The world according to Americans...

The other day I came across an interesting article which I would like to share with you by copying it here. It is written by Lynne Diligent, an American working and raising a family overseas.

Unfortunately, I must agree with her. I experience similar attitude here even today. You can see the American “We’re number one!” mentality (described below) all the time.
The maps are cartoon depicts but you would be shocked how much they actually represent the views of so many people.

I "love" to hear especially from these opinionated Americans who have never lived abroad or have never even been outside of the USA, in a better case have seen a foreign country from a cruise ship, majority of them don't speak any foreign language, but somehow they seem to know everything better.
Perhaps it is time to 'take blinders off'....at least sometimes.

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Why Foreigners Sometimes Think that Americans View the World as Geography Cartoons Depict
July 18, 2011

by Lynne Diligent






What Americans are first taught about the world as children. This looks like a 1970-2005 point-of-view.

These maps represent what Americans are first taught about the world as children.
For a majority of Americans (speaking as an American now overseas) these maps are maps about feelings, rather than about knowledge.
It’s true that there are some Americans who never progress beyond this viewpoint, but the majority of American adults are not quite this uneducated.  Among those who are, it comes from the “We’re number one!” mentality that pervades what children are taught about America (or at least were until recently).

This view of the world looks more like how Americans felt in the 1950s and 1960s.

No matter how knowledgeable we become, it’s true that we can look at maps like this and understand the reasons they are drawn that way immediately–from our first knowledge as children.  That’s what makes them cartoons, that some of those feelings stay with us forever,  in spite of our knowledge.

Anyone who lived through the Reagan years certainly remembers the country feeling just like this!

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