Reply #29: How cool. I thought the same thing. I used to think of us as "the playground bully" --

[DrZeeLit]

We puff out our chest and push everybody around and say "we're the best," and probably nobody likes us at all.
Yep, that's what I thought somewhere back about 3rd-4th grade, in 1959-60.

When I finally got a chance to travel, I felt vindicated. Other countries, (surprise! surprise!) were just as wonderful. AND... Paris had the most awesome metro and bullet trains! Wow! AND just about every other country had really bitchen money -- very colorful and cool. Not to mention the great free medical care I received while traveling in Italy.

Soooo.... nope... they didn't indoctrinate me in the 50's and early 60's. I continued to wonder.

I tell my students now: GET OUT of the country, SEE the world, EXPERIENCE other cultures: it makes you aware of the viability of other countries AND will make you appreciate what is GOOD about ours.

But in the end, I still believe, nobody is #1. When you look at those pictures of the Earth, taken from Apollo 13, you don't see any lines or boundaries.
We're all in it together.