My apologies but …
Vendredi 31 août 2007Let me apologize in advance to the 99% of my American acquaintances who are on the higher side of their country’s IQ bell curve, because it is shown in very bad light here:
Ok, I suppose we could craft the same kind of demonstration in carefully selected French/European/Western neighborhoods, pick the most moronic answers, and come up with something really appalling too.
But still, many of the dumbest and most frightening answers in this video come from seemingly normal people, possibly with a good social situation. They don’t look like outcasts or high school drop-outs from violent neighborhoods.
I hate to say it but I have a hard time picturing those same answers being made from similar people in most other developed countries. I would love to see a video that proves me wrong, though : maybe it’s just that Americans leave less people indifferent, and there’s somehow a higher urge to make such a video that makes fun of them, rather than.. I don’t know, Poles or Italians.
So I’m not here trying to do pointless comparisons between different nationals, as every people tends to have their particular weaknesses and strengths, and we in France certainly do, too.
That said, I’m getting more and more convinced, that the USA have this incredible and unique paradox (and problem) of having some of the best higher education institutions and brightest minds in the world, while accepting a dangerously low and disproportionate level of expectations for secondary education, and what a citizen can get by without knowing.
I won’t do the easy joke of “their president is a prime example of that”, but obviously, this is a democracy-threatening situation.
Something really doesn’t work here, and I’ll risk a cliché by saying many special interest groups are actually hard at work making things stay this way. Given that country’s influence on world affairs, we all have a right to be royally pissed about that.
And hell, even if this last paragraph sounds like a tired conspiracy rant from a naive 20-something , that doesn’t make it any less true. 
What do you think ?
[...] je ne dirai plus rien sur l’américain moyen [...]
Con comme la … | Renaud's piece of net | Dimanche 26 octobre 2008 | 3:27[...] je ne dirai plus rien sur l’américain moyen [...]
The level of ignorance is most probably equal in equally
VP | Lundi 10 novembre 2008 | 3:16The level of ignorance is most probably equal in equally civilized countries. There’s no need to feel overly confident in the degree of knowledgeability in France or anywhere in Europe for that matter.
I think french individuals are just as ignorant, just less modest about it. The fact that the interviewed persons are well dressed and look, well, “normal” as you succintly put it, shows one thing only: that uneducated, low class persons have a decent life in US. And I’m very sure that of all people stopped and asked these questions, these carefully selected answers are just that: carefully selected - to make a point.
Now, the fact that democracy allows people like these to vote is something else…
I agree (and stated in the article) that these answers
renaud | Lundi 10 novembre 2008 | 11:18I agree (and stated in the article) that these answers may be carefully selected.
That said, I stand by my educated guess that it would take a lot of chance, and a LOT of interviews, to get anything like those kind of answers, over here in Europe. “WHAT is the United Kingdom ?”. Seriously !
You would have to go to some really remote, rural communities to see that level of widespread ignorance about the world, their own country, or well, the human body (the “1 kidney” thing).
I’m not trying to make a point or be insulting to America, a big part of which I love, but no, you can’t say it’s about the same level of ignorance everywhere.
For one thing, that problem with geography is not a myth, it’s even been measured : http://edition.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/02/geog.test/
For another very important thing : the idea that a museum of creationism can actually be built, financed and run in this day and age, that it can spew its nonsense to hundreds of visitors daily with nobody ever getting in their way at some stage in the process, THAT I assure would be impossible over here.
Hearing one visitor explain seriously to his kids that there used to be dragons in the middle ages (I actually saw this on a TV report about the museum) : that would send even the uneducated around here into a burst of laughter, right before they feel a chill down their spine.
Again, my point is obviously not “you guys are dumb we are smarter hahaha”.
It’s “We mostly ignore our dumb people, they do vote individually but they don’t have their own media, they are not vocal, have no leverage in news outlets and don’t get organised as much. Whereas your dumb people are seemingly very often rich, organised, influent, vocal, they have their own TV channels and can actually rise to the highest top. 2 words : George Bush. ”
I understand that’s freedom of speech and democracy, but these 2 essential liberties become dangerous double-edged swords if you fail to maintain an acceptable level of average education so that people just can’t buy crazy theories.
Anyway hopefully, a new era has started in America now, and the whole world is very proud of you for that
Geography knowledge in itself is not a goal (true, there
VP | Mercredi 26 novembre 2008 | 22:49Geography knowledge in itself is not a goal (true, there are many luminaries and renaissance men that might disagree and which I respect). Therefore, I would quantify the level of civilization in other terms. US is a country that allows you to fail and does not errect barriers for dumb people. Everybody has a decent shot at fame and money, and education too (fellowships are given always by merit, not socio-economic status like in Europe). I would be very sorry to hear that in France dumb people can’t have their own TV stations or are ostracized in any way since that would be a direct contradiction to the much vaunted LFE slogan.
But then again, I don’t think much of european superiority - I’ve recently watched the show “Do you want to be a millionaire”, the french version of it, and discovered that half of french people do not know whether the Earth rotates around the sun or the moon… I am an european and I’ve lived in US for some time now. I have not met with significant differences in general level of education. I understand that living in Paris or Lyon that might be hard to believe, but Europe has plenty of low educated people who can’t point to Hungary or Lichtenstein on the map.
And to end again with a political message: I can’t see how one individual can create so much hype so as to create the illusion of a new era (unless the whole world is very uneducated about this guy’s background and voting record). After all, it took a Mesiah 2000 years ago to bring in a new era. Is there a similarity I don’t see?