Is this why everyone thinks America is stupid?

[Mammon]

Not the people I know. They hate America because it stands for (what is left of) capitalism--for having to take responsibility for your life rather than let the state be "responsible" for you. "People" think that a "socially just" government like the ones we have in Europe is the key to a nation's prosperity; that welfare, civilization, and even life itself, are impossible without a welfare state--and they resent the fact that America has consistently been proving them wrong. They hate America for being the good, to the extent that good currently exists in the world.

...?

I personally believe that US Americans, such as, the Asian countries don't, such as, for the kids our future.

Lame answer. Do people really run around and talk about how they hate the good? I think people are pissed that this is what our education system produces, such as, US Americans.

[Inspector]

No, he's right Mammon. For every person who looks down on Americans for the stereotype of being dumb, there are four people who attack us for being the most capitalistic, egoistic nation on earth.

[Mammon]

No, he's right Mammon. For every person who looks down on Americans for the stereotype of being dumb, there are four people who attack us for being the most capitalistic, egoistic nation on earth.

Why do you think that is? Because we have the majority of people, the Conseratives, running around saying how capitalism is good and great and yet out education system produces so many idiots who have no idea what it means. Even though, yeah, the public education system is a socialist institution but, you don't see too many conseratives opposed to it.

My point is that so many people hate capitalism because they lump it in with the ridiculous and moronic culture of the conseratives. You have to understand the thinking process these people use. It's like this "You say you support X. You're an idiot. X must be wrong."

Does that make any sense? The beauty queen fits into the stereotype perfectly. Comes from a Red State, gets on the stage in front of a crowd of millions and shows a complete lack of understanding of anything or even a coherent thought process.

[Thales]

What facts did it address? What fact about why some students don't know geography did it address?

They said 1> A fairly large number of students couldn't identify America on a map. Allegedly this is a *fact*. She said, 2> she and her friends can identify America on a map and she wasn't aware of it. This is a *fact*. She then went on to offer a reasonable solution, which is to teach geography. This is a reasonable solution, since teaching is how you get facts into heads, and she can use her own experience as evidence.

It wasn't vacuous, and it's, quite frankly, absurd to say it was. This is very straight forward.

[K-Mac]

No, he's right Mammon. For every person who looks down on Americans for the stereotype of being dumb, there are four people who attack us for being the most capitalistic, egoistic nation on earth.

I think I understand what you're both getting at. They hate us because they think we're all a bunch of greedy, war mongers. But on the other hand our wealth and military might has brought much of the world peace and prosperity. I think many foreigners hate us because they see us a spoiled brats who try to impose our way on everyone else, yet they are somewhat envious and appreciative of that as well. (They want their cake and want to eat it too.) Is that the gist of it?

[Mammon]

I think I understand what you're both getting at. They hate us because they think we're all a bunch of greedy, war mongers. But on the other hand our wealth and military might has brought much of the world peace and prosperity. I think many foreigners hate us because they see us a spoiled brats who try to impose our way on everyone else, yet they are somewhat envious and appreciative of that as well. (They want their cake and want to eat it too.) Is that the gist of it?

Well not just foreigners either. What you said describes a lot of anti-American attitudes. It's the "problem" people have with the country.

[Inspector]

It wasn't vacuous, and it's, quite frankly, absurd to say it was. This is very straight forward.

What do you think is the cause for many students remaining ignorant of geography?

[Inspector]

I think I understand what you're both getting at. They hate us because they think we're all a bunch of greedy, war mongers. But on the other hand our wealth and military might has brought much of the world peace and prosperity. I think many foreigners hate us because they see us a spoiled brats who try to impose our way on everyone else, yet they are somewhat envious and appreciative of that as well. (They want their cake and want to eat it too.) Is that the gist of it?

Not quite. Note that we are not, in fact warmongers. They hate us simply because we have the most wealth, the most powerful military, and because we are a refutation of their socialist "ideals." They have been taught by Marx that wealth isn't created; it is stolen. Therefore we must be not just villains but arch-villains. They are taught that capitalism causes war, and we are in various wars. Is this the fault of hysterical self-righteous, carpet-chewing book-burning muppets with s**t for brains?* No, it must be the fault of the capitalists.

They hate us mostly because we are capitalistic (to whatever pathetic extent we still are) - in other words, they hate us for the best thing about us. This is the primary. Yes, there is the whole redneck uneducated religious wacko thing, but that is a bit of a smokescreen.

*HT to

for the turn of phrase.

[Moebius]

I think I understand what you're both getting at. They hate us because they think we're all a bunch of greedy, war mongers. But on the other hand our wealth and military might has brought much of the world peace and prosperity. I think many foreigners hate us because they see us a spoiled brats who try to impose our way on everyone else, yet they are somewhat envious and appreciative of that as well. (They want their cake and want to eat it too.) Is that the gist of it?

I think the world's feelings about America is generally pretty mixed. I know that here in Taiwan many people see them as a beacon of freedom and capitalism, but at the same time they feel like America as a culture has such a great excess of wealth that we produce a large number of people that are a bunch of shallow, apathetic, and ignorant whiners.

Basically they admire America for our principles, but have a sort of mild disdain for our culture (which isn't all that surprising since their ideas about what Americans are like generally comes from things like MTV or Hollywood).

But I mean, then there are some countries that (maybe correctly) feels that America has sacrificed or exploited them in the past for our own ends. But yeah, we as a country has done some bad things, and also done some good things. People just tend to remember the bad ones. That's just the price we pay for being the alpha among the pack.

[Mammon]

I think the world's feelings about America is generally pretty mixed. I know that here in Taiwan many people see them as a beacon of freedom and capitalism, but at the same time they feel like America as a culture has such a great excess of wealth that we produce a large number of people that are a bunch of shallow, apathetic, and ignorant whiners.

Basically they admire America for our principles, but have a sort of mild disdain for our culture (which isn't all that surprising since their ideas about what Americans are like generally comes from things like MTV or Hollywood).

But I mean, then there are some countries that (maybe correctly) feels that America has sacrificed or exploited them in the past for our own ends. But yeah, we as a country has done some bad things, and also done some good things. People just tend to remember the bad ones. That's just the price we pay for being the alpha among the pack.

Thank you! That's what I mean. People, even here, see the shallow, apathetic and ignorant whiners more, they are majority. I think it is because we have so much wealth but, these people take all that for granted. I hate it myself. But I think I can say I understand it more then other people. They see this problem and Joe Marxist comes along and blames it on capitalism, since they don't have any other answer they usually go along with it.

Edit: --

Money and power. That's what people hate. Christians preach against these things. Christians say the U.S. is a Christian nation, yet, they have a lot of this money and power everyone speaks so much against.

That's another thought. The Christian hypocrisy, the displays of stupidy by the average American, the fact that some Americans eat so much and other people in the world starve, we have money to purchase things, a strong military, and a power to destroy the planet.

That's sort of my trail of thought, these are the kinds of things people say when they talk about America. A lot of package deals and fallacies.

Edited September 1, 2007 by Mammon

[Inspector]

A lot of package deals and fallacies.

That's the meat and bones of it. That's why, to answer the thread's title question: no, it's not that. It's basically a Marxist hatred.

[Thales]

What do you think is the cause for many students remaining ignorant of geography?

Now we're getting somewhere!

John Dewey has had a big influence on the American system of public education. He had the idea that purpose of education was to make people contributors to society. He didn't emphasize learning, he emphasized belonging to and helping out society.

This is from his 1897 article "My Pedagogic Creed":

I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual's powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions. Through this unconscious education the individual gradually comes to share in the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in getting together. He becomes an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization. The most formal and technical education in the world cannot safely depart from this general process. It can only organize it or differentiate it in some particular direction.

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. Through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them. For instance, through the response which is made to the child's instinctive babblings the child comes to know what those babblings mean; they are transformed into articulate language and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language.

Emphases are mine.

I remember listening to Peikoff's DIM lecture, in which he made note that Dewey wanted to dumb down Americans to make them more malleable for socializing. You do that by coming up with methods that make it difficult to learn. For instance, Dewey supported the "whole word" method over "phonics", because it made it more difficult to learn. This is because independent mindedness is a threat to public education.[1]

You see that strong influence in public schools today, where they emphasize group activities for virtually everything and when it comes to the teaching of ideas there are a myriad of anti-conceptual techniques used, for instance, the "new math", where they present kids with abstract theory at the outset with little attempt to concretize it. Instead of building up from simple examples to more abstract examples and then presenting the theory in a smooth way, they start from the other direction. In my experience, this is the most common way things are taught at all levels of education today.

Today they have the idea that a right answer is whatever the student comes up with, which is supposed to inspire creativity, and to add insult to injury they push all kinds of dogmatic postmodernist gibberish down the throats of students.

What these methods do, when they are presented in large doses, is make it harder to think. Since knowledge IS integration, all of these methods run counter to what is required for someone to master thought. These techniques make it far more likely for a student to become indifferent to learning, and thus less likely to learn something as simple as basic geography.

[1] I don’t have any words from Dewey that explicitly say this, so I’m going on Peikoff’s word here, but certainly Dewey supported the idea that the individual must act for the group, to which independent mindedness is a threat.

[K-Mac]

Not quite. Note that we are not, in fact warmongers.

Just for the record, I don't consider us warmongers. I was pondering what others may think of the United States. Just wanted to clarify.

[Inspector]

Now we're getting somewhere!

Now, compare your answer to hers: "they should teach more geography."What knowledge of the subject does her answer display? Notice I said that a five year old could have answered the question the way that she did. This is because her answer could be taken completely from the information given in the question itself.

I.e., to paraphrase:

Q: "Lots of students don't know geography. What should be done?"

A: "Umm... teach more geography?"

I would give the politicians' answer of "throw more money at it!" even more credit than hers. At least their answer involves actually doing something. Hers, however, doesn't actually say a single thing about the situation. It is a non-answer. (I feel like Cleese in the dead parrot sketch at this point!)

Just for the record, I don't consider us warmongers. I was pondering what others may think of the United States. Just wanted to clarify.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply you did. Just to contrast between what they think and what is. Edited September 2, 2007 by Inspector

[Thales]

Now, compare your answer to hers: "they should teach more geography."What knowledge of the subject does her answer display? Notice I said that a five year old could have answered the question the way that she did. This is because her answer could be taken completely from the information given in the question itself.

I.e., to paraphrase:

Q: "Lots of students don't know geography. What should be done?"

A: "Umm... teach more geography?"

Recently there was a teacher in Colorado who during his geography courses went on anti-American, anti-Bush diatribes. Apparently little in the way of geography was being taught. It made headlines, perhaps because Rush Limbaugh made note of it. I'm sure you recall this.

You said her answer was "vacuous". I disagree. Her answer was reasonable given the facts she had. The difference between your position and mine is that I don't expect her to provide a deep answer to a question she had little information on and which she probably had little interest in.

[Inspector]

You said her answer was "vacuous". I disagree. Her answer was reasonable given the facts she had. The difference between your position and mine is that I don't expect her to provide a deep answer to a question she had little information on and which she probably had little interest in.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. You expected her to give an answer given "the facts she had," by which I take it you mean given the facts provided to her in the question itself. I consider her answer vacuous precisely because it demonstrated no knowledge beyond the facts provided to her in the question itself.

First of all, I consider the entire point of the exercise to be to show how much knowledge she had of the subject. Her answer demonstrated no knowledge whatsoever. Therefore her answer was an utter failure.

Second of all, I consider it offensive when people attempt to answer political questions out of ignorance. Willingness to wield force with no concern for the fact that you have no flipping idea what you're doing is an awful thing to do. If you don't know about the subject, you should have the decency to recognize that you ought not be prescribing answers.

[Capitalism Forever]

First of all, I consider the entire point of the exercise to be to show how much knowledge she had of the subject. Her answer demonstrated no knowledge whatsoever. Therefore her answer was an utter failure.

This is the premise of yours that I don't really understand. Why would you expect her to be knowledgeable in this field? It is not a philosophical or educational or geographic contest she was participating in. If the question was about the recent successes of a Papua New Guinean soccer team, would you blame her for giving a vacuous answer to that?

I fully agree that her answer didn't say much, which I suppose means that it was a vacuous answer. But I think sometimes a vacuous answer is the right answer to give. As opposed to, say, an incoherent attempt to give a non-vacuous-sounding answer feeding on the altruistic bits of garbage you have heard people in your position say. So I think her second answer is certainly an improvement on her first one--and, I would add, until she grows up a bit more and becomes more familiar with the philosophical and political issues involved, it is as good an answer as I would expect someone in her position to give. I'm not sure how I would have answered when I was 18, but I'm sure I didn't have the context of knowledge to say what I said in post 4.

[Inspector]

it is as good an answer as I would expect someone in her position to give.

"In her position?" You mean a position of utter ignorance? Yes, of course, but that's the point: she ought not be ignorant!

[Capitalism Forever]

"In her position?" You mean a position of utter ignorance?

A position of being a public-school-educated teenage girl who does not pursue a career in philosophy or education or geography.

Now please explain to me why you think the Zanzubuniwatsu soccer team has won its recent match against Kambabambaquhra. And remember, if you give me an answer like, "I suppose because they have better players?" then I will say that your answer is totally vacuous, which shows your utter ignorance. And you ought not be ignorant!

Now, to get to what I would expect of a teenage girl--is it only me, or does anyone else think that she looks way too old in the first video? At first glance I thought she looked like someone in her thirties or forties. I guess someone put too much emphasis on making her not look "childish." She looks much more like 18 in the second video.

[Inspector]

which shows your utter ignorance [of soccer teams]. And you ought not be ignorant!

As to the former, yes it would. As to the latter, I disagree.

She ought not be ignorant of the subject because she is an American of voting age, and furthermore a student.

Soccer, as an American, I ought not to know about!

Furthermore, it's impossible to watch or read any news source for all but the briefest lengths of time and not hear something about our crumbling socialist education system. If someone has never heard about it, then this is evidence that they have pretty much completely avoided any knowledge whatsoever of politics or current events. Bush's last few elections had education as major running platforms. Her latter, more articulate, answer actually displays more ignorance than her former one.

I don't know why you so strongly defend her ignorance. She won't go on a date with you, you know.

[gags]

I don't know why you so strongly defend her ignorance. She won't go on a date with you, you know.

Don't be so sure about that. American women love a good British accent --- just look at that putz Hugh Grant. Wasn't he the "sexiest man alive" at some point?

[Mammon]

http://likesuchas.ytmnd.com/

[Capitalism Forever]

As to the former, yes it would. As to the latter, I disagree. [...] Soccer, as an American, I ought not to know about!

OK, that's what I think myself. The disagreement, then, is on whether she ought not be ignorant of the subject she was asked about.

She ought not be ignorant of the subject because she is an American of voting age, and furthermore a student.

I think in an ideal society people like her would not vote. And the fact that she's a student means that she's still learning about life, doesn't it? She's still in the process of becoming non-ignorant. In fact, one might say that she's just begun the process of becoming non-ignorant, since all that the public school system seems to be concerned about is broadening the students' ignorance. In a way, she is like a newborn. Ought a newborn be able to give sophisticated answers to questions on what American teachers and politicians are doing wrong?

Of course, it is true that she ought not be like a newborn. But that "ought" is a liability of those who were supposed to educate her. If no one feeds a newborn, she will starve to death. If no one teaches a newborn, she will be ignorant. It's not her fault that her teachers haven't been doing their jobs, or worse, that they have been sabotaging her intellectual growth.

Furthermore, it's impossible to watch or read any news source for all but the briefest lengths of time and not hear something about our crumbling socialist education system. If someone has never heard about it, then this is evidence that they have pretty much completely avoided any knowledge whatsoever of politics or current events.

Your premise here is that everyone needs a knowledge of politics and current events. I disagree; the time you spend on learning about politics is time you can't spend on other things that might be more important for your career. It's a question of priorities.

Nor is she unique in her ignorance of politics and current events. Nor are Americans of her age unique in their ignorance of politics and current events. There are many people like her in Western as well as Eastern Europe. That's what this thread has been all about: the premise that Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves because they are so stupid while the rest of the world is so much more sophisticated; the idea that "everyone" is right to think that America is stupid. It is this premise that I'm arguing against: to the extent that Americans are ignorant, it is because of an un-American institution (public schooling), and to the extent that Americans manage to display knowledge and intelligence in spite of their public school education, it is a testament to the merits of the truly American elements that are still left in America's culture.

To state it in simpler terms: Europeans think that individualism = stupid, and therefore America = stupid, while Europe = sophisticated. The truth is that collectivism is what's stupid, and Europeans are not all that much more sophisticated than Americans as they think. In fact, if you look at economic performance--and its motor, technological innovation--Americans have been doing much better than the Euros, even with an education system that is bent on destroying all remnants of reason in America. To me, that says that the American people are much worthier than those whose main source of satisfaction seems to be reveling in their disdain for America.

I don't know why you so strongly defend her ignorance. She won't go on a date with you, you know.

I don't know why you strongly attack her ignorance. Are you hoping it will turn her on?

And I cannot help but repeatedly comment on the inconsistency of the positions of BOTH of you. On the one hand you say she is stupid, on the other hand you seem to imply that you find her attractive. To me, that is a WHOPPING contradiction: there is nothing more repulsive than stupidity!

[Capitalism Forever]

British accent

FYI, I'm not British.

[softwareNerd]

FYI, I'm not British.

European might actually work better . And the hint of acquired Ox-Bridge would probably make it extra-exotic! Edited September 6, 2007 by softwareNerd