An Explanation of American Ignorance

Americans have a (mostly) justified reputation of being ignorant of the rest of the world. I'm not excusing this ignorance, but I will try to explain why it exists. It's not because individual Americans are dumber than anyone else, but is a a consequence of the USA's geography, culture, and educational policies.

The United States is a huge country. Its territory includes everything from tropical beaches to frozen wastelands; it encompasses an endless variety of deserts, forests, lakes, and grasslands. American cities range from the bustle of New York to the insanity of Las Vegas to the laid-back sophistication of San Francisco. Keeping this in mind, it's easy to see why so many Amercans don't feel the need to leave the country when they want to experience something new.

American travel habits are also a function of geography. The US is only bordered by two countries--Canada and Mexico--and most Americans who travel outside the US only visit one of these two (until very recently a passport was not even required). Travel anywhere else starts getting expensive. Unlike Europeans, Americans can't just hop on a €20 Ryan Air flight and arrive in a totally different culture.

Because of its economy and large population, America's culture is almost entirely self-contained. Foreign movies and TV show are of course available, but rarely become popular. Consequently, other cultures are often presented in ways that are stereotypical or laughably inaccurate.

The news media is probably the main cause of American ignorance. Quite simply, there are no stories about events taking place outside the US unless they involve the US military, threats to America, or are simply too large to ignore. Aliens watching nothing but broadcasts from major networks could reasonably conclude that the earth was comprised entirely of America, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, and China. The average American doesn't have the time or inclination to dig through the web or the back pages of the newspaper to find out what's happening in the rest of the world and so are stuck with what is readily available.

Finally we get to education. To call the the educational system America-centric (Amero-centric? US-centric?) is an understatement. The rest of the world exists only when it interacts with the United States and no one seems to care what it does the rest of the time. As far as most textbooks are concerned, WWII started when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and previous two years of European fighting are an unimportant footnote. The American attitude to history can best be summed up by the fact that most high school students take two years of American history and only one year of world history. That's right, only one year to learn about the history of the entire world.