Here’s something I didn’t know, written by a Brit:
… we don’t really know America or Americans. This is because, overwhelmingly, the Americans we meet have passports; over 80% of US citizens, however, do not, and so have never travelled outside their own continent.
80 percent? Is it that high? Possibly. I would have guessed more than half, maybe 55 to 60 percent. On the other hand, my impression of Europeans is that they zip off to other countries as casually as a New Yorker goes to the malls in New Jersey.
This may help to explain the other unfathomable mystery of the US: why they developed their own national participative sports, American football and baseball.
Association football has, of course, been growing in popularity in the US. But think what an impact it would have if football were the national sport and the US fielded a really strong side for the World Cup. It could do more to end US isolationism than a thousand politicians. …
I think he’s right. I also think our isolationism and ignorance of the rest of the world is going to be our undoing. Or part of our undoing, anyway.
On the other hand, my impression of Europeans is that they zip off to other countries as casually as a New Yorker goes to the malls in New Jersey.
We go to the malls in NJ? Since when?
Not for nothin’…
Our isolationism has everything to do with the fact that for 99% of the country, there will never be a need or an opportunity to go anywhere more foreign than Canada or the Bahamas. There will never be need or opportunity to be in a place where english is not the default language (ok, english or spanish these days, but even in heavily spanish areas everybody who wants a job learns english).
Americans know nothing about the outside world because there is simply no need for it, in day-to-day living.
In Europe, though, it takes a special kind of hermit to AVOID going to other countries, where other languages are spoken, and the internal politics of other governments might have a direct impact on your daily life.
The internet, tho, is ever so slowly changing things, I think. More and more people end up talking to foreigners just because they happen to go to a particular chat room.It’s still mostly an english-only zone, but there are many spots around the web where foreign cultures and ideas are there for the browsing, and foreign people are there for the talking to.
I have high hopes. The
internetcould erode america’s historic isolationism. It COULD happen. So … I hope.-me
Some of us cannot afford to travel. Thus, why waste money and time getting a passport. Also, American football and baseball are great sports IMHO. I watch way too much sports already. When soccer started picking up in popularity, I just decided I didn’t need to add one more sport to my agenda. I have tried to understand cricket and rugby because they are mentioned in many of the English mysteries that I read; but have found cricket, in particular, incomprehensible–and, then there is the time factor. As I have stated before, I am American Indian and I find many non-Indian Americans have no clue about our culture, let alone a culture outside of the USA.
I do not think that means what you think it means.
Um, we _have_ fielded a strong side for the World Cup. Won it a couple of times, even.
Women’s World Cup, that is.
The rest of the world needs to stop preaching at how the US should get on board the soccer train. They need to get on the _women’s_ soccer train. The US is way ahead of them, along with Canada, Brazil, China and the Scandanavian countries.
Of course, nobody watches it anywhere, but in that case, the US is hardly unique…
Maha,
The 80% figure may be low. With the exception of my 21 years in the U.S. Navy, I have not left the continental U.S. My wife has been to Paris & Germany, I to too many places to relate here and we’ve lived (again courtesy U.S. Navy) in Canada for 2.5 years.
We have a friend, born in England, now a U.S. citizen who is fluent in four languages.
There is no question that the Americans living overseas are quite different from the average American at home.
Distance is a great filter; It filters out, more than anything, the uneducated, the incurious, and the poor.
And the further away you get, and the more different the culture, the stronger the effect.
If I went by all the Americans I know in Thailand and Hong Kong, I would say that America is a profoundly liberal and tolerant country with very few Christians.
If only.
Ick,
Never quite occurred to me (at least while commenting) but I have worked real hard to stay away from “the uneducated, the incurious, and the poor.” Of the 3, the incurious bother me the most.
I could be an ex-pat but my wife of 45 + years will have no part of it.
It’s a LOT easier and shorter distance to travel from country to country within Europe than to overseas countries from the US. We couldn’t afford to see my father-in-law in England for FIVE YEARS, and we’re hardly teetering on the brink of poverty. We just didn’t have the disposable cash (we only just paid off the trip). I don’t know how people in debt handle even travelling within the US, much less overseas…