Text 1719, 58 rader
Skriven 2007-05-20 16:39:25 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
     Kommentar till en text av shannon talley
Ärende: This Echo
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 st> My point is that people of many nations, including the United States,
can't
 st> see the mountain past the trees.  They believe the world revolves around
 st> them.  MANY Americans believe exactly the same thing.  Actually, I think
 st> its epidemic here.   I can guess it's largely because we are separated by
this
 st> very large body of water from Europe, but I may be wrong.  We don't talk
 st> enough about businesses and cultures in other countries nearly enough in
 st> the elementary schools, and by large, we don't in graduate / undergraduate
 st> schools either.  Unless one specifically studies business on the graduate
 st> level, sociology, or other specific courses of study that introduce them
to
 st> cultures, Americans really aren't expose to international cultures in
 st> school.

   Isn't it strange that you can get away with statements like the above, but
whenever I make similar statements it's solid proof that I hate -- *HATE* --
the average US John Doe? That I have lived and worked in the US for many
months, and subsequently have made a lot of friends over there, seems to matter
naught.

   Some time ago I posted a link to the Roper Survey
(http://felten.se/RoperSurvey.pdf) that not only proves what you say above,
without anything substantiating it, but also showed lots of other really
astonishing lack of knowledge -- even concerning their own country -- by the
average USAian. Such as 11% couldn't even place USA on a world map!?!?!?

   But since the average USAian obviously doesn't even know how many they and
their countrymen are, it's not really surprising that they, 5% of the world's
population, dismisses the rest of the world, as totally insignificant,
completely. How about this quote from the Roper Survey?

   - = * = -

1. Population

In all countries except Mexico and the U.S., a majority of respondents
correctly chose their own countryâ€Ös population; in fact, in Sweden (95%) and
Japan (84%), the overwhelming majority answered correctly.

   Compared with their counterparts in other countries, young Americans were
far less likely to estimate the population of their own country correctly. Just
one-fourth of young American adults (25%) selected the proper range -- 150
million to 350 million -- from four choices. This represents a decrease from
the 1988 study, when 32% answered correctly.

   Interestingly, young Americans who answered the question incorrectly tended
to grossly overstate the U.S. population. In fact, three in ten (30%) said that
the U.S. population is 1 billion to 2 billion people, or nearly one-third of
the total world population.

   Americans in the older age group (25 to 34) were more likely than their
younger counterparts to answer correctly (31%), but a majority also overstated
the U.S. population. Additionally, as in the younger group, fewer adults age 25
to 34 answered correctly than did in 1988 (31% vs. 41%).

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 * Origin: news://felten.yi.org (2:203/2)