Wow! Anti-American racism is alive and well Down Under. I'm completley caught off-guard on this as most of my Aussie friends are very intelligent and much better informed that this writer, who obviously went looking for the "worst of the States."

These observations are so ridiculous they don't deserve a response, but my guess is that this writer is one of the more ignorant SOBs in Australia. There's a lot more to America than this crap, my friends. An comparable analogy would be if all Americans thought all Australians were drunken ruffians.

So, as my fellow Ugly Americans might say, "Eat it, Mr. West."

Boris - that's a bit of a heated response isn't it? You say it's the worst of America - fair enough, but in a world where the lowest common denominator is what tends to be exported, isn't it a genuine concern?

Rather than a kneejerk reaction and sledging, perhaps you could illuminate some of the more pleasant aspects of wider American culture?

Regarding the pharmaceutical companies being all powerful, it looks as though the Australian goverment is going to undermine the PBS by forcing the pharmaceutical companies to fund the Therapeutic Drugs Administration. A few million dollars saved for the loss of billions in the future as the companies demand influence in exchange for their dollars. This is so shortsighted of the Liberals that one has to wonder in whose interest they really govern, Australia's or the US? Hear about it on ABC Radio National's National Interest programme:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2007/1940042.htm

From my experience, this article is spot on. The vast majority of people in the USA are totally ignorant of the rest of the world. Which doesn't stop them from believing hard and fast that they are the best (USA #1), and that they hold The Truth, and that only they are Free and Civilised.
It is very scary that these people believe they have a mission to spread their lifestyle to the rest of the world.

There are reasons for anit-Americanism.

Quite good ones in my view.

Perhaps these could be looked at and not just labelled and dismissed.

One qualification - most large countries and empires are insular. This is not confined to America (or India or China).

Never been to North America so cannot comment on this picture of life there. However there are a group of American teachers at my University whom the rest of us at first suspected of pulling our legs - until we had a few d & m's and realised they were for real.

They didn't know that South Africa "also had a problem with black people" and though some had heard the word apartheid thought it was an American term.

Two of the subjects "studied" and contributing to their Bachelor Degrees were Cheer Leading and The Formulation of a Christian Family.

They did not know the names of the Prime Ministers of Australia or England (you know - America's great buddies)whom they insist on calling the "Presidents".

They had heard of the term The Renaissance but were unclear as to what it actually was.

They all thought America was heavily involved in saving the world in the First World War and thought that the Second World War actually started in December 1942.

They can't name any poets, authors, actors or even Nobel Prize winners who are not American. They had never heard of Mother Theresa.

They think that vaccinations, the motor car, the women's movement - ah let's face it, anything of any importance, originated in America.

They routinely deplore how the English are ruining the English language with such new-fangled introductions as putting a "u" in colour etc.

I am sure they are very learned in their own subjects and are wonderful teachers - but this lack of knowledge of anything outside their sphere has a somewhat scary side.

The word indoctrination (and a few less kindly ones) springs to mind.

When I was a volunteer at a Kibbutz in Israel some years ago I met a young American girl whose total ignorance of the most basic political geography truly stunned me. Of the many examples were:
"So, is Europe in Germany?", "What language do they speak in New Zealand?' and, (my personal favourite), after originally expressing total disbelief at the fact that the seasons were reversed in Australia compared to the northern hemisphere: "So does that mean the sun rises in the west and sets in the east? Wow!".

I have spent some years since looking for evidence that this was in fact an exceptional case. Still looking.

The author mentions "Americans’ lack of consciousness of anywhere outside the US"! This is completely untrue - American's lack of consciousness is much greater than that - in many cases they don't know anything outside their own county! I remember once being on a flight from Denver to Fort Worth, and sitting next to a pleasant and talkative young lady from Hicksville, Wisconsin. I think I spent most of the two hours of the flight telling her about California, Colorado, New York, and Texas about which her "lack of consciousness" was almost total

I think really it is quite unreasonable to expect someone whose geopolitical consciousness it pretty much limited by the horizon to have any knowledge of what goes on a thousand miles further afield. American culture is in many ways a time capsule of rural English values from the seventeenth century when a well-travelled man was one who had been as far as the next valley!

And it's getting worse; more and more Americans consciousness extends no further than their own epidermis - and I offer Ms Hilton and Ms Richie as exemplars of this.

sounds like that 'group of teachers' were graduates of one of the many 'christian' colleges in the usa.

yanks come in all sizes and shapes, and some are smart, well educated, handsome, like me.

but the ones who fight their way to the top of the political tree don't alienate large blocs of voters such as the 'ignorant jerk bloc', or the 'religious nutter bloc'. consequently, american foreign policy varies between naively inept and dimwitted brutality.

ozzies needn't feel too superior, it's not that they're better than yanks, just that they don't matter due to being few, powerless, and far removed from the real world, as the americans call it.

I must say I share Boris's irritation at this story, especially at its inordinate length, unrelieved by any contrasting view. And I'm not an American. Mr West could have taken a cue from Michael Gawenda's recent (far more measured) piece in the Fairfax press (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/27/1180205070036.html).

Or perhaps my irritation comes from the fact that I watch 'The Simpsons' too, and could have written the piece myself.

Romany's and Dylan's experiences are congruent with many of mine! It's no wonder that in a nation of such closed minds fundamentalist god-botherers proliferate. Actually I am waiting for a sect to arise which claims that not only is the universe not 13 billion years old, not only that it is not six thousand years old, but that it is only two hundred and thirty-one years old next month and that nothing existed before then!

A bit of a puzzle, this. Why spend so many words carping about another nation, and in such petty terms too? What's the point?

I've worked for a while in the US, and I have to say that I found a grain of truth in every section of the article. I still dine out on stories of US parochialism and idiosyncracy.

But to imagine that these examples, however true, provide anything like a picture of America or Americans is like saying that Crocodile Dundee represents everything anyone needs to know about Australia. Yes, we have an outback. Yes, there are crocodiles. Yes, blokes drink beer in pubs. Is that "Australia", or just a couple of snippets?

In any event, I suspect that the average belly-at-the-bar in the pub at Walkabout Creek knows little of life in New York. So what?

Michael Gawenda, in the article DNB brought to our attention, says:

>>Foreign correspondents in America often deliver a one-dimensional sense of this place<<

Casual visitors with a chip on their shoulder? More so.

Before reading any reader comments, i was impressed by the piece as a sober, non-polemical setting down of what the author saw and experienced in the USA. I think his report is accurate and all the stronger for its quiet sober tone.

Of course not all Americans are like this. There are islands of old-fashioned grace and civilisation, as we understand it, in the northeast - anywhere north and north-west of New York - and in the northwest - Oregon, Washington state, Northern California. And of course well-educated elite Americans rise above this - but as one correspondent said , what is described here is the mass-culture average-citizen reality in which these elites have to make careers. It is a fair assessment. The American friends I have - I lived there for three years in the 1970s - would not differ with these judgements. That does not make them, or the author, or me, anti-American.

The more important question for we Australians is - how different are we from what is described here? My answer is, not as different as we might like to think - and we risk getting more like this all the time. Take three examples: diets and obesity, the use by the military of sport-related public spectacle to make itself better liked by the general public, the loss of empathy with and knowledge of neighbouring cultures and languages. Is pot calling kettle black?

I think the hispanisation of the USA is the USA's best hope of overcoming isolationism and selfishness. Hispanic-origin citizens' morale is high despite their relative poverty. Hispanics have more empathy with poor and developing countries - obviously. Their Catholicism gives them hope of holding to a more universalist less self-centred world view. How will a minority of this huge size change the USA? I hope, quite a lot.

I travelled overseas recently too and have witnessed the "ugly American" tourists first hand. You can hear them coming long before you see them.

However, to be fair, I encountered people from other cultures just as sterotypical and most of the Americans I met were charming, considerate and respectful of their hosts.

However, as far as their level of education is concerned, it's all going to plan.

JD Rockefeller helped design the modern US Education System and the philosophy was that he wanted a "nation of workers, not thinkers".

http://www.hermes-press.com/education_index.htm

Most US citizens get their information fed to them from TV and we are heading the same way.

So you found collective American mentality to be narcissistic? - no surprise to many.
It is very infantile yet this American narcissism- recklessly masquerades as the universal authority on everything.

Pericles - naturally I can't speak for anyone else but my dismay at the parochialism of so many Americans stems from the fact that these values and attitudes are now the ones that are being proselytised at the point of a gun.

Yes, of course your average belly-at-the-bar exhibits the same tendencies to insularism - he/she mainly formed a worldview from t.v. and movies. The majority of which were American. Also, he/she does not hold the opinion that they have a mandate from God to go out and bring the good news of ockerism to the rest of the world.

This limited world view of which the author speaks could be regarded as risible - if it hadn't become so serious. The last week has brought what can only be described as schoolyard tantrums regarding China's military spending (one tenth of what the US has spent in the last four years EXCLUDING what has been spent in the Middle East) and now rocket bases in Europe "to ensure peace".

However when these schoolyard tactics are formulated in the offices of the most powerful nation on earth which has spent more than the rest of the world's countries put together on their military, then it seriously compromises the rest of us.

I have carefully considered whether I am racially prejudiced against Americans and can pretty confidently assert that I'm not. Like the peoples of all countries they are a mixed bag. And yeah, per capita we have just as many dim bulbs as they or any other country.

What I guess I am prejudiced against - anywhere - is unheeding Governments run by meglomaniacs (of any race) on power trips that endanger us all.

Have friends in America in Port Clinton, Ohio, where our youngest son stayed with an American family as an exchange student back in the 1960s. My wife and I also stayed with them for a while. Found the family very gracious and friendly, and have exchanged yearly greetings with the parents until both passed away in the last couple of years.

Will say, however, they were never inclined to question us much about Australia while we were over there, but did not decline to let us know all about God's Own Country, which compared to boorish dryish Aussie Land, guess one can understand how proud they are shown by the Stars and Stripes woven into their front doormats.

Yep, they are a bit different to us, and I guess with such a womderful country they've got and with them now allowed to get as powerful as they want, with all other countries not allowed, guess they just don't need to know who or where anybody else is, except maybe for terrorists.

Happy enough away from them these days, anyhow.

I am an American and there is a bit of truth in the harsh criticisms of my country. Much of what I've read, however, no more accurately reflects the United States as a whole than does Crocodile Dundee represent Australia. Some of us actually know that Melbourne is in the south of Australia, that Tasmania is an island that has mountains and cold weather and that the seasons in the southern hemisphere are reversed from ours in the U.S.!

But remember that the United States is a large country with tremendous diversity in all aspects among its many inhabitants. I will not try to correct the many errors of judgment of the writer of "Visions of America" because after all, I have to limit my response to 350 words. While reading his "shallow" article, it appears to me that his travels and ability to interpret what was going on around him was extremely limited. I would guess that he only spent time in Washington, D.C. and Florida and had little comprehension of what was going on even there.

I have never read such a load of tripe in my life. Many things are just wrong, such as the comment about travellers cheques. I was there only six months ago, and everyone accepted travellers cheques, including restaurants, wine shops, train stations and so on, as the same as money. Can you imagine that happening here? Banks would cash them for free, and so everyone else regarded them as good as cash. Of course I am talking about US dollar travellers cheques. Taking anything else around the world is just stupid.

The other point this article raised is that Australia JUST DOESN'T MATTER. When people talk about global warming, they talk about a moral issue. Why? because what we do doesn't matter. It is what the US. europe, russia india and china do that does matter.

The author complains about lack of knowledge about Australia. What does he know about Venezuela, which is a country with slightly more people than us. Talk about provincial?

Of course the americans are provincial. Criticising their weights and measures omits mention of the UK, where all road signs are in miles and furlongs. Is the UK provincial too? What about the time there was fog in the channel and the papers said "continent cut off".

For heavens sake get real.

Interesting to see such different perspectives on the USA.
I've been there twice now and mostly enjoyed the experience and the people I dwelt with.

I was suprised last time by how many of the people I met had been Down Under and how much they knew about this country and how interested they were in learning more.

The welcome and willingness to socialise I experienced staying in camp grounds exceeded anything I've seen in Australia in similar circumstances. First night there on my last trip I was invited over to share a campfire, the second night I was invited over for dinner. Later during the trip people went out of their way to include me and make me feel welcome.

The authors comments all have truth to them but they tell only part of the story. There is another story which involves a warm and involved people who care about many of the same issues which concern most of us. Who mostly love their country (and show it in a way that would make most of us cringe) but are willing to learn from others.

Maybe the author needs to take some time and get away from the pressure pots. Get out and meet some people in places away from the cities.

Yes some things about the USA don't make much sense to us but then our next PM will probably be either be Howard or Rudd so who are we to criticise?

R0bert

I wish to apologise to “Joe in the U.S.”.
Though in my post I cited an example of what I saw at the time, and still see, as a lack of public awareness in America of the outside world when compared to other developed nations I in no way an ‘anti-American’. I met many Americans in many parts of the world. Most in fact were intelligent, aware and erudite, and I didn’t have to agree with everything they said to recognise them as such. However it’s the odd close-minded bigoted ‘American supremacist’ one that sticks in peoples mind, sadly. The example I wrote of I actually do not believe to be truly representative of all American people. I was wrong to allude to this in my post. Trust me when I say we have PLENTY of morons here.
Despite my opposition to much of US foreign policy I do not consider myself an anti-American. America still has so much to give the world. Despite recent events America was founded on an ideal that has reverberated though history. Its potential for good is still huge. I love Australia. But we will never be in a position to be a world leader. American is, and has been for at least 100 years. Struggling people everywhere actually do look to America as an example as a beacon of political freedom. It’s a lot to live up to. It means every American citizen is by some degree judged by that standard. Australians are not subject to such scrutiny, or judgement. Its easy for us to be the good guys.
So many people belive in the founding principles of America. But in order to convince the rest of the world that they still apply, and by so doing reclaim the moral high-ground that America has legitimately held for so long, America has to rediscover those principles itself. I hope it does, but then I, despite everything, am sure it will.

I always enjoy my trips to the States. Perhaps, a little more provincial than most countries, yet, I would suspect many Australians would find it hard to plot world capital cities on a blank map of the world. Myself included.

About six months ago, I attended a small, tight seminar with Gore Vidal. Gore felt that historially America's pioneers did not want a Democracy but a Republic: English successionists did not wish to be controlled by England. Perhaps, this independent/isolationist streak is evident in the Americans ignoring the British Proclamation of 1763, wherein new British settlers were "not" meant to expand agressively into the inlands occupied by indigenous peoples.

In 1776, when their Declaration of Independence was written, Jefferson, under the influence Locke, saw "dissolution" for the colonists to be not only the right to conduct revolution, but the right to be self-sustained and without connections. For Americans, the Union was the Western equivalent to the East's Middle Kingdom (China). This gave fuel to the Manifest Destiny and the notion, that, that which should beneficially flow,would flow from the US.

What is interesting, I suggest, is that if West III, with England as the centre state, has been incline since Victoria (d.1901), then; given an Interregnum typically takes two hunded years to pass, the US still merely a contender to top dog in the way Egypt, Greece or Rome once were. That situation might not be immediately obvious to us, because we live our short lives in today's history, having the US dominate today's world affairs.

oliver, you need an editor.

you don't need vidal to tell you the usa wasn't designed to be a democracy, the founding fathers were clearly aware of democracy, and didn't want it, and said so. as in australia, women, persons of color, and wage workers have forced their way onto the electoral role, but the federal government there (and here) remains an oligarchy.

of course they have been sharing the american way of life with their neighbors since 1776, initially with musket fire and small pox infected gifts, more recently with napalm, agent orange, and depleted uranium shell fire. astonishing how some people continue to resist 'democracy, american style'.

Having read the essay, I wasn't going to post but, then I began to read the post from you lot and had to laugh. I was down to Albany the other day and I think I met all those people your writing about along the Serpentine. Didn't cost me but the fuel I had to burn to get there and back. The unfortunate bit is I didn't get see much of America. :-)

I too must add my comments on experiences with Americans. Whilst I have met a number of very nice Amercians (apart from the amount and volume of their voices), they do seem to very somewhat ignorant of the world around them, including their own country. Yes, one poster compares it to 17th century England, but we arent in the 17th century now, we have all sort of avenues of information available to us.

Whilst I dont believe that Australians know intimate details about America and its history or geography, most would have a reasonable general knowledge. And whilst perhaps not being able to place capital cities on a blank world map, would be able to match capital cities with country names, even for a number of countries that dont feature as prominently in our lives as the US.

Overall though, I feel that the gist of many of these posts (and indeed the article itself), is not so much annoyance or incredulation at the lack of knowledge of Americans, but that they as a nation (and it seems to be a belief held my a very large number of individuals, not just the state) feel that the rest of the world should be as America is, despite their lack of knowledge of the rest of the world. Their belief that their way is the only way (despite them knowing no other) is what rankles with the rest of the world - after all, its not that much different from Islam demanding that the whole world be Islam, just not in a religious context.

Was it Dylan who was apologizing (we do spell this differently) to Joe in the U.S.? There is abso-bloody-lute-ly no reason to apologize. As I mentioned in my first post this is a large country with many different points of view. What was posted, unfortunately, represents the views of a large percentage of Americans and no apology is necessary. It disgusts many Americans, as well, that many Americans think that anything that is not American has no value. We can and should learn much about all aspects of life - cultural, political, health care, environmental concerns and more from countries throughout the world. Not all of us are in an isolated cocoon not open to new ideas even though the ideas may not originate in the U.S. At age 79, I saw an ugly American in action when I was in my early twenties and visiting a night club in Mexico City. A very well-known movie actor who was obviously inebriated, stood up and said, "No, I don't speak Spanish!" And as he waved paper bills in the air, he said, "This speaks for me". This type of behavior is not what America is all about. But we still have a long way to go.

Demos,

Apologise the typos. My mind races ahead of my fingers and I am usually online for a few minutes only. Albeit, West III [three] is intended. It is a civiisationalist's term.

Guess what I was saying, and Gore Vidal didn't [he spoke about his life, not much on History], was separationism is a hand-maiden to insular attitudes. That said, the Manifest Destiny was (is?) expansionary and missionary.

I know the history you present down to the small pox infected blankets, as gifts to the Indians. Not so sure about how you would pull these threads together? A concluding paragraph would have been beneficial.

In the early decades of the US Republic, the definition of property was important [Van Doreen]. I think Madison may written an essay about? Just land and goods? Ownership in rights?

The anchronism of the Electoral College demonstrates that once only the powerful property class voted. With the French and Russian Revolutions there were class changes and demographic upheveal, but not so with US Revolutionary War

Having been born and raised in the USA, migrating here in 1965, and having to return to visit my aging parents, sadly, I feel this article is spot on. Of course, as tonykevin says, there are exceptions, in selected areas of the country, Americans who are world citizens and informed, and who are, in many cases, embarrassed by the insulation and ignorance of many of their fellow citizens, and by the loud and 'ugly' American. The longer I've lived in Australia, the more aghast I've been, seeing how many Americans and their culture was exactly what the author has described.

However, I have also been aghast to see many Australians taking on the worst aspects of Americans and their culture, especially in the past 10 years. It's upsetting to see that what I migrated to get away from has followed me down here 30 years later, and has become progressively worse each year of the last 10 years.

To me, this article is a perfect example of a difference in mentality varies between Anglo-Saxons/Celts dispersed and residing round a globe in countries of different political systems.

What I really liked is ”In Australia we try (I said try) to pay people properly. We don’t expect them to beg.” Welcome to after-sunset-Melbournian-streets (and, eventually, not Melbournian only), W. Sydney-based theoretic, welcome to world of reality in which I hardly met 80% of the US-trip-linked descriptions.

t's unfortunate Mr. West chooses only to look at the worst of America. Every country has its warts. True, we don't focus enough on foreign languages or world history as a whole; however, Mr West insinuates NO ONE in the US does. Is the ratio for 2nd language fluency that much higher in Australia? NZ? The UK? Mr West, the rest of the world uses cash machines and credit cards; maybe YOU"RE behind the times with traveler's checks. We are a country of immigrants like no other; our race problems are tackled head on, and we don't bring monkeys to the sports fields like our French friends to taunt African players. How are aboriginal relations Down Under? We eat too much fast food, but really, Mr. West, we are loaded with every ethnic restaurant known to man; you couldn't find a good Italian or Chinese one? And yes, we are proud of our all volunteer military, ready to defend Bosnians, Kurds, and others who can't defend themselves, including entering two World Wars to save our European and even, yes, our Australian friends. We're not perfect, but when you're on top, everyone wants to bring you down.

What is it that less than 15% of Americans have only travelled abroad, ofcourse many are naive and chose not to experience other cultures and have a lack of awareness for the outside world. For the few that do travel, congratulations- you might be wiser than the remainder of your population.

Three hundred years ago the Americans made a choice. They had kicked out England-crowned financially-political burden of which outcomes accentuate everything America succeeded up to date. This society’s success is to a great extent based on individual’s own merits, not on the biologically-motivated caste belonging, “mateship” as still in the UK semi-colonies constituted.

Surely, lacking of real jobs population to do but as usual copying foreign someone with a little reference to a local reality while calculating simple math only, aggressively introduces IR / welfare changes to pave already sure way to Labor political contestants, awarding traditional supporters with tax deduction perks simultaneously.

It is interesting to hear Mr. West’s opinion regarding the USA in three-four years since these modern to Australia changes to be in place.

MichealK,

There is less social mobility in America than in England let alone Australia.

It is less about merit than money. There is an American election year coming up - it is a good chance to study this dynamic.

I am going to have to agree that Americans are woefully uninformed about the rest of the world. However I do not think that this says anything about individual Americans. We are actually incredibly caring and generous people when we are informed about issues, be they wars, genocides, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami's you name it.

I think that the person who wrote the original post should have watched our media for a while while they were here. He or she would have understood why Americans are so "ignorant" of the outside world. (Or even of their own issues for that matter.) Our media is laughable as a source for news about world events or even national events that might disturb the "powers that be." (whatever that means) To see the protests of George W. Bush's first inauguration, for instance, I had to rent a DvD. I never saw it on the news. I wasn't even aware that there were protests. Americans are not monsters. And it isnt that we just inherently don't care about other countries. After all, Americans probably have more ties to the world at large via immigration than the average country does. We have good reason to care about the lands our people came from, and most of us do, but we simply dont get news of those countries from our media on a regular basis unless that news serves some political end. (War on terror for instance.)

We never got to hear that France played a large role in stopping the genocide in Rwanda for instance, our politicians love to hate on France and so we can only hear nasty things about them on TV. America may be billed as the free-est democracy, but as Noam Chomsky points out, it may only be the illusion of freedom. Of the press or otherwise.

Bottom line, Americans are ignorant of world events. But clearly people in other countries are a bit ignorant of the American press, or they would pity us, not revile us.

http://illusionsaregrander.blogspot.com/