So, I recently received this picture in an e-mail, and thought it was worth posting. After looking at something like this, do you respond, "That's right, we are #1!" or do you think, "This is so true, and I am devastated to be living in such a nation of egotistically ethnocentric ignoramuses"?
I am proud to be an American. I do recognize that some other Americans are egocentric and ignorant of the world around them, but I would like to think that its not the majority of us.
ReplyDeleteI look at it and say, "That's funny." I believe there is a stereotype that may fit the pervasive attitude of a nation without fitting most of its citizens individually. I am pleased to be an American. I am grateful to be an American, but even that appellation belays an ignorance and egocentricity that is not often identified--Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Chileans are all "Americans," too.
ReplyDeleteI like to think that I am not so ignorant of the outside world to forget that other nations can exist unto themselves, independant of thier primary intraction with me or my nation, but it is not entirely unreasonable in practical thought to catagorize the rest of the world in terms of their primary relationship to you. Carried to extreme, this becomes absurd, which is why this comic is so funny. A little bit of absurd that doesn't evoke either pride or shame for me, but definitely a smile.