The USA – is there actually another country in this world?
When you think of Americans, which stereotypes come to your mind? They are into guns, obesity is a big problem, they are as patriotic as one can be, do you see them as racists or even religious fanatics? Of course there are positive stereotypes, too. US citizens are often seen as optimists and hard-working people who are generous and like to volunteer.
In this blog post,
however, I want to engross my mind in one of many typical
stereotypes: Geography is not the strength of Americans,
mostly because they never leave their own country. The
thought of being the most important and
powerful state in
the world and behaving
ignorant against every other culture goes hand in hand with the lack
of topographical knowledge. This
topic appeals to me because geography is an interesting subject per
se and I want to see behind the curtains of a major prejudice which lets
Americans look dumb, stupid and proud of it.
There
is a great
variety
of images and
videos
available on the Internet that are meant to prove the
lack of geographical knowledge. Introducing
some of the pictures
to you, in order to let
you know what exactly this stereotype is about, I start with a very
disturbing one. It illustrates both ignorance and arrogance against
the rest
of the world but also a lack of knowledge
in terms of cultures and landscapes in
their own country:
The
following very
popular
drawing
shows a
small improvement to
the previous one,
although there are still some small mistakes, but
see for yourself:
It
cannot get any worse? No, it cannot indeed. Although I do
not think
the next one is much
better.
It
demonstrates
in an ironic way how the “Rest of the world” is thought to be
seen by Americans. Especially
the colors are noticeable:
Last but not least, a very
detailed insight into the stereotype world around the USA. The key of
this map tells us that Americans are proud of having killed Osama bin
Laden as well as of the wars they conducted and won. Canadians are seen as
morons, Greenland is the home of Santa Claus and Africa consists of
sand, gold and diamonds. Saudi Arabia is the most essential part of
the world because it offers the USA the opportunity to exploit it so
as to keep their status as superpower:
After looking at these examples, a rational thinking world citizen has to ask
themselves important questions: Where did this stereotype of
ignorance, arrogance and lack of geographical knowledge derive from
and is it true?
Americas embarrassing
ranking in geography testings (Example one; Example two) is the easiest part to explain. Nobody learns something they are not
interested in. Additionally, I found out that most schools in the US focus on
subjects that either help pupils to receive a job later on or
deal with American culture, history and literature. As a result, it
is not surprising that children do not know anything about geography
nowadays, having no one who encourages them to learn it.
The reason for this lack
of interest in teaching geography lays in both American
history and geography itself. In the first one hundred years after
foundation, the Atlantic Ocean represented a large barrier that
divided the USA from Europe, considering that the latter was the
center of power back then. Furthermore, the United States were
confined in the south by weak Spanish colonies and in the north by
Canada which was occupied by Great Britain, so it initially posed a threat on
the US. The years of the British-American War followed and the
relationship between America and the United Kingdom improved rapidly
after that. Consequently, Canada was not dangerous anymore.
There was enough room for
the Americans to expand their territory and they also experienced an
industrial boom in the late 19th century. They were busy
with trading and expanding as well as looking for new sources in
their own, larger and larger growing country. Being that isolated and
busy with the execution of all these plans, it is no surprise that
citizens were more interested in setting up their state than learning
about others.
On the other hand, America
had a lot of contact to foreign countries throughout the last
century. Beginning with World War One, followed by World War Two and
the Cold War, the USA are deeply involved in a war against terrorism today. It would be logical that American citizens have grown interest in
geography in all these years of international affairs, but they did
not. It seems plausible that the average American does not want to be
bothered with war, international business and politics because they are satisfied with their
status as a member of a superpower. They have everything they need in
their own country, including advanced technology and food resources
as well as great environmental variety. The country is almost as big
as the whole European continent. That means if an American wants to go on a skiing vacation, they can do it in the USA, if they want to
relax on the beach, they can also do it in the USA. Neither a weekend
trip to one of the biggest cities in the world, nor a camel ride
through a desert are impossible within one state border.
As always, stereotypes are chained to the entirety of a culture, but there are many adventurers among
Americans who travel the world. Those who do not go away, in contrast, can
definitely refer convincing reasons for their decision.
In conclusion, there is to
say that most part of this stereotype is true, but understandable if you
do some research on the background of the topic. Yet, it sometimes
seems as if Americans try to live in their safe bubble and as long as nothing
affects themselves personally, the outside world does not matter. One
might think that for instance 9/11, obvious terrorism on American soil, must have
woken up the citizens, but as this survey shows, nine out of ten Americans were unable to find Afghanistan on an Asia
map after that terrible incident. Maybe because the world out there is so scary, depressing and
far away for them.
Sources: http://hubpages.com/hub/American-Ignorance-of-Global-Geography
http://ancientheart2013.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/the-problem-of-geographical-ignorance-in-america/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Americans
http://ancientheart2013.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/the-problem-of-geographical-ignorance-in-america/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Americans
