Are Americans ignorant about other countries?

its always sort of annoying to follow these conversations on answers- such a pity the forums are empty (i get why you posted it here..i would just love to have the comments in order)

its something i wonder aboot, too. it seems that these days its a pretty much guaranteed icebreaker in germany..much like talking aboot the weather..if youre in a convo where you might otherwise not be comfortable discussing things:

mention how bush sucks (can we get over that already?) and how shallow and ignorant americans are and you will pretty much have everyone at the table agreeing with you(except me who then sighs and tries to change the subject or give feeble attempts at objectivity like "hmmm i wonder if 300 million inhabitants can ge generalized like that"). everyone always knows a story of some american who asked if europeans had subways/toasters/electricity etc and yes, i have encountered one who was surprised to learn that berlin was a city in germany saying: i thought that was a wall! but that was some 15 year old kid who hadnt paid attention in class that day.
its the danger of the single story i guess..repeat one stereotype and you will suddenly start having a subjective view on how thats true withoot exception.
(link)<-- great talk on the "single story".



i myself am the first to admit that i know NOTHING and by that i mean absolutely NOTHING aboot asia. who rules japan? no idea. captial of laos?no idea..and no one can argue that asia is some kind of irrelevant continent where nothing happens. its pretty embarrassing but surely not true for all germans.

i am not quite sure how the myth came aboot..there must be something that started it?
i wonder if there is any statistic that would prove the stereotype!?

I don't know.

It kind of feels like Britain is the stalkerish ex-lover of America. We know all of America's friends, hobbies and beliefs, but America knows nothing about us. And one day she's gonna turn round and say 'who the hell are you?!'

I, as an American, think we are ignorant of a lot of things. Thanks to our media and our schools, we have these distorted, backwards, "stereo-typical" ideas about other countries. My Geography professor was astounded because, in my class of fifty people, I was the only one who knew Mexico was part of the North American continent.

We know very little about other countries politics or how those countries feel about their own politics. Many people I know just assume that anything that isn't a democracy is bad and that that country is severely unhappy and wants to change it. None of them are even interested in studying or looking into the true facts. They gobble up anything that's handed to them, regardless of the true facts.

*NOTE: This is from my experience with people; my family, my high school, my college, my job, volunteer work, extracurricular activities, my friends and their immediate families. I'm sure there are American's who are more informed, but I have yet to encounter any in a face-to-face way.

I believe that we are ignorant of a good many things, but I try not to be. I study other material because I don't want to fit that stereotype.

I think this is a common stereotype that Americans suffer. Like all stereotypes, it is rooted in a small grain of truth. The United States of America is a vast country, and we have many interesting cultures and regions within it. The stereotype is that Americans don't travel internationally, but they do travel a LOT within in the United States. I know few people who have never been out of their home town.

That's not an excuse for not knowing about the world. Canada is just as big as the US, and does not suffer from that stereotype. And even if an American HAS never left her home town her whole life, that's also no excuse for not knowing about anything outside of it.

Being a masters student at a public university, I associate with other college students, a large percentage of whom have traveled outside of the country. And even if they haven't, they know enough about it to discuss it. This is not to say that there aren't ill-informed or ignorant Americans. It's just saying that our population shouldn't be generalized - just like any other population shouldn't be generalized.

EDIT: Also, just to keep things in perspective. When I lived in Belgium, I mingled with Americans and Europeans alike, as well as others. They asked from where I had moved to Brussels, and I said, "Tashkent." Americans and Europeans alike could not tell me if that was a city, country or region of the world. Without the use of Google, how many of you can tell me?

I feel like this stereotype is huge in Europe, and a little bit in the Middle East from my experiences in Egypt. And that feels kind of easy for Europeans, because they are a very international continent (subcontinent?), and most of them have been across Europe from Lisbon to Kiev, and Sicily to Oslo, and there are a lot of countries there. Europeans even cross the Mediterranian to vacation in Alexandria or Tunis or Beirut. Europeans may even hop the pond and explore the United States and know a lot about that.

But (and this is a genuine question) what do you know about countries that aren't nearby, or good travel destinations? What do you know about Angola or Bhutan or Tajikistan? Out of curiosity.

I'm not american, but i say yes.
FIRST: AMERICA is the whole continent, and not just USA. They're ignoring Latin America.
And then, Sylvester Stallone came to my country (Brazil) to shoot a movie and he said these words about my country:
"I like Brazil. You can blow all the country, and the people will say 'Thank you! Here's a monkey for you!'." They think they're alone in this country, they're the best of the world and all the rest is shit. That makes me really anger!

PS: Once a girl asked me where Brazil is, and i said "It's a country...", and she "I thought it was some poor region of Africa!" -_-

I'm not an American, but I get a very bad impression of them in general, mostly when I discuss with them. I actually heard yesterday that a lot of Americans think Norway is the capital city of Sweden... And some doesn't even know that Norway is a country at all. Come on, we're one of the world's richest countries!

I believe we are. I know that when I talk to people from other countries, and I mean people who are my age, they all know everything about American politics, even more than most of my friends know. And we know virtually nothing about other countries. If you were to ask me the president of Canada, I'd say, "Um... I have no idea". That's pretty sad. We only know what we learn from news stations like Fox News and MSNBC. Neither of those are reliable because they are so biased. CNN is better, but still fairly biased. Then there's Channel 2 News! The problem with that station is that they have no more of an idea as to what's going on in the world than the average American teenager. Most of their news is unimportant and just fluff stories, as far as I've seen. So unless anyone reads the paper (like, The New York Times and stuff) then people aren't going to know much, and will remain ignorant (and I don't read the newspaper except for the comics, so I'm no better XD).

I am American, but I'll have to admit...there are evidently things of other countries that we are ignorant of. I can think of plenty of examples off the top of my head.

Today, during my history class, a girl asked our teacher why some Indian Americans (not Native Americans) refer to themselves as 'Asian'. Our teacher explained that since the country India is part of Asia, they are technically Asian people. Like Canadians, Mexicans, and citizens of the United States are all generally Americans (North Americans if you want to be more specific).

So, my classmate then states, "But why do Indians speak a different language then?"

-_-

So according to some people, you are not part of the same continent if you don't speak the same language....which is ironic because in her own country, there are those who speak Spanish, German, French etc. Heck, we even have a teacher at my school who speaks Hindi. Yet she would call them Americans??

That's just one of my examples of this.

in ways its true. i don't feel the need to know that much about other countries unless i take a liking to a certain one, if i might move there one day, or if that country has certain important political matters i should know about. so instead of those cases, why WOULD i need to know?

I wasn't sure that Americans were required to KNOW about other countries...thought we had our own problems over here.

Just saying...

Yes, Americans are ignorant about other countries. Not all Americans, but certainly in every American country there are people who are ignorant of even the other American countries, let alone countries on other continents. Americans, no matter their nationality, are also ignorant to greater or lesser extent, about their own countries. For instance, I am an United States American, and I have no idea who the Secretary of State was under the 11th US President, James Polk. There might even have been more than one during his presidency! I have no idea! Sure, I could look this up, but it wouldn't change the fact that I am currently a complete ignoramus regarding that cabinet.

To address your more detailed points, I don't think most Americans are concerned with other countries as a threat or as money-making opportunities. Maybe some North Americans (residents of Canada, US and Mexico) are, but I'd venture to guess that most Bolivians, to name one type of American, aren't terribly concerned with the belligerence or financial liquidity of New Zealand. Some would say that they should be, what with globalization of economies, but such a large number of Americans are living below the poverty level that such concerns aren't really "on their radar".

As an American, I certainly don't think every single one of us are like that. But there certainly are a lot.

Considering in our education system we don't really learn or have courses in anything but America until at least High School, we naturally inhabit the idea that there's not much out there besides us. Which of course is not true.

Now I am American, and I love learning about other nations. The culture and history of all these other places fascinate me. But I am only one person.

While back in 8th grade, at least 1/2 of my class could not even identify the continent of Europe on a map.........not even kidding.
But I'm not totally surprised considering in my school (I'm in High School now), I have yet to see a single world map hanging on the wall. I usually only see maps of the US.
But then again that may just be my school.

But over time I do see us slowly paying more attention to the rest of the world. However, I still do think we have a long way to go.
But I believe that the biggest problem would have to be in our education system.