Friday 16 March 2007

America, America, God Spread His Dumb On Thee

It occurred to me recently that the richest nation on the planet is also the one populated with highest percentage of ignorant people. Surely this shouldn't be right. In the glory days of the British Empire, the French Empire, the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, the Mongol, the German the populations of the sovereign nations were cultured, civilised and intelligent. Of course they bowed to the propoganda of the state, every population does, but they still remianed open and appreciative of the ways of the rest of the world and moved with the times.

How then can the mass of the population of the United States be such morons? Outside of the east and west coasts (and even then it's really only key cities), the majority of the country are beyond baqckwards in the way they think about the world. They still can't understand why coalition forces still haven't captured The Great Satan Osama. Nevermind the fact that they're looking for one guy in a country the size of Texas that's also riddled with a monstrous cave network. They still can't get their head round the idea that the United Kingodom is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island and each is a (semi) independent country. Three quarters of the population doesn't have a passport and has never left the country. Nearly a third of them still believe that the world is only 7000 years old and was created by God, that Heaven and Hell exists, that gayness is an abomination (they don't realise that any ugly couple is an abomination) and that evolution is a lie that basically says that you're a monkey. (They don't know the differance between apes and monkeys).

I just can't understand how a country so rich can be so blind. So foolish. Still clinging onto blind, mindless patriotism (the virtue of the viscous according to Oscar Wilde), and as naive about the way other countries work as a two year old is about the workings of a thermonuclear reactor. Where capitalism has boomed and paved way for a (generally) superb standard of living (unless you're an inner city black - ands that's not a joke it's true), how can it leave people so totally ignorant to the ways of 21st century living?

I don't understand it and suppose I never will. I'm not that dumb.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, as far as the passport thing...America is such a large country that it's not a MUST to visit other countries. People from all over the world want and come to America, but not many Americans go all over the world.

I recently got a passport, and was on my way to a new country...but it did not turn out well. The country just to the north, Canada. I was deported before I could even step foot in the country.

With so much trouble to leave the U.S., it's almost not practical to leave. However, I do believe that there are better countries, (in regards to freedom of sexuality, prostitution, city layout...as opposed to having to drive for hours in the same state, in Europe you can spend that time on a plane and be in another country in less time) and I'm certainly aiming to do so.