Are we really all that dumb

**mystic brew** · 08-02-2005, 13:25

I tend to agree with sharrukin about this.

it's not a question of intellience. Of course it isn't. There may be a prevailing tide of anti-intellectualism, but that is by no means unique to america.

it's a question of isolation from much of the rest of the world. a lot of 'average' americans feel no need to engage with people outside america, because everything they need is right there. America is so big and so varied that this is a big enough world. You just need to look at the percentage of people who don't own passports.

But, conversely, most of the rest of the world is bombarded with Americana of various sorts... America is clearly the dominant world cultural power. So, though this image we recieve may not be entirely true, at least we have an image of america.

from personal experience, a few anecdotes...
In the US, i had college graduates asking me the following questions

1. in the UK, what language do you speak?
2. do you have electricity in england?
3. when you went to Zimbabwe, weren't you worried about cannibals?

These weren't stupid people. not in the slightest. About America they had sound, well thought out, interesting theories. I doubt you would find equivalent college graduates in Europe asking those questions. They simply had never had that information given to them.

so i think europeans think of americans as ignorant because we largely think we have a good feel for america, while americans know little or nothing about us.

call it specific ignorance, rather than general, or intellectual.

**Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe** · 08-02-2005, 13:30

Ignorant, I don't know...

But naive enough to ask about it, that's for sure

Louis,

PS: ok, Don, you're the one who gave me that stick

**Sjakihata** · 08-02-2005, 13:39

Oh, concerning the isolation debate - look on languages for example. How many languages does the average american speak? I would guess 2, american (english) and spanish maybe.

In a Danish normal scool (the first 9 years) you HAVE to study two foriegn languages. English and german or french (normally german). Then in highschool you can add a number of languages.
For example, it is typical to have: english, german, french/spanish/italian/russian and latin in highschool.

To learn a language in itself doesnt make you smarter (I think) but it makes good ground for _really_ understanding a culture, which I think we (europeans) do better/easier simply because of the geography.

However, the bigger european countries Germany, France and England - doesnt have the same need to learn languages as the smaller countries of course.

Often in france, you'll find persons who speak english but simply refusing speaking it, that's another matter ;)

**Don Corleone** · 08-02-2005, 15:54

Originally Posted by Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe

Ignorant, I don't know...

But naive enough to ask about it, that's for sure

Louis,

PS: ok, Don, you're the one who gave me that stick

No offense taken.

I wouldn't have asked the question and not expected a few zingers here or there. But thus far, we're getting the poll results I expected, that CBR claimed I was out of line on. Roughly half of the non-American crowd thinks Americans are ignorant. The anecdotal commentary seems to support this, as well as suggest reasons for this view.

**Franconicus** · 08-02-2005, 13:41

I do not think that Americans in general are more dumb than Europeans. They are different. There are some areas they have no clue and others were they are better.

America is a big country. So there are many who do not care about foreign countries and never had much contact. In Europe you find borders and different cultures everywhere. So you have to learn about other nations.
Further more Americans speak English. So they do not really have to learn another language. In Europe most of the people (and I mean ordinary people) speak more than one language.

Most of the Americans I know are very nationalistic and kind of conservative. That means they have some deadlocked ideas about things like their military, communism, socialsm, guns, UN, ... . They believe that America is God's own country (whatever that means). So they are not very open what is going on somewhere else. Kind of selffocused.

Americans are more progressive, which means they can deal much better with changes. Europeans stick to their old ideas and habits.

The Americans have some habbits that seem to be very very strange to Europeans.

All together: Americans are nice but strange kind of people. And they are not dumb.

**Tribesman** · 08-02-2005, 13:47

Humans are dumb , it don't matter where they come from , all people are idiots , the only difference might be thats some people don't realise that they are idiots .
Humans eh ...so reliable ?

**Beirut** · 08-02-2005, 13:57

One has only to watch Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans to get an attitude, if not an honest opinion, on the question.

Americans are certainly not dumb. They build F-22s, Space Shuttles, remote control toys to drive around on Mars. No one else can do those things. America certainly holds the brightest minds. However, because of the nature of American history, their successes, and their overwhelming belief that their systems of government, economics and military are the greatest in the history of the world, indeed the very zenith of human capacity, (some)Americans do tend to look inwards a bit more then they look outwards. At least as far as other country's cultures and habits go.