Why/How are Americans Kept Ignorant?, page 1

hmmm i wouldnt say america or americans are ignorant any more or less than other people that live in other countries.

like we do on this board countries and people who live in them believe they have a real keen bead on things and sometimes views someone else as being ignorant.

i feel there is a large difference between being ignorant and simply being unaware. i cant and wont speak for anyone else but myself but i've seen these stats that so many americans cant find such and such country on a globe or cant recognize the picture of a certain public figure. it think its embarassing but i dont feel that accurately reflect in anyway how educated or uneducated americans are.

as someone said previously americans are busy. after all we have a government that takes an outrageous sum of our gross income as if its entitled to it. as if we have a debt with the government we are forced to pay on a weekly or bi-weekly basis which is only pauid off once we die. therefore we must work 8 9 10 11 12 hours a day, two or even sometimes three jobs. even with a simply 8 hour a day job you factor in lunch time. thats 30 minutes or hald an hour, now its a total of 8.5 or 9 hours. then there is a commute, lets say 30 minutes one way, which is average for those who dont live near downtown for example. that another whole hour eaten up going to and from work. now we're at 9.5-10 hours. now lets factor in getting up and getting ready for work. lets be conservative an say and hour. wow, already we're up to 10.5-11 hours. but we're not done yet! we also have to get the kids ready as well, tack on an additional 30 minutes. now we have spent 11-11.5 hours so far and we arent done yet! now we get home and we have dinner. but we've been up and doing things for almsot 12 hours now....sheez! but lets tack on an hour for dinner both cooking a simple meal and eating it. 12-12.5 hours. now you gotta make sure your kids do their homework, you gotta do daily house chores, you gotta do shopping. even just spending some time unqinding from the day if you're lucky will eat up at least 30 minutes. so we americans spend about 14 hours at least on the move. at least that often on a daily basis. so we dont often have time to learn about whats going on in islamabad or bangladesh. its hard enough to find out whats going on in our communities. now keep in mind what i described above on covers one job, assuming its a monday through friday gig. if you add even a part time job or school...well you're time becomes even more precious and becomes something of a competition, do i do the things i need to do on a daily basis to live and get by or do i take time out of my schedule because someone else in the world thinks im ignorant because im not always up to date on what goes on in the rest of the world?

ignorance is ignorance IMO and there are no such thing as "less ignorant" and i seriously doubt the rest of the world has suddenly become enlightened enough to call anyone else in another country ignorant.

i could say those who are not fully aware of how most americans live are ignorant but that wouldnt be fair to call them that they simply are not aware. but i guess to assume something and then make presumptuous remarks in kind could be construed as ignorance personified. ignorance is simply not knowing something, no no no, it is also a state of mind where we sort of make things up as we go along to fill in the gaps in our education of something and then assume it to be true. that is true ignorance. i dont see how americans are any more guilty of this than anyone else, this isnt to say they are less guilty but i dont see how any else has the highground in this issue.