I do like this point:
6) America is big, as i’ve said. We are REALLY big. Our cultural identity is so fragmented that you can’t really treat us the same. The cultural difference between New York State and Mississippi is so vastly different that many people who move from one place to the other do experience culture shock. We have our own customs, dialects, food, politics, and racial make up. We all speak English, but our customs are very different. On a personal anecdote, I am proud to be a Chicagoian. I come from a huge city smack dab in the middle of the heartland. People from Chicago aren’t even proud to be from Illinois. Just Chicago. The cultural gab between say, middle Illinois and northern Illinois is pretty huge. I feel like I have nothing in common with people who are working the farms out there. In some cases, large states have a split identity. Some people define themselves by state, and others by city. We are all united in the end, but there is rivalry and we don’t always see eye to eye on things.
I'm not sure people overseas realize just how big of a country we are. Talking elsewhere with some Europeans, they speak as if they can go from NYC to LA is a single day. I'm not sure if we're really united in the end, but we pretend we are.
I looked at the rebuttals you posted, here are my thoughts, in order:
We are not poor. we have fourth best standard of living in the world the three above us have more capitalistic economies than we do. Yeah, 1% of our nation has a lot of our wealth, but guess how much wealth our country has? A MOTHERLOAD. We have the biggest GDP in the world and it’s not by a little i can tell you that. There is no such thing as isolation in the 21st century especially when we are as advanced as we are. No free time? At least your not a farmer. People have it so much worse out there.
The US has a remarkably high poverty rate for a 1st world nation, wages have stagnated over the last few decades and dropped in the last couple years, and we work more hours than people in other 1st world nations. We are not poor compared to developing and third world nations, but we're not either of those and shouldn't be compared to them.
From the same blogger:
Around fourth generation, people stop caring. I couldn’t tell you my ancestry before Jamestown (awww yeah, awesome little facts about Sarah) Except Italians. for some reaason they seem to thing
This is only true if you're white (and even then you list an exception, I love it when people refute their own arguments for me). [Note: the last fragment is not due to poor copying on my end, but poor writer on their end]
Same blogger again
I would want to move here. and that’s why people do. The world’s economy is tanking, not just ours. In fact, ours isn’t as bad as others. Well boo hoo college kids, get over it. at least you get to go to college.
Actually, the rest of the first world is well on their way to a recovery and have made far greater strides than us. And way to belittle the life-destroying debt the majority of college graduates accumulate.
Next response!
1) Many people who live in the American continent who are not necessarily from the US, take issue with “Americans†labeling themselves as such because it denotes a xenophobic superiority. By calling the country of the United States “Americaâ€Â, we are negating non-US citizens; “America†is their continent too. I’m not sure where you live, but a lot of people call it the United States within the country.
We should be able to decide our own identity, thank you very much. "United States" is not an identity, it is a description for our country. The United States of America is literally a collection of states which are united and geographically are located in America.
2) I take huge issue with your excuse of physical isolation as validation of cultural ignorance. Given that we live in the “internet age†(and I’m assuming a lot of you would be in school), it’s not impossible to educate yourself. I understand there are limited resources to access to education, but there are still alternative avenues for this.
...
6) Again, physical isolation does not validate cultural ignorance (or any other type of ignorance).
I'm not sure how you're really supposed to understand a culture if you never experience it. You can get some understanding, but you will never "get" it unless you live in it. So, yes, our physical boundaries really are a boundary (not to mention not all people have the
luxury of dicking around online all day).
Same blogger:
3) I really think you’re underestimating how bad it is in some other countries. If you think it’s really bad here that “people should not move hereâ€Â, then I encourage you to travel to countries where the GDP is around 800 dollars a year and life expectancy is around 47 years. Despite current economic situations, the US is one of the world’s richest nations. I’m not saying things can’t be horrible, but again this is very reminiscent of the whole “wah I’m American and everyone hates meh†hysterics.
This one is valid and it reminds me of when I worked at a produce company that hired nearly exclusively immigrants and refugees. It was not a good work environment, but it was better than what they would have had in their home country.
Final blogger:
we know more than you do about the wars that are promoted by your government, like the war in Iraque and now the controversy with Iran, we have daily news about world economics and politics, and most people my age can understand and maintain a conversation in your language.
you are ignorant because you want to.
We are spoonfed misinformation by our media, a media where even supposedly respectable sources
refuse to state facts and instead just regurgitate opinions as if they are all equal. I also can't really fault people for not knowing a language other than English when that is the language our schools teach and they don't make more than a feeble effort to get students to gain fluency in any other language. Even when a secondary language is taught, it is fucking rare for the school to work towards the goal of raising students to the level of fluency. Is this the fault of the student? Is it the fault of somebody working a 50 hour/week job that s/he doesn't devote time to learning a language nobody else in the community uses? I'll also point out we are making progress in this area and there are states now mandating a non-English language be taught before a student can graduate high school.
But, and this goes back to geography, we are surrounded by English speakers and we can safely assume everybody we encounter will understand English. A Dane can't assume everybody will understand Danish just as a native of France can't assume everybody will understand French. In some respects the US must be compared to the EU, we are a union of one de facto language whereas they have many de facto languages. Their fluency is the product of necessity, us knowing more than English is a
luxury.So, all in all I think the original blog post has some good points (but the second responding blogger has a point when saying it sounds a lot like it is saying “hey you guys I’m a nice American why are you making fun of me’â€Â). The responses you have posted attempting to refute it have a lot of vapid arguments that either reek of privilege (such as the one about it being the internet age) or don't understand how America works (such as the thing about the languages).