You know, I'm glad you said all of this.
In my experience with American's, I mean on my travels, they have no clue about anything outside of America, generally speaking. They couldn't tell me if Sydney was on the eat or west coast for instance.
I think it's largely to do with the things to mention, the indoctrination as such.
American's set the time for the world (America, I guess I mean) and yet they know so little about it outside of the land of the free. It's a very interesting issues I guess.
I tend to rate people based on who they are. I will dislike or not relate to, an African person as quickly as a Chinese, Native American, or Iraqi person...But based on who they are, their actions as an individual, not their country of origin.
I don't know what it is about America and the way it rolls...I think there's a lot that needs addressing...But that could be said for other parts of the world, Australia included.
You should do a post about this. Just saying.
I take that as a compliment--thank you. just sayin
If you liked that one. Oh man, Wait'll you hear the one about two Americans who have the choice to leave or stay and they're leaving.
Ok, I'm crawling back into my suit now
PS--East.
You know? I have to think about it because it feels to me like Sydney should be on the west coast, but I know that it isn't. Part of that, frankly is that I often look at a globe and you all are upside down.
Americans aren't so much ignorant as enamored with themselves. A huge fraction of the people of the US honestly believe that America and Americans are just better than and so consequently if you are in Lichtenstein or Uzbekistan it's all the same neighborhood and who cares?
I mean really. If we're not smarter than everybody else how come we let a South African genius take over our Automobile business and our Space Flight industry? He's soon going to be the premier ISP on earth and THEN you'll see how smart we really are.
I wouldn't say ignorant. More like classically trained. Just from my experience and people I talk to I'm saying us Americans, as a group, shouldn't be proud of our geography knowledge--we suck at it.
I'll bet there is a place on the innerwebs where they've run a 'see the shape name the state' test over the years and I'll just bet the numbers are brutal. That's of our own states. Let alone countries of the world.