Are we really all that dumb

[CBR]

ceasar010

One reason the number of languages spoken might seem important for Europeans is that in some of the countries you could end up crossing the border if you take the wrong turn

USA is a country of 290+ million people (most areenglish speaking) and, apart from Spanish perhaps, there is no real need to learn other languages while its more natural to visit other countries here in Europe, vacation, business etc because the continent is divided into so many nations and languages.

To use my own country as an example. Denmark has only 5.4 million people and with big trading partners like UK and Germany it means we simply cant keep to our own as its always good to know the local language if you want to do business with them.


CBR

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Another answer to caesar...

You want to know if kids in high school here get it rough if nerdy?

Travel and see by yourself, be openminded about it... And for that, you also need to learn the language, learn the habits, and challenge the way YOU are behaving.

Louis,

[Sjakihata]

Just a question for you euros


It seems alot (not all) of students here do bad(in school) almost on purpose because they dont want to look "nerdy" or anything like that. This is in grade school to high school. Do some students have that attitude in your countries or is that a mainly an american attitude.

I reckognize that trend back when I was in highschool. To or three persons (actually very intelligent) didnt do homework etc, in order to be cool - and hang out with the gang.

The trend is there - but not very big. Most people dont want to waste 3 years in highschool and come out with an average of 7.0 (or D in american system I think).

[Don Corleone]

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.

[Ronin]

Just a question for you euros


It seems alot (not all) of students here do bad(in school) almost on purpose because they dont want to look "nerdy" or anything like that. This is in grade school to high school. Do some students have that attitude in your countries or is that a mainly an american attitude.

i saw a couple of cases in my days in high-school....

but i can´t say that there´s a "fashion" to do this.....those guys were just looked at as being morons.

[CBR]

Ah come on Don: I said "I dont recall I have ever called Americans "ignorant mentally inferior" nor do I consider Europeans to be "intellectually superior." I guess you are reacting to the usual leftwing US bashers who always likes to drag a discussion down into the mud but Im certainly not one of them."

I reacted to your use of words as I didnt see a need for them in that thread. I never claimed it was only a minority doing it although I sure wish it was one.


CBR

[Don Corleone]

Well, I would certainly agree Americans tend to be more insular than Europeans. It'd be hard to debate that. As some have suggested, a big part of this stems from the fact that the United States & Europe are roughly the same size in both landmass and population and Europe has 30 something countries while the USA is one.

I didn't know that American students perform that poorly on standarized tests against Europe & Asia. I'm not questioning the conclusion, but I'd like to see the links, if for no other reason than to learn a bit more about it.

I think America's abandonment of foreign languages in it's educational system is a terrible mistake. People point to the acutal need to speak a language, but that's only the practical side of it. A. Saturnus could shed more light on this than I, but I've read some studies in Psychology Today that suggest brain function and cognitive capacity are closely linked to language. In learning multiple languages, your brain learns to think about the same abstract concept multiple ways. Amor, die Liebe, kärlek, love & eros are NOT the same exact things.

That being said, I suggest that cultural awareness is a double-edged sword. Were you Europeans to travel to America and spend some time here, you would recognize that the America you see on television, that you assume is us.... Gerry Springer, Beverly Hills 90210, reality TV, etc. is cartoonish. It's true, I mean, these are Americans on these shows portraying Americans, and these people do exist somewhere. But it's such a gross refinement of some extreme trends that I think you come off with a very cartoonish view of us.

We don't all live in trailer parks or mansions. Not all of us have been arrested. Not all of us believe in exposing ourselves on national television. Algunos de nosotros hablamos mas que una lingua, y aun mas que uno.

My point in starting this thread & discussion wasn't to turn around and say "You see! You are a bunch of bigots". It's that sometimes, I think Europeans think Americans are thin-skinned and imagining a bias, that in reality, according to the results of our informal poll, is there roughly as often as it isn't.

[Don Corleone]

Ah come on Don: I said "I dont recall I have ever called Americans "ignorant mentally inferior" nor do I consider Europeans to be "intellectually superior." I guess you are reacting to the usual leftwing US bashers who always likes to drag a discussion down into the mud but Im certainly not one of them."

I reacted to your use of words as I didnt see a need for them in that thread. I never claimed it was only a minority doing it although I sure wish it was one.


CBR

Fair enough, I guess I misinterpreted your reply above. Interesting results none-the-less, no?

[t1master]

proles are proles the world over. the uneducated masses in america are less in terms of numbers than the uneducated masses of africa, india, asia... however, the american morons get a worse rap than the rest of the world. ;)

[CBR]

Fair enough, I guess I misinterpreted your reply above. Interesting results none-the-less, no?

No worries mate

Yes its interesting or rather disturbing...

But then again the poll doesnt specify ignorant in what way

I bet Europeans know more about Europe than the Americans but it goes the other way around too. Does Europeans know more about the middle east than Americans, I have no idea. Are Europeans a bit more open to other cultures, as they are more used to learning other languages and have lots of nations as neighbours. Or are Americans more open as they are living in a melting pot? Or is the same overall?

I think big nations might be more "ignorant" compared to smaller nations and I dont consider USA to be alone there.


CBR

[Hurin_Rules]

Americans are no less intelligent than any other people. On the other hand, on average they do tend to be more ignorant. Partly this is due to geography and history: America is more isolated than European or Asian nations, for example, so it is harder for Americans to travel to other places where they speak different languages and have different cultures. Add to this the American military, economic and cultural dominance, and you have a recipe for a culture that is rather myopic. America is the best--why care what anyone else thinks? You see it constantly on this forum. It doesn't take a genius--or a non-american to spot it.

[Craterus]

By the way, I was not proving the point... that was a typo.

Haha, I was going to pick up on that.

I think that some Americans are very ignorant, but there are citizens in every nation that are ignorant. Perhaps, the common belief is because many nations disagree with American policies and think that they are ignoarant and therefore tar the entire nation with the same brush.

[Kanamori]

To get into most of the Wisconsin State Colleges, you have at least three years of some foreign language (typically, they are either German, French, Spanish, or Latin). It is the same for most of the colleges whose requirements I've looked at. I've had five years of Spanish, and most of my old schoolmates had four or five years in whatever language they chose. On top of that, I, and most of my other schoolmates, took one year in the other languages. (Most grade schools in Wisconsin have three choices: French and German are pretty constant, but Latin and Spanish can be switched around.) The school system is quite different here. It is largely by districts, those districts fund their schools with property taxes. It would stand to reason, then, that a district in the rich suburbs would have more money, and, almost undoubtebly, would be better at educating than the perhaps poorer city areas. Perhaps on a side note, whenever we get foreign exchange students, typically about five to ten a year, they are always amazed at how different it is than what they imagined.

I'm not questioning the conclusion, but I'd like to see the links, if for no other reason than to learn a bit more about it.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/linking/
(Math/science comparison)
It is basically the only comparative between the USA and other nations regarding grade school students. I believe it is important to look at the mean, but I believe it is also quite interesting to look at the distribution. It may suggest that our stupid people tend to just be more stupid. I guess they are more embarassing too

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Personally I beleive Americans are more informed because many of us realize the threat that International Socialism poses to freedom and liberty worldwide. There are other reasons too...mainly because we're smart enough not to demilitarize with all the threats to international liberty (China, North Korea, Iran, Palestine, etc).

[Proletariat]

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/linking/

Can we kick Mississippi out? Japanese children must be smarter while still in the womb than these characters.



I guess I'm glad I was raised primarily in Virginia.

[drone]

Regarding languages, I took two years of French and one year of German in high school. Do I remember any of it? No. When you have nobody around to practice with, you lose it. Spanish is the one language that most Americans can use with native speakers on a regular basis. You can even watch Univision or Telemundo to stay sharp.

Americans are no dumber than Europeans, but we are fairly ignorant of the outside world. Most Americans don't have passports, the mainstream press does not report foreign news much, and we have two great big bodies of water separating us from everybody but Canadians and Latinos. We don't need to go overseas to visit "exotic locations", we have beaches, mountains, deserts, etc. all right here.

proles are proles the world over. the uneducated masses in america are less in terms of numbers than the uneducated masses of africa, india, asia... however, the american morons get a worse rap than the rest of the world. ;)

The problem is, we put our morons on TV...

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Americans know less languages that's for sure, it isn't needed here. What I've always thought and heard is that our grade schools and high schools are inferior but our Universities are much better (they certainly cost enough). I know some US colleges have 10% foreign students. My brother took some classes in colleges in Japan and said they were not very good schools.

Most of the tests that put Americans as uninformed and done in grade school or highschool.

For geography, I seem to remember most of the time being spent on learning all the states and their capitals.

[Proletariat]

proles are proles the world over. the uneducated masses in america are less in terms of numbers than the uneducated masses of africa, india, asia... however, the american morons get a worse rap than the rest of the world. ;)

Hey, hey. Quit calling the proles morons.

*throws her earrings at t1master*

[Redleg]

Well I have been in a total of 8 nations - 4 in the Americas, 3 in Asia and one in Europe. And guess what I have found that every nation has its share of ignorant people, and the height of arrogancy thinking that any nation is more or less intelligent then another. Or that one nations citizens know more then another's.

I could point out a few things about the United States that no one in Europe would know - just like many Europeans can point out things I don't know. To assume Americans are more ignorant then any other nation - is the height of ignorance and smacks of bigoted philisophies.

[Moros]

I didn't know that American students perform that poorly on standarized tests against Europe & Asia. I'm not questioning the conclusion, but I'd like to see the links, if for no other reason than to learn a bit more about it.

are you talking about the test I poosted about? If you do, well I'll look if I can find it but like I said I saw it on the news but it might be on their site I'll look it up so I can come up with the exact numbers. And I'll post te link if someone is interested.(it will be dutch tough).

You people make it seem that you have to know 2 or 3 languages to do well in life.
I know some people that can speak spanish they almost fail on all the other subjects. Being able to speak (insert language here) doesn't make you you know better math or science. I would rather know those then learn a language I will probably never need to use.

well the test I saw showed also the results of the maths tests, I can't remember if amarica was in the top ten (they only showed the top 10).
I only remebered Belgium was the best at maths of all countries (Jesus, we are such a geek country, we suck at evrything but maths ).

But Don's right, about the "language-brain-thingy" my dad, who's learning psychology (sp?) (even tough he's 50) has said it to me at times when I did'nt fel learning my latin or French. It's the about same with musicians (sp?), at least if they started playing ince they were "young".
(I'm smart,I'm smart, I speak more than 1 language and I play the guitar since I was about 9 years old )

anyway I'm going to search for that article and link it.

[Strike For The South]

Screw America us southerners are the best on a more serious note everyone gets hit with stupid stereotypes and this is just one more

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Can we kick Mississippi out? Japanese children must be smarter while still in the womb than these characters.



I guess I'm glad I was raised primarily in Virginia.

West Virginia?

Hey, next you're going to ask for New Hampshire to be taken out, and eventually you're going to be left with Mass !

If you kick Miss out, I ask for Les Vosges to be kicked out for France!
(that's our hilly place where people are not aware they don't have to marry their cousin... at best...)

Louis,

[Byzantine Prince]

Stupidity and ignorance are not the same. Lot's of places in the world are more *ignorant* then the US in terms of basic knowledge. Most people in the world have on basic education if not less. I don't think americans are *stupid* either.

I think *some* americans are just unitelligent about things that they think don't concern them. These *some* just hapen to be louder and more abnoxous then the intelligent people so we notice them more.

[Goofball]

I had to vote "I'm not American and I think they Americans are more ignorant." However, I would like to make the distinction that there is really no correlation between intelligence and ignorance. I don't think Americans are, as a people, any less intelligent than any other nation on Earth. But I do find that just due to the size, power, and global cultural influence that their nation exerts, Americans tend to be more ignorant about other nations than other nations are of them.

However, this (in my mind) doesn't really reflect badly on them. I was watching a Canadian broadcaster talking about this very subject (the fact that Canadians tend to know much more about the U.S. than Americans know about Canada) recently. The Canadian newsman basically said "Why the hell should we expect them to know all about us?" His take (which I agree with) was that what goes on in the U.S. affects us in Canada to a very large degree. On the other hand, what goes on in Canada really has little or no effect on the lives of the average American. For Canadians, it is in our best interest to keep an eye on and understand what happens in the U.S., but there is really no reason for Joe Lunchpail living in New Jersey to really pay attention to us.

[mystic brew]

Well, I would certainly agree Americans tend to be more insular than Europeans. It'd be hard to debate that.

That being said, I suggest that cultural awareness is a double-edged sword. Were you Europeans to travel to America and spend some time here, you would recognize that the America you see on television, that you assume is us.... Gerry Springer, Beverly Hills 90210, reality TV, etc. is cartoonish. It's true, I mean, these are Americans on these shows portraying Americans, and these people do exist somewhere. But it's such a gross refinement of some extreme trends that I think you come off with a very cartoonish view of us.

Yeah.. absolutely spot on, that.

though it does give people the impression that they known america... and thats significant. Since it is often the case that americans know next to nothing about Europe, while europeans have a distorted and cartoonish view of America.

So, as usual, i think it's probably a lot to do with the atmosphere of mutual accusations.

[Don Corleone]

A few more interesting points...


I said Americans are more or less ignorant... not of other cultures, just ignorant. I find it interesting that most of the Candians and Europeans equate knowledge of other cultures as knowledge outright.

One thing I will say about America, beyond us being insular, we seem to be more interested in national sovereignty issues and minding our own business (please, no Iraq cracks) then other countries. We generally don't attempt to form a panel at the UN to force Canada to do something we want them to do. If we want them to do something, we go after them ourselves. What's more, unless it's impacting us directly, we don't mess around in Canada's affairs (using Canada as an example). It wouldn't occur to us to pass the small arms ban you're all trying to shove through the UN.

That might have something to do with perceived power globally, but as the combined EU has a military as large as the US and a larger population than the US, that argument kinda goes out the window.

Oh, and current score among the Europeans.... 60% of you think Americans are more ignorant on average.

Oh, interesting point... in another thread, Americans are leading among Europeans for being more arrogant. Yet, here, 2 Americans think we're less informed and no Americans think we're more informed. A majority of Europeans think they're more informed and no Europeans think Americans might be. Either we're not the most arrogant, or this isn't even a horserace any more, Americans are oblivious AND arrogant about it.

[Big_John]

i voted the first choice. from my travels in europe, and the us, i think that europeans, on average, are more informed and interested in informing themselves than americans. hence, americans are more ignorant. i don't think the difference in huge, but it's there.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Well looking at the poll results there leaves little doubt to which society is more concieted.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I don't feel the need to vote anonymously. I voted:
"I'm not American and I think Americans are more ignorant"

Along with just about everybody else, with that I mean a lack of knowledge of other countries, of an awareness of the world and not IQ.

More importantly, to be exact, I think the uneducated masses in the US are more ignorant than the uneducated masses in Europe.
I don't think at all that there is a difference in ignorance between the higher educated in Europe and the US. That's an important refinement.

Those with higher education on both sides of the Atlantic all know who wrote Moby Dick, can point out Argentina on a map and know who Michelangelo was.

It's just that there seem to be such an awful lot of hicks, of people completely and utterly ignorant of the outside world in America. They make up entire villages. You can travel for hundreds of miles through countless counties in America without meeting just a single educated person. In Europe you'd find that only in the most remote, insular or mountainous area's and Belgium.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Those with higher education on both sides of the Atlantic all know who wrote Moby Dick, can point out Argentina on a map and know who Michelangelo was.

Those on both sides who are over 50 can do all that higher education or not. I find you eurpoeans arrogance uterly amazing here. You claim to know more about the world but in reality all you know more about is europe. Yes you know about more countries because their in your backyard. You think you know about the US but in reality most of you are clueless on the matter.