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.
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