comes down to it though, the French think mostly about France, the Germans about Germany, the Chinese about China , etc... etc.... It is quite natural but it would not hurt for America's media to be a little more challenging in its reporting of Foreign issues. I have found Europeans on the whole far more knowledgeable at least about European and American political issues, if not maybe Asia.
Insularity is something all humans share though, and it is exarcebated when there are such vast geographic distances between two countries' coasts/borders and when that country is so powerful and used to getting its own way. Even though the US are just as dependent on other Nations as the rest of the world, I think it is easy for many Americans to ignore that fact and to feel that there is no other world outside of the US.
But we ALL do this to a certain extent . I personally prefer to keep informed about the world at large and its socio political shifts and the vagaries of foreign policies be they of the UK, France, US, etc... It just makes me feel I have a better understanding of current affairs and social issues but I know most people be they American or not could not care less.
In the end most people are only interested in their own backyard . I find it limiting in scope and boring but who am I to judge ?
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hehe