Not talking about the same thing at all, guys. She's talking about the evident result of modern American education. In a word, most of us are total idiots when it comes to any area of interest outside our own professions, sports and pop music. Do you know, for example, the rough population of Rio? I don't remember offhand, but last I looked it was like 5 of New York, or something.
I'm not bragging here. I don't know much either. I try to keep up with things, but there's no one to talk to about it. Until I stumbled onto the net through a back door at FAU, I really thought I was just weird. Ok, ok. I still know I'm weird in some ways. But I mean I thought I was the only one on the planet who was not a politician or an historian or something who was curious about the world.
Ambrose Bierce nailed it; War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. And he kicked off in 1914. It's not
just modern American education. I think it has to do with a certain smugness following naturally behind the way we pimp slapped King George and went ahead and prospered anyway.
Bilingual Americans, I think, become bilingual (or more) for the same reasons ppl in other countries do. They have a need for a second language. You can't get along too well in Miami if you don't have the ability and good manners to say "me mira por fumar", which probably meens "I'm looking for fire". But local store clerks know you're trying to get a fair price on a pack of smokes, you're willing to oblige them as best you can, and so they won't send you down to the tourist district where you'll get fleeced for $5/pk.
But I do think public education is a big part of it. Do you know that, not only do our public schools ignore foreign policy, but the ones around here don't do so much as a chapter on local history! At the same time, they want to extend the mandatory attendance age from 6 to anywhere from 16 to 18, all the way to 4 - 18 nationally, by DOE mandate? Kids are not really allowed on the street during school hours, after dark, before dawn, in "certain" neighborhoods, etc. unsupervised by an adult. So they don't meet their neighbors, either, even while they're not in school or waiting for their parents to come home.
Where are these kids supposed to learn the habit of caring about anything that's not in the curriculum, on TV or the hottest fad down behind the grocery store?
IOW, I think the problem we have is broad and well ingrained in our society. But we're not beyond all hope. Trust me on this, at least, Marina. The image that you get of real Americans is probably not all that much more accurate than what the networks tell us about you.
Oh, come to think of it, tell me something firsthand. Is Citrus Canker a big issue in Brazil? Would most people even know what it is? Cause here.... well... here:
http://doacs.state.fl.us/canker/maps.htmThe Florida Dept of Agriculture is cutting roughly 95% of citrus trees from small groves, public lands and private homes and businesses despite loud objections from citizens, some agriculture experts and some civil rights organizations.
The story goes that, In Brazil (which, we're told, is a very socialist, government controled country), they don't take trees from private gardens. Instead, the citrus industry covers all the costs of chemical treatment, wind breakers, loss of infected trees, etc. And that they're fairly kicking our butts in the citrus market.
U know anything about that?
Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common everyday beauty.
-- John Muir
