Xenophobia, or just stupidity?

Originally posted by Cosmic4life
I refer to my previous post what i posted earlier.(cough)
Yeah I'm gonna have to wade in here.
A lot (not all) of Americans are Xenophobic Bigots.
Most Americans don't own a passport.
Most Americans really do think world series baseball is a world championship,lol.
Most Americans really do think the rest of the world is insignificant.
Most Americans really do think they saved the world in ww2.
Most Americans really do think they invented everything.
Most Americans really do get upset like Israeli's when challenged.
Most Americans really do think it's funny when other nations get bombed back to the stone age.
Most Americans really do lack the humility to recognize other human beings as equals.
Most Americans really are full of hubris.
Those of you on this website are the minority who are human and concerned and i apologize to you for my frankness.
But you know it's true, most Americans attitude to the rest of the world is "screw you buddy".
What do you make of that Schrodingers dog,can't wait for your sanctimonious slap down.

With respect, I humbly offer a response which will be quite shy of the mark that Schrodingersdog would hit, but I am compelled by certain lists.

A lot (not all) of Americans are Xenophobic Bigots.

This presumes that you know a lot of (not all) Americans. The denigration is not well-received.

Most Americans don't own a passport.

Most Americans neither need, nor want one. We live in a country of 50 states, many of which are larger than many countries. If there's one thing we don't lack in America, it's room for adventure. We needn't 'present our identities' to authorities to visit friends or conduct business (yet.)

Most Americans really do think world series baseball is a world championship,lol.

It is whatever we want it to be. Is every country represented in every sport? I suppose the same ridicule can be laid on those who claim the world championship in curling, or Sumo.

Most Americans really do think the rest of the world is insignificant.

This presumes that you know most Americans.

Most Americans really do think they saved the world in ww2.

This presumes that you know most Americans.

Most Americans really do think they invented everything.

This presumes that you know most Americans.

Most Americans really do get upset like Israeli's when challenged.

Wow. There's an interesting possibility in that line of reasoning. But I suspect it wasn't intentionally evoked. And once again, this presumes that you know most Americans.

Most Americans really do think it's funny when other nations get bombed back to the stone age.

That's just sad, you really think that? And once again, this presumes that you know most Americans.

Most Americans really do lack the humility to recognize other human beings as equals.

That's just sad, you really think that? And once again, this presumes that you know most Americans.

Most Americans really are full of hubris.

As above.

Those of you on this website are the minority who are human and concerned and i apologize to you for my frankness.

Frankness. That is refreshing, but it defines a sour line between us. You will forgive me if I'm disinclined to accept good intentions as you define an entire nation, of which I am part, in such terms.

But you know it's true, most Americans attitude to the rest of the world is "screw you buddy".

I am afraid I don't know that such a statement is true. And I dare say I may know more Americans than you do.

==========================

This serves to further my opinion that the angst between our nations might very well be manufactured. That the image of Americans, as portrayed by media. is serving a purpose other than informing.The media industry must surely have a sense of what it is doing.

The OP is on target. But it's pointing the gun backwards.

Why would they want everyone to see Americans in this light?

We are a collections of multiple cultures, religions, and ideologies... how could one caricature embrace 300 million people?

In one matter I hope you are correct: "Those of you on this website are the minority who are human and concerned."

You may not believe me, but I have yet to find an American who fits you're perception of the group.

reply to post by Maxmars


I would have something to add to your post but you summed up my feelings of this particular poster succinctly.

Rather sad that we're the ones accused of embracing ignorance when it's obvious that this poor soul has been indoctrinated by media equivalents of its very definition.

Actually, I do have one thing to add... if this garbage is what more than 25% of what once would've been considered to be an educated world believes about the majoriity of Americans, then yes, I say "Screw you buddy..."

Originally posted by neformore
Its not America bashing, its a disussion about how certain sections of the US media so readily dismiss whats going on in the rest of the world.

And yet in your OP you say:

it raises a question - why can't the US accept that there is a world out there?

and go on to pose the possibility that:

the US simply going to be reduced to a generation of right-wing politicians who, frankly, are going to be a complete liability to the country on a global scale, because they've never even tried to understand anything outside of the US.

which really does suggest that you see this handful of far-right political commentators as both representative of US citizens as a whole and at least potentially as the future of the nation as a whole.

Yes you admit that the quotes are cherry-picked from some of the "worst of the worst" but you do draw the line from what they say to what most Americans believe (or are thought to believe based on what bits of American media coverage are covered by the media elsewhere).

I agree with your point that reports of this sorts of jingoistic (at in one case at least borderline-racist) rhetoric contributes to hatred of or disdain for America elsewhere in the world. I dislike the impression I get that the British media has been pushing the notion that these few speak for all of us (or for that matter that most Americans blame the UK for the BP oil leak). It's just not true from my perspective.

Frankly, most of the jingoistic American rhetoric I'm exposed to in my life comes from this very website -- it has just never been there in my normal life. I'm not blaming ATS in any way, or suggesting that the admins/mods are the source of that jingoism. I'm just trying to point out that if you use ATS as a basis for judging how much attention is paid to the likes of Glen Beck you're getting a very distorted view of the American public.

I also found it interesting that in one of the quotes provided, Gordon Liddy is specifically bemoaning the loss of a general sense of American exceptionalism. Yet the article you linked uses that as evidence of American exceptionalism?

So we have an aging politician who has been a figure of ridicule among a large segment of the American public for a quarter of a century, a talking (or yelling) head who is losing viewers after his brief moment in the sun, and two other guys whom I'm not familiar with. And we're supposed to leap from that to the possibility that "the US simply going to be reduced to a generation of right-wing politicians"?

I'm more concerned that the US is going to be portrayed in the foreign media as nothing but its most vocal and inflammatory commentators.

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Thanks for giving a descriptive term I can live with here.

Ethnocentricity. Like most characteristics, some have it, some don't. Like greed, compassion or honesty, you don't have to know it exists to have it.

It's an equal opportunity characteristic.

Were it not, this thread wouldn't exist.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


I had an anthropology class back in school where the professor demonstrated ethnocentrism by first introducing a term called "The Second Harvest", and then described an area in Central Africa where the weather was so hot, the area so arid, that the vegetation that grew in this area was quite coarse, and had no real nutritional value its first ingestion. So, the locals of this area had a tendency to eat the food, digest it, pick through their feces, clean the food, and ingest it again so as to obtain the necessary nutrition.

Upon hearing this description, the class reacted with a very vocal disgust. The professor pointed to that reaction and declared it ethnocentric. We simply didn't understand the culture, and so we recoiled at that which we didn't understand. Of course, I thought he was full of crap, and crap with no real nutritional value to speak of. I understood his point about ethnocentrism, but found his analogy absurd. It strikes me as rather odd that a community or tribe of people would decide it was better to stay in area that would force them to eat their own crap, rather than just move to an area where the vegetation was more conducive to survival.

I would suggest that successful people, or nations don't survive by eating their own crap. We may love to fling crap at others, but as evidenced by the O.P., we surely don't like to eat it when flung back at us. Crap, or crow, we just don't like the taste of it, and recoil at having it served to us.



[edit on 1-7-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
Dear lord .... you guys are so silly.

The article in the OP is "As the World Cup starts, conservative media declare war on soccer" and how US conservative media is using the sporting event to, according to neformore, pimp xenophobia.

Now the thread has gone all Faulty Towers and you're all back to mentioning the war.

Sheesh, ethnocentric much?

Just goes to show you that soccer/football nationalism is the least of the consequences when folks glean their identity based on arbitrary lines on a map.

It's a drawing, not a raison d'etre!

schrodingers, I see you have a lot of stars for your post there and frankly cant stand it.

For one thing then I suppose you believe in the mobility of this international sport to be fine theater for how nations, races ect get along away from the stench of ethno awarness. And it is only the american conservative media spinning it into something for the dimwits to feed on.

The truth is that always residing under or just out of sight of these great international charades is the truth of the hypocricy, the absolute inability of these temporary distractions to erase reality try as they will to delude us all by slight of hand. In fact these games are just wars without guns that feed the same nationalistic egos of the whole of the ethnocentric world.

Did you happen to notice some of the ethnic violence taking place latley? Maybe they should just toss out a soccor ball in the middle of all the fighting..I mean everybody knows that means peace and love and please stop fighting. Next time we have a Rwanda we just fly over and drop out white kickballs and all will come to their right minds no?

Football as some international pressure valve or measure of lack of ethno hangups is a large scale brainwashing fraud. It is nationalist ego mosaic in showcase for pasification at its best in a cheep wooden frame. Only the dizzy set around and chew on it as if it were some volumus treatise on race and international relations.

White crosses in graveyards around the world of American service men is really all I need to know about Americas willingness to play against the ethnocentric world game. We save some and fight others, fight our brothers, we have our own problems with race but we are also the only nation that almost tore itself apart to resolve our inner conflicts about race. Hundreds of thousands of dead Yankees....we need no schooling from the rest of the world. White crosses... not the cheep politics of the white ball have saved the world and speak much louder. Any talk of such things around this game is just cheep talk like the junk they sell at the concession stand. And thats where you hang out digging your stars form all the connoisseurs of modern day feel good smelly race politics. National Geographic and Peace Corps couch potatos, mentally flatulating race epicureans.

Soccer is a game for children in America. Nearly every single kid in America plays soccer. How do you think we have so man Soccer Moms?

Soccer is not so much a sport as it is a political tool and form of social control in other nations. A way to maintain feelings of nationalism in an increasingly homogenous world. Without soccer most countries would have no national identity at all. It is at soccer games only where many can express feelings of nationalism. Once they go home all thoughts of exceptionalism must be flushed out of the mind.

That is why soccer is not poplar with adults in America. We already have a national identity, feelings of nationalism, and love of country. We do not need to artificially create such feeling through externalized activities like organized sports. We play sports for competitive reasons not nationalistic.

reply to post by Maxmars


I am glad you responded to my post, for a while there i didn't think anyone was going to notice.
I was of course assuming the role of devils advocate and meant no offense.
Though you may not be aware that outside of the US this is exactly how your nation is perceived, just as people of my nation are perceived as either common jack the lads or toffy nosed lord snooty's.
And where does this perception come from and who is responsible? Ahh yes the media spinning tales to divide and conquer.
Cos if we're fighting each other then we are not fighting the power.
Through the wonders of the interweb i have discovered that 10 people from any nation will have ten different opinions, a liberating experience.
The media provide the stereotypes for those without the capacity for critical thinking, the media are the propaganda wing of TPTB.
It is to the media and their masters we must ask why?