Quoth Rosser Jr, John Barkley:
> Doug,
> That's because you are in the US mostly reading US
> media and lit. Everybody in Europe knows it is a big deal
> and if you are there reading the local media at all for any
> extended period of time it is very clear that it is a big
> deal and that everybody knows it. It is a constant, almost
> daily, topic of news and commentary in almost every EU member.
> You may be right about perceptions in the US, but then
> it is well known in the rest of the world that most
> Americans don't [know] their asses from a hole in the ground about
> anything outside the US, unless US troops or the British
> royal family are involved.
While it would be rash to assume that Doug is generally provincial in his
readings, the apparent news xenophobia of perhaps a majority in America
is indeed something to worry and wonder about. A sort of twisted
patriotism may be the reason, or main reason. America has been at war or
near war with so many countries - even Britain if one goes back far enough -
that foreign news might be considered by some as simply a source of lies,
propaganda and disinformation, so why bother. Let's remember too that most
immigrants left their native shores muttering the mother tongue's equivalent
of "I'm outta here!," and that this sense of estrangement from even the
dearest of foreign places can become an attitudinal fixture of subsequent
generations, the inverse of a greater investment in American perfection.
More to the point may be educational level; to have the conceptual framework
necessary to process news from abroad requires at very least a good workout
in high school, which is becoming a rare experience outside immigrant
neighborhoods and the more self-indulgent suburbs. Nevertheless the main
culprit may be the general attitude bred by what passes for US foreign
policy: If we're always right and they're always wrong, why bother to look
more deeply into things. When the US is poor and weak, its citizens will
peruse the affairs of states and nations with an objectivity born of
humility and dependence. Till then consider how I applied one-liner reason
in the case of one small life here in Milwaukee. I told a guy that
ignoring foreign news was as ridiculous as not following the Brewers when
they're on the road. For him, anyway, this quip worked.
valis
