Comments on: Just how stupid are Americans?

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:49:47 +0000

Erich,

Actually, I am fine with using the word “Stupid”– the morons certainly are legion, and we are well on our way to Idiocracy. I actually had a problem with the word “Americans”: not that Americans aren’t dumb (they are), but so is everyone else. I tried to spell that out in my last comment.

By including the word “Americans”, yes you may be pushing back to the talk radio dingbats (not worth the time), you also invoked (accidentally?) the nation-state comparison model for me as a reader. I was only trying to respond to the harm it did to your argument.

By: Mark Tiedemann

Mark Tiedemann — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:34:10 +0000

Erich,

If someone boasts of what they don’t know or don’t understand, that is almost a textbook definition of Stupid. Ignorance can be fixed, lack of intelligence can be compensated for in a variety of ways, but standing one’s ground as resolutely uninformed and unthinking is a species of idiocy. Stupid is a good word.

By: Jay Fraz

Jay Fraz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:36:41 +0000

Erich: And to expand upon your statement. I believe the problem is that many people allow a cartoon version of reality to be drilled into their head, hell, they are proud of that fact, that all the answers are “simple”. I really have no idea how to combat this, but I suppose it derives out of a self-righteous need to believe that what we do is all correct. They used to say we were too competitive, now we seek to be “right” rather than number one.

Strange how we now fear being compared to other countries. When I ran a sound board at a conservative talk radio station I remember how the “talent” would say that America is doing great, look at the GDP!!! Then when that wasn’t looking good, then it was, Look at Purchasing Power Parity!!! If reality doesn’t suit your philosophy, get a new ruler I suppose.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:39:57 +0000

Dave: I shouldn’t have said “stupid,” but it’s more than ignorance. Too many people I’ve met are proudly ignorant. They make little or no effort to know the facts before weighing in on complicated issues. The evidence, surf the web and look at the comments and listen to talk radio. Maybe people were always this way, but we have a big complicated country to run, more complicated and dangerous than ever, yet all too many people don’t want to do their homework.

But this post didn’t compare Americans to people from any other country. I disagree with you there. I wrote this post to push back against two many claims I’ve been hearing on the talk radio and conservative websites that Americans are the “greatest country in the world.” My opinion should be uncontroversial: we can do a lot better than we are. Our people need to be a lot better informed and a lot less confident than they are about all too many opinions that they hold.

Again, I shouldn’t have used the word “stupid,” but I was feeling overwhelmed by the rampant proud ignorance.

By: Mark Tiedemann

Mark Tiedemann — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:33:58 +0000

Top be fair, the accusation of stupidity can only be leveled at people who fail to understand the things that serve their own interests. America has been and still is largely isolated. International news is still mainly something that happens on tv.

I worked with a very bright woman from Ireland once who was completely ignorant of the War of 1812. She’d been a history buff and had done quite well in it at school in Ireland, but to her that war was entirely Napoleonic and they didn’t even address the fact that there’d been an American “front.”

By: NIklaus Pfirsig

NIklaus Pfirsig — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:30:19 +0000

dave,
I attended college in the late 1970’s. I found the There were many foreign students on the campus as the college I attended was well known for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) department. While many of the students would hang out with with old friends from high school, I was one of the few Americans that spent more of my free time with the international sudents than with other Americans. Among my friends were Iranian, Armenian, Iraqi, Saudi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Nigerian and Vietnamese students
For over a year in college, I had an Iraqi girlfriend.

I found it interesting how each culture emphasizes different social concepts. Arab culture, for example, values family and friends much more than material possessions. Iranians value fairness and justice rather highly.

I also found the preconceptions that the international students had of Americans and American life to be rather interesting. Many from severl different countries had expected the US to be a place where life was care-free and no one worried about anything outside of their social lives. Much of this stereotype was based on their exposure to American movies and TV shows.
One of my roommates, A Nigerian, believed that to have sex with an American girl, all he need do was approach the girl of his choice and tell her what he wanted. Apparently he had seen a lot of porn movies.

One day, I was approached by a smartly dressed Asian man who identified himself as Naoki Oba and he was studying the American educational system in an effort to improve the Japanese educational system. Apparently, at the time, the Japanese educational system produced graduates highly skilled in math and science, who at the same time seemed unable to innovate.
I remarked on this in a comment to this post.

Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity is being unable to apply knowledge. If most of what you know is trivial grabage, then it is likely that you will be unable to apply that knowlege.

By: dave

dave — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:15:41 +0000

*sigh*
Really? You’re trying to play the nation/culture comparison game? And if so, where’s the (gasp) science?
- The majority of the original post contains little more than anecdotal evidence of isolated smart people and generalized dumb people. I could do that with any culture on the planet, but nevermind– anecdotal evidence is not evidence (Erich– you’re a lawyer– you should know better)
- It’s a common stereotype of “whiney liberals” that they hate american culture and somehow hold the europeans in high regard. It seems to be happening here. Why?
- I’ve lived in several foreign countries (see my website for the list). People are stupid everywhere; people are smart everywhere.
- Why not go with a headline like “Why are People Stupid?” Why bring the nation-state into it? What is to be gained by that?
- Have you ever lived overseas and really experienced another culture? For every episode of “Masterpiece Theatre” out there, there is an episode of “Takashi’s Castle”. Europeans don’t spend hundreds of hours watching NASCAR or NFL, but they do spend hundreds of hours watching football and Italian boobies pop out in goofy game shows.

But okay– let’s talk about ‘dumb Americans’
The United States:
- holds the record for nobel prizes
- world’s largest economy and highest GDP
- holds the majority (35 out of 50) top universities worldwide
- middle of the pack in secondary education– certainly a concern to be addressed

If it makes you feel better to think that your own culture is dumb and that you’re the rare exception, great. It’s not accurate, nor scientific, but whatever you need to suck down that latte.

/time to get back to the Dallas-Philly game…

By: David Singhiser

David Singhiser — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:44:03 +0000

I have no doubt about the ignorance of many in this country. I’d like to know how other nations compare.

While overseas, I was not always impressed with the knowledge of fellow ex-patriots.

I once made the winning answer on quiz night because I was the only one that recognized Adolf Hitler in a World War I photo. None of the Germans believed me.

Ha!

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:10:42 +0000

Jeff: Good example. Thanks.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:55:41 +0000

Sorry to comment so frequently on just one post, but I thought the following article goes well to your point about the over-engineered world in which we live:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114262744&ft=1&f=1001