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In my best British accent--"I say chap! Let us go see Lexington,Concord and especially Yorktown. We shall see where the Yanks kicked our bums!"
......well, at Yorktown they know it was the French that did much of the kicking, which makes it worse!
However, what is not taught in U.S. public schools is that public opinion in Britain was not solidly behind the British effort from day one...even some bishops in the state church were against it. Britian was staggering under a huge national debt at the time and beset with other military demands, and finally the weight of public opposition and the increasing politcal opposition brought the war to an end.
It is not especially seen as a military defeat. Rather like Vietnam in the U.S. it was the domestic situation that brought the war to an end.
Just so I am getting this straight - if I am going for an undergrad degree (bachelor's) in, say, computer science or mathematics, I have to take *two years* of liberal arts stuff as well? Sorry if I am misunderstanding.
Yes, roughly that.
I don't think it's popular to call "liberal arts" classes that any more - for example, my college calls them "General Education" requirements. They are in the following categories:
1) Cultural Diversity
2) Social Science
3) World Language
4) Literature
5) Analytical Reasoning
6) Natural Science
7) History
8) Fine Arts
9) Philosophy
10) Religious Studies
11) Upper Division Writing-Intensive Courses
In addition, there's "Dignitas", a full-year (two semester) "freshman seminar" everyone is required to take their first year.
Classes like these are supposed to make you a "well-rounded" individual.
All of the European fine arts museums like the Louvre, Prado, Uffizi, Rijksmuseum are FULL of American tourists.
That said, it does seem that on the ground in the U.S. most people have less knowledge of "classical" culture (classical music, painting, sculpture, classic literature, etc.) than in Europe. And my observation has been that this is not always related to social class. Sure, upper class people in both places tend to know more, but it also drills down through the various classes: middle class bank managers in Europe are more "classic" in their cultural knowledge than people of the same socio-economic and educational level in the U.S.
In the U.S., you can fairly easily meet people with PhDs or Master's degrees who could not hum a few bars of anything by Mozart if their life depended on it, who could not name you one single Impressionist painter, or who think Dante is only some guy who played quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings.
One of the reasons why is probably that the U.S. education system is very oriented towards job skills. This is true even at university. In Europe and many other places in the world, (part of) the education system's job is also to train future citizens and (the general view of what is supposedly a) well-rounded individual. It's not only about jobs - it's about being aware of the world you live in, how it got to be that way and where it is going. And this will be taught to you (to at least some degree) regardless of whether you are destined to work in a highly technical field where "culture" is largely irrelevant.
BTW, none of this should be seen as a condemnation of the U.S. way of doing things. I am just pointing out the obvious differences (to me).
First of all great post.
I think this is why americans to the world appear as "stupid". Americans don't really have lower iq's for example!
But still americans in my point of view tends to be less aware of the world around them.
So calling americans stupid would actually be wrong maybe unwillingly ignorant
Also people in america tend to know alot about a specific subjet. So many people could babble for hours about something in their job and then lack "normal" common knowledge.
I think Italian, Spanish and Portuguese cultures are the most "different" from the rest. These are latin countries, with more "machismo", more family-oriented, more traditional as well in general and finally less americanised. Few Italians would ever eat in a mc donald's or drink coffee at starbucks, they stick to their own traditional places, ways and food. The same goes for portuguese and to a lesser extend most Spanish.
Last edited by Cornerguy1; 08-30-2011 at 07:04 PM..
Reason: off topic material removed
Given the price of higher education in the US one can hardly afford to not graduate once one has started.
In the US life is much more about money and career, and that shows in every aspect of life. Work seems to be the goal of life almost. In other countries that is just not the case.
By the way, is South America considered part of the West?
I think Italian, Spanish and Portuguese cultures are the most "different" from the rest. These are latin countries, with more "machismo", more family-oriented, more traditional as well in general and finally less americanised. Few Italians would ever eat in a mc donald's or drink coffee at starbucks, they stick to their own traditional places, ways and food. The same goes for portuguese and to a lesser extend most Spanish.
----
No machismo in Spain, women rule here.
Men here are abused by women, and legislation always protects women.
Family oriented? In the past...
Italians and Spanish eat at Mc donalds, more so if you have kids.
We have a Mc Auto here that sells more than most conventional restaurants.
As Americanised as the rest.
Italian, Spanish and French culture are the closest cultures to Classical Western Culture.
I think this is why americans to the world appear as "stupid". Americans don't really have lower iq's for example!
But still americans in my point of view tends to be less aware of the world around them.
So calling americans stupid would actually be wrong maybe unwillingly ignorant
Also people in america tend to know alot about a specific subjet. So many people could babble for hours about something in their job and then lack "normal" common knowledge.
--------
America is a land of contrasts. You have the dumbest people on earth and the smartest people on earth.
No machismo in Spain, women rule here.
Family oriented? In the past...
Italians and Spanish eat at Mc donalds, more so if you have kids.
We have a Mc Auto here that sells more than most conventional restaurants.
As Americanised as the rest.
Italian, Spanish and French culture are the closest cultures to Classical Western Culture.
Here in Portugal it is also women that rule, even though it might not seem that way at first glance. But girls and women seem strikingly brighter and wittier than boys and men somehow. I never noticed such a pronounced difference anywhere else.
In the cities especially young people also eat at McDonalds, but they also eat traditional Portuguese dishes. The same goes for music etc. There are many people listening to American and British music, however they also listen to traditional Portuguese music. Unlike in Germany, where I always felt that British/American music has all but replaced the German one, here in Portugal foreign stuff only complements the strong local culture.
Academics often talk about 'Western' culture as if it was one homogenous bloc, but of course 'Western' culture is as diverse as 'Western' nations (whatever your definition of them). I'm particularly interested in the difference between the Anglosphere and Continental European nations, as from what I've observed, there is quite a bit of difference between say Americans, Germans and French. French and Italian culture seems pretty different to American culture in alot of ways (being far more family orientated, for instance, which is more like the rest of the world than the US or Australia). There seems to be more appreciation for culture in Europe. For instance, in NYC, all the plasticky attractions like Times Square seemed filled with American tourists, whereas most of the visitors to the museums etc were Europeans. By most I'm talking like almost everyone I observed, which surprised me...
There are obviously differences between Britain, the US and the rest of the Commonwealth countries, which have been discussed at length. I'm just interested to know what differences you notice between the different countries, and what cultural shocks if any you experienced.
Western culture and Asian culture...both suffer from the same broad strokes...however, Asian cultures differ significantly more from each other in my opinion. Like there is almost nothing in common with say India and Japan, for example. Mostly because each asian country has its own rich culture and heritage, and dabbles into western thought as a block academically.
I think what makes 'western culture' slightly homogeneous-leaning (at least comparitive to Asia), is that most Americans and I'm assuming Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis, etc....they all study the same things about the Greeks and Romans and such...as if European history is there own 'ancient' historical heritage. They all also generally share a christian religion (even if seriously waning in areas, it's there and underscores the cultures), european art and philosophy, european approach to music - i.e. classical, etc. with certain musical concepts of what is a 'note' (compared to say India which doesn't have a musical note in the same way), etc.
I think Italian, Spanish and Portuguese cultures are the most "different" from the rest. These are latin countries, with more "machismo", more family-oriented, more traditional as well in general and finally less americanised. Few Italians would ever eat in a mc donald's or drink coffee at starbucks, they stick to their own traditional places, ways and food. The same goes for portuguese and to a lesser extend most Spanish.
Vice-versa, they are not Latin countries, I think you mean Latin countries have a Mediterranean culture.
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