Senate Ender Sigh's Srs Biz lol @ Murica Thread

True, therefore travel is a terrible indicator - typically cultural interaction in everyday life is the primary motivator. This is why isolated communities (rural) are typically more conservative. I am not convinced that, a) the vast majority of Americans believe in American exceptionalism, and that b) even someone who goes abroad with an open mind would immediately discard American exceptionalism.

 

In case you're not being facetious here, the median household income in Colorado is actually about $58,000, according to the US Census.

 

I'm so glad someone is a voice of reason in this thread.

Ender, your focus on Americans travelling abroad may be too narrow to argue American exceptionalism/centrism. So Americans don't travel abroad at rates comparable to other cultures'. Why could that be? A million reasons. Why not just say it's a cultural difference? I've noticed too that some English & German families maintain a higher standard of living and travel more than generalised "Americans," but on a similar--if not lower--income. Again, that could be due to a myriad of reasons, but summing it up as "Americans vs the rest of the world" is missing the point. If you discover the secret formula that makes it possible, please educate me because I've been trying to for years.

In any case, what are we lol'ing @ here: Americans who think the world revolves around them, the ones who never leave the country, or the ones that think God **** and that became the US of A?

 

I've only thrice asked the actual question; what we're doing is wading through irrational wounded nationalist pride.
i can ask it again if it will help.

I get you're trying to help, but you're not. I already factored out business travel. I wasn't looking for a philosopher who doesn't understand basic philosophical constructs to shape my argument. I'm well aware that that exit and entry statistics can include business travel; if you were paying attention - note the deliberate use of the conjunction "if" - you would note this was discussed. And if you ever travel to Thailand, Bali or Fiji you will know our bogan class does not mind a bit of overseas travel, so long as it can secure cheap piss, cheap tattoos, and cheap Bintang Beer t-shirts (a status symbol to show other boges that this bogan is a "frequent flyer").
That the term "Americentrism" exists suggests that it's an observable phenomenon. Anecdotally, a few of us non-Americans have noticed how in debates that have nothing to do with America they cannot put themselves outside of that context and therefore will attempt to suggest a course of action/solution/policy response which assumes the conditions in America are the default conditions globally. For example, because it has a significantly lower population of Muslims, the problems that we and the Europeans are having vis-a-vis cultural clashes and integration are alien to them. They cannot contextualise it and assume it's all naked racism, not conceiving of a world where people actively support IS and go to fight it, tearing their communities apart.
One of the most effective counters to the assumption of normative values is exposure to other cultures. When you see people living in a way which is markedly different from your own, but not in protest to your way of life (i.e. people don't define their experience based on "we do it this way 'coz the Yanks don't"), you learn a bit of cultural moderation.
I don't think we've actually come close to discussing if the Americentrist phenomenon is a symptom of the proportionally low travel rates; or if the reason Americans don't travel as much is because they're Americentric. Instead, people have taken it as implicit criticism of their annual earnings (it's not), defended the poor from their wealthy California abode (who were never under attack) or otherwise wasted the most precious commodity on earth with nonsensical postings.
So, I see I have to again posit the question, which isn't at all like urinating into a head wind: Is Americentrism a result of low rates of overseas travel and exposure, or do Americans not travel as much as others because they're Americentric?
Feel free to meander around aimlessly not addressing the question again, Philosopher. Great image.

 

I think other people have tried to address the rural/urban gap in attitudes and the socio-economic divide. I'm pretty well-versed. My U.S. family roots are southern, rural and dirt-poor, but I grew up in a small midwestern town in a well educated but thoroughly middle class setting. I worked through college, earned enough money to study abroad. Spent a few years in Vienna first as an exchange student and later as a German-English translator, then returned to the U.S. with an Austrian spouse and eventually settled in Chicago, a relatively immigrant-heavy and culturally diverse center for international business. I'm Chicago-centric. It's the greatest city in the world. We are parked on top of the world's biggest albeit somewhat polluted freshwater supply. As civilization fails and the U.S. decomposes into regional and local sub-states, our water supply and inland naval reach will become the foundation of a new empire city state, and as the twenty-second century dawns we will place our boot heel on the midsection of North America. By "we" I mean someone else, because I'll be long dead.

 

I'm sorry, I also forgot a fourth group and I feel poorly: military.

People who are used to travel; those that want to keep doing it in my experience and those who don't stay put.

As The Dukes of Hazzard put it: "Jesse L Duke. He's been in exactly two places in his life: Hazzard county and Korea. And if you asked him, that was one place too many..."

 

I think it's the size of the internal market that dictates the inward-looking nature more than socio-economic factors. Americans can (or used to, and now still pretend they can) do it all by and for themselves. The US used to be the biggest uniform market in the world. There was no need for an outward look, and it didn't sell. Cars were American, music was American, films were American. And wherever American culture went, it reigned supreme, and everything else was closed away behind an Iron Curtain.
Maybe when people realize how much of the stuff they see around them is now in Chinese hands, that might change. But probably not without some sort of revolution.

 

Exactly. Consumer culture. Mid twentieth century we dominated global manufacturing output. All that that stuff made elsewhere seemed to have been manufactured solely for Americans to consume. The oil embargo was the first shot across the bough of U.S. consumer culture, then we started worrying that the Japanese might someday replace us as the world's dominant consumers. Now we worry, more legitimately I feel, that the Chinese will stop making stuff for us and begin making most of it for themselves. Then what?

 

So, what, Americentrism is a doubling down of that belief in American superiority?

 

[quote="Jabbadabbado, post: 52175691, member: 226289"]Then what?[/quote]


The deluge.

No, I think it's a leftover from the absence of a need to look outward. Few have been taught to do that.

 

Ok, so basically because there's an innate belief everything you need is local, you don't tend to look wistfully abroad and think "I need go there! And there! And there!" ?

 

Well, I'd say so, if you couple it to America's **** Yeah World Police attitude.
Makes sense, right?

What's wrong with that quote?

 

Yes. First, there was no need to go abroad because everything we wanted to consume was made in the U.S. Next, there was no need to travel abroad, because everything we could possibly want to buy would eventually make its way to one of our many strip malls or big box stores. Ultimately, the middle class withers away, leaving the unwashed masses who will never travel anywhere, and a few stateless superrich at the top who can travel to Asia to enjoy all the perks of a high tech/high energy lifestyle.

 

So basically, culture was secondary to consumerism, which lead to consumption (in the old-timey sense of rot). Understood.

 

Nobody in America is refusing to go abroad because they think Europe sucks. That's not a real thing.

 

Nobody is saying they do. Chill, ultra-nationalist friends.

 

^super lolz right there..

I don't think I've ever met anyone, that said, at least openly, "I prefer not to travel abroad given the opportunity". I'm sure those people exist, but there few and far between.

On a different level, many people have traveled to different states, which on some level are culturally different - enough that when I'm in the great NE, I feel like I'm in a different country. Someone stated in the immigration thread, championing the reasons for multi-culturalism, and I kid you not one of the reasons was "cuisine". I mean if cuisine is your bar for level of cultural exposure, travel down the block or across the tracks in most American cities. I guess an outsider would see us all as Americans, but I suspect that amongst the states, people see people from another part of the country as a foreigner. Ask anyone in the South how they feel about Yankee's or vice versa, and its usually not in a very favourable context. Like all these Californians migrating to Texas, I wish they not come and taint our red meat, truck drivin', Jesus lovin', gun culture.

As far as exceptionalism goes, we're pretty good at co-opting the talent and making it our own, and doing it years before anyone else (hello, war tech; hello, space exploration). Take some random products of consumerism - a guitar for instance, that sets the standards for all other guitars in the world. I know many products that are "Made in the USA" are of exceptional quality, and of course exceptional price. But those products usually set the standard for others in the same categories. I think it's more prevalent in pop culture because that's what we seem to obsess on, but anytime anyone ever talks about American exceptionalism/centrism/supremacy/etc. I'm always reminded of PKD's The Man in the High Castle, where the remnants are all that's left of the Empire. Maybe we are on the wane, and that's why the American superiority complex is running wild and feverish.

As a sidenote, I think that's why Obama was so accepted with open arms around the world, because to steal a new line from Guiliani, but a long held belief - Obama doesn't believe in American exceptionalism, and instead continues the world apology/appeasement tour, begging forgiveness for our dominance in the last few decades.

 

Firstly, I'm not sure why but you always seem to have a need to get personal - no need for that.

I have read your question and you have presumed that travel is a primary factor - unlike your initial question that I am addressing.

I'll just state outright my points regarding the subject - firstly American-centrism is a overstated as I think there is a significant amount of Americans who aren't like this. Probably a minority, around 20%, but that is still a significant amount of people and shouldn't be generalised with the larger group. American centrism itself is due, in my opinion, to three factors - the fact that America is the primary world market and is self-contained (meaning there is no need to look outward for goods and services), the fact of its geographically isolated from 'exotic' cultures unlike almost all other western countries and the fact that when a culture does move to America it assimilates very well meaning there are not many examples of non-Americanfied cultures in America. I think these are the primary factors and any travel stats are a result of these factors.

 

This is like the time, recently, in the feminism thread, when two people said they hadn't tried a certain food, and Sigh got all revved up to do another "Murica" rant... until people told him he was being dumb, so he didn't.

 

No, that wasn't what happened. Not even remotely. You got touchy and sensitive, assumed it was, and acted like it was and Tunes backed you up.


deathraygun, Obama is not seen as a weak apologist globally. He does not buy into the twin myths of Americentrism and American Exceptionalism because he has the benefit of a culturally mixed heritage which disavowed him of any notion of American normative values early on. We all like Mr Obama because despite under-delivering on promises he is humble. Humble is a good quality in a leader, and Mr Bush Jnr was either too immature or too insecure - or both - to ever practice humility.

Before you confuse it with weakness, Mr Bush Snr was quite fond of humility. He was hardly weak.

Stop with the personal attacks.

 

The Chosen One as humble? That's laughable. And Bush Sr.?? Really? I'd rather have ol' Bill 'the Cuban' Clinton any day of the week.