MountainRunner - That's priceless. Reminds me again that The Arab Mind is still on the Commandant's reading list.
MountainRunner - That's priceless. Reminds me again that The Arab Mind is still on the Commandant's reading list.
My very unscientific theory as to why this mentality persists in this country, developed while being regularly driven to Dulles International by Ghanaian taxi drivers much more attuned to the international scene than my countrymen, is that:
- The United States is geographically isolated from most of the world, unlike Europe where one can face in any direction, drive for a few hours, and arrive in another country and culture, coupled with;
- American citizens not being forced by economic necessity to pick up and travel to other places. Only a small percentage do so because they can, and we haven't had a worldwide conflagration to force sufficient numbers of young adults to see other places and realize Rush might not know what the hell he's talking about.
I'm probably off the mark, but it works for me when I'm fielding the "what the hell is going on over there" while traveling internationally.
Cheers,
Last edited by redbullets; 08-09-2007 at 01:16 AM.
Joe
Just because you haven't been hit yet does NOT mean you're doing it right.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Hi redbullets,
That's certainly an explanation that has been used by a lot of people in sociology, political economy and political science. Of course, most of them were Americans .
Canada shares the same geographic isolation as the US does and the same movement patterns (actually, slightly less mobile than the US), so you would expect to find the same attitudes, but you don't. Maybe Canadians are "more aware" of international events because the US is foreign but Canada doesn't hold the same dominating position in the US worldview.
Maybe it stems from the differences that came about as a result of your revolution with the US focusing inwards and on the frontier while the Canadian colonies (and later Canada) maintained strong ties with Britain. It may also have to do with historical differences as to how each of us has dealt with immigrant populations or with our differing conceptions of citizenship and identity.
Honestly, I don't know why the difference exists, but I do know that the "standard" reasons just don't face up to the comparative case.
Marc
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
Drawing conclusions from my admittedly small but intensely familiar sample (my wife and I...she being Canadian), I think relative size and influence are extremely important in shaping perceptions and attitudes. In fact, I have come to think this is a very subtle effect and difficult to really appreciate...it took me many years to really begin to grok my wife's peculiarly Canadian perspective.
Think of the famously funny map of New York City, too, with the rest of the U.S. beyond the Hudson River a small and empty space. New Yorkers can be extremely provincial about the rest of the U.S., in the own peculiar way, due to the city's size and influence in the U.S. universe.
I think Canada's past as a member of the Commonwealth, and the centuries of colonial involvement that entailed probably has some lasting impact on the internationalist views up north. We said "to hell with it" a couple of hundred years ago, and y'all chose a different, though equally workable approach. But, what do I know, I'm just a knuckledragger.
Cheers,
Joe
Just because you haven't been hit yet does NOT mean you're doing it right.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." President Dwight D. Eisenhower
That and the existence of a stubborn foreign language minority....
I would tend to suspect that population size and space play an important role. Historically, the US has been focused internally (the frontier, the Civil War, reconstruction, civil rights, etc.) and the numbers (space and population) have allowed that focus to remain fairly fixed just because there's so much there for media outlets to focus on (and they were like that before Paris raised and lowered her head....but now we have the saturation factor). Political factors have also caused this, I think, since it's easier to get reelected by focusing on internal, local matters than it is something outside the US that you might not be able to control or influence. That same focus bleeds down into our education system.
With some extension, I also think this could explain (or help explain) some of the centric nature of cities like New York as Nat mentioned.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
I think this is an accurate assessment to the failure of many Americans to understand the nuances of international diplomacy. Indeed, the American culture was built upon rugged individualism. Pioneers, moving westward, hacking out a living space and making his own way. Canadians evidently don't think that way, nor do say, the Japanese, who being an island nation, densly populated seem to be more loyal to the central authority or the boss. Americans don't think that way because they didn't evolve that way. I think that putting yourself in the shoes of the other guy and seeing things from his perspective is a valuable critical thinking skill.
Don't taze me bro!
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