BG - Derrick Jackson: The insular American

[mazzarro]

Doesn't this tell it all about how the knuckle-dragging freepers came to proliferate in the society?


NOBEL LAUREATE Wole Soyinka used to ask people not to exaggerate the insularity of Americans by saying things like: ''Can you imagine the Americans? Nobody else plays baseball and yet they call their series the World Series." He used to say, ''C'mon, that's not the issue. That's superficial."

He does not defend us anymore. ''I'm sorry," he says, chuckling. ''I've come around to the conclusion that it's not superficial at all, that it is an index we better be aware of."

<snip>

He says it remains common for him to hear people wonder whether Africa is still colonized by the British, and conflate world events to where ''they think the Yugoslav war was taking place in Asia against Chinese Communists." He says Americans' lack of curiosity is stunning.

''It doesn't matter whether it's blacks, it doesn't matter the class, it doesn't matter the level of education," Soyinka says. ''Some of the most brilliant of my colleagues in universities here are so insular that it hurts. I find it very difficult.

more:

[ixion]

1. Mr. Soyinka is regrettably right on target

I've come across so many people who couldn't name the capital of Mexico, much less the capital or even the location of, say, Indonesia, or any number of countries.

I used to keep an inflatable globe hanging from the ceiling, so that I could reference it, so that I could wander from country to country, all the while imagining what each place would be like. I had that globe for years and years.

It's very difficult for me to fathom how people from one culture can be so ignorant and arrogant of other's cultures. Afterall, we're all humans here. Everyone thinks their experience is unique, but at the base, our experience is very much the same. We need a warm, dry, safe place to sleep, food and water, and some type of community. The rest are variations on that same theme.

And yet for some reason, people think that just because a cultural aspect is 'Murikan, that it is by default better.

Go figure. :crazy: :freak: