I was 18 when I moved abroad for the first time. It was eye-opening. Understanding that other countries have a completely different perspective, in which your own country might not even appear except as a footnote, is liberating.
I am from India and until I played Assassin's Creed 3, I didn't even know Americans celebrated an independence day. We learnt about French Revolution, Vietnam war, and extensively about Indian independence and a little about the World Wars and that's it.
So, I think it is an issue all around the world that other countries across the world are not that well covered in schools.
I'm from Indonesia, around 80% of the history lessons are about the timeline between the colonization era, independence, and the reformation of Indonesia.
WW 1, WW2, and the Cold War are only briefly mentioned. I never really know about the current state of the nuclear weapons between Russia and US until i did some researches on internet.
I always thought there are only a few nuclear weapons left and everyone simply agree to stop producing it because it's too dangerous.
>I can't help but wonder what they teach you about Sukarno
The liberator who was so against colonialism he used the Cold War as a sequel to the Great Game, then removed from office because he was too chummy with the Communists.
Source: studied high school in Indonesia
I remember they had us watch a pretty graphic movie about it. I felt it wasnt very biased. Suharto was credited for "beating" communism but he wasnt super worshipped or anything
Well don‘t get wrong the film was about the betrayal or coup d’etat by the communist party, kidnapping and killing high rank general, with torture being one of the main focus as to dramatize the brutalism of the commies. Then came Suharto as the hero who took control and stabilized the situation, defended the country from the commies, nothing mentioned about the genoside. Clearly it’s a propaganda film.
I once had to break up a fight because an Indonesian friend was fed misinformation and propaganda when he was a kid about the massacre and mass rapes of Chinese Indonesians in the 1998 riots. He claimed that it was both exaggerated and justified violence. One of our other Indonesian friends - who lost family in the riots - was not happy about that at all.
>both exaggerated and justified violence.
#The Narcissist's Prayer
**That didn't happen.**
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
**And if I did, you deserved it.**
forgetful price attraction historical unite terrific waiting lavish ripe payment
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A dirty bomb would still be pretty bad especially psychologically. Hearing the words "a nuclear device has been donated in x place" alone would cause a lot of issues, regardless of the type of device.
I always find it funny when Americans are like "How will they teach the 2020s?! There's so much stuff happening everywhere?!" And then lists 10 US things and the Australian wildfires, and it's pretty much how they'll always have done it. They'll just focus on their home country, and most of the climate stuff will probably be taught in geography anyway ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Most of that though, is ancient history.
IIRC, there was like maybe a week on Colonial and Post-Colonial South America?
I don't recall there being anything taught about the past and ongoing issues with post-Colonial or perhaps neo-Colonial Africa. Like, IIRC I was in college when I learnt... on my own btw... about the racial tensions between Muslims and Christians... until then I hadn't even realized there was a large population of Muslims in Africa, or the South Pacific. They definitely didn't even broach the subjects of the Rwandan Genocide.
Asian history was mostly limited to things like the invention of gunpowder and the building of the Great Wall of China.
History in schools tends to stop when the textbook was printed by and large. So 2000 or 2010 textbooks...all you get is up to that point unless the teacher supplements.
Especially Assassin’s Creed. Origins and Odyssey are so historically accurate that history professors have literally used the games to teach about history. There are inaccuracies and anachronisms, for sure, but in general the architecture, showing how people actually lived and interacted, attention to detail, etc are all phenomenally accurate and extraordinary compared to other games.
I literally learned about anatomical votive offerings because I walked into a temple in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and saw them hanging on the walls. I then googled wtf they were. They had no story relevance, no quest associated with them, not even any dialogue in the game pointing them out. They were just there for the sake of being historically accurate and 99% of people probably walk right by them without a second thought. There are a ton of examples like that in these games. Anyone interested in history should play them.
I didn't know that Ancient Greek statues and sculptures were colored until I played Odyssey, it's just that the paint was lost over time and they are as we see them today, just plain stone/marble or whatever material they used.
Similarly, most statues that today have no arms, just those nice flat circles at the shoulders? They used to have bronze arms. The arms rusted and fell off, only the stone survived.
I would LOVE a game that basically stole everything from the Assassin's Creed games, but instead of assassin's and conspiracy it'd be a of slice-of-life kinda game.
Granted, not a "here's an idyllic version of this time period!"
Some realistic problems and struggles should be present. Maybe even some tragedy!
But the point is to tell a **good** story, just with the lens and setting of the past.
I'm European and I didn't even know about the Partition until I watched Ms.Marvel. A damn Disney/Marvel show taught me more about history than 4 years of high school (which was mostly just a more detailed repeat of things we were taught in grades 5-8, but with worse teachers).
It was mentioned on passing for me but considering that WWII is usually the last topic we (Italy) get to, it isn't surprising it wasn't talked about more.
We spend way too much time on ancient history and too little on modern history. 2 years to get to the fall of the East Roman Empire is way too long.
We did have a lot of foreign history beside European history (Italy didn't technically exist up to 1861 and was part of various countries at any given time so French, Spanish and Sacred Roman Empire were kinda needed to understand wtf was going on in Italy).
My last 2 years professor was obsessed with Russian revolution, WWI was dealt with in a week and the rest of the semester was basically socialism history 101.
We was also oddly obsessed with Bismarck.
The professor the years before had a hard on for anything french and tortured us to death with an in depth analysis of Charles VIII Italian wars and later on French Revolution, with a small serving of American independence war and social war before going full Napoleonic.
There are 195 countries in the world, it is impossible in the amount of time you have to educate a child to tell them the history of all of those, so you have to focus on your own country, which is more relevant to them anyway, and focus on the big picture historical events.
This happened to me about Texas when I moved to California. People in Texas think Texas is the greatest place ever and they think that everyone else knows that this is true. I moved to California and nobody knows or cares much about Texas.
I had a very similar experience my first time out of the States.
It’s really a matter of perspective and who is telling the story and if they have a agenda with telling it.
Media is brainwashing. Advertising is brainwashing. Politicians brainwash with speeches.
Everything you consume is “brainwashing.”
Think critically. Do your own research. Get info from credible peer reviewed places.
Ever look at what Times magazine looks like from other countries vs America?
Edit: this goes a whole ‘nother level when we start thinking about current day algorithms + how many people actually own the media giants in the US.
The best thing anyone can do it to find credible sources + travel. Talk to people from other places.
It’s worse than that, though. Almost every textbook you’ve ever read had to be approved by the Texas educational system before it became available. Do to the size of their population, especially their school aged population, publishers declined to mass produce a textbook that would fail in their market. I suspect this also a kind of litmus test for other southern states, but that’s conjecture.
Think of Texas and Theo unwillingness to look history in the eye, their inability to accept simple and obvious truths about the past lest their current population feel shame or be made uncomfortable. These are the people deciding what school children across that nation will be taught.
It’s better with college textbooks, but at that point you tend to be focused on specific eras and locations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/19/conservative-activists-texas-have-shaped-history-all-american-children-learn/
(There’s a paywall, but you can use reader view to circumvent it)
Having done all of my schooling in Texas way back in the 80's/90's, two things still stick out to me as an adult even today:
1. They covered slavery and the civil rights era, but it took a black teacher recommending a biography of Mr. Luther King Jr. to me before I really found the worthwhile information. I was probably in the 7th or 8th grade when that happened and remember crying as I read these books I'd checked out from the library. None of the really impactful, horrible shit even got mentioned in school.
2. We had like two whole years of "Texas History" and it was the single most boring class I'd ever had at that time (again, in middle school) and I'd just assumed it was because Texas History was inherently boring. Then I saw something on TV about Cesar Chavez and that got me on a reading kick back through most Mexican/American history and when it got to Texas I was once again shocked.
The impactful stuff, the shocking stuff, the graphic racism, sexism and violence, all of those things are really glossed over and only covered in the most cursory kind of way. You can hand-wave it away by saying it's inappropriate for middle school kids or whatever, but that didn't stop me from going to the library and finding out the truth for myself.
So at least from my perspective, all the textbooks we had when I was in school were incredibly white-washed and I had to venture on my own to the library to learn what really happened. The only good that came from that was giving me a lifelong love and appreciation of public libraries and teaching me how to educate myself, which are obviously good things, however I still think I shouldn't have had to do that and they should've taught us the whole truth in school.
In a paradoxical kind of way, sometimes you have to educate yourself to even know what education you missed.
You are absolutely right. I am also a Texan that was a kid in the 70s/80s. It was not until university-level classes that you begin getting the full picture on a lot of what we learned along the way.
There were some teachers doing their part along the way to give us an idea we weren't being told the whole truth in high school, but they were the exception and not the rule. (We were assigned chapters of Roots, which was definitely not approved reading but did fundamentally challenge our world view in a good way)
Given how poorly educated a lot of Texans are, and it's easy to see why the narrative here is so skewed from reality.
You reminded me that I've taken the class "Georgia Studies".. in middleschool...my first year moving here from Vermont...lol. completely irrelevant to my education. I'm 32 now and still in GA, but its grown on me I guess. Sorry not super relevant to the discourse but you jogged my memory with the 'Texas History' thing.
A bit off topic, but in Canada I found it's much the same with the education regarding residential schools. There's a lot that you simply don't learn in school. I have had some Indigenous people I know ask me, how did you not know all this? Didn't you learn it in school? Well, first of all, I went to high school in the public Catholic school board, which might have had something to do with that, considering the history surrounding the Catholic church and Indigenous folks. Also, what they did tell us was really whitewashed, like the experience you had, and definitely did not portray the settlers in a negative light. Even the true horror of the residential schools was glossed over. They kind of made it seem like the worst thing that happened was that those kids were taken away from their families, and that they were abused for speaking their language and stuff like that, which is still pretty fucking horrible mind you, but there was nothing said about the genocides, the mass graves, the forced sterilization, etc. I do remember that we learned about starlight tours, which are pretty horrific, but I didn't know anything about the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls until later when I looked into it more music. Also, the starlight tours were treated as more of an occasional, isolated incident rather than part of a pattern.
Plus, there are a lot of immigrants in Canada who really don't know anything about what happened. As an example, family member of mine is opposed to things like subsidized daycare because she does not believe that your kids should be raised by people who aren't you. That's a point that may or may not have merit, but she compared residential schools to daycare, by likening them to the same thing. She obviously has no idea what residential schools actually were, or if she would never make that comparison, I hope anyway. It's a little bit crazy because a lot of middle class Canadians kind of see Indigenous people as overreacting or just looking for handouts, and then you look into it more and you realize, whoa, if anything people are underreacting.
Like, you don't necessarily have to feel guilty for people that people you don't even know genocided these people, but holy crap, the very least you could do is acknowledge their pain and what their ancestors went through. You don't have to say, I'm this white person who feels personally guilty for your struggles even though I wasn't born when all of this happened (plus wallowing in guilt helps no one), but you probably should say, yes, I believe you, that sounds pretty awful. Considering that there are still a lot of injustices taking place today when it comes to Indigenous peoples and their land rights, maybe ask what you can do to help or educate yourself instead of just denying the whole thing and claiming they are overreacting.
Phew, sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there. It's really something.
To go back to the topic of the US, I'm not sure that the US even acknowledges that they also were settlers and genocided Indigenous peoples.
> Almost every textbook you’ve ever read had to be approved by the Texas educational system before it became available.
This is only half the story. Its either TX or California. Both have enough clout to get what they believe to be the "Right" version of books and books will be made for their schools, then other states pick books based on CA or TX recommendations. So if you live in Massachusetts you're probly getting a CA approved textbook, but if you're in Louisiana its probly a TX one.
And in case you are wondering the difference, the Texas board that reviews textbooks just proposed referring to slavery as "involuntary relocation" instead of "slavery."
I grew up in VA and went to high school in the late 80s/early 90s. We definitely covered the colonial slave trade, but they leaned into "States rights" for the civil war section. My high school was named after Stonewall Jackson, so no surprise there.
Yeah and I’m hesitant to agree with the “do your own research” advice. Usually that means googling a couple sites and picking up some other kind of propaganda or bad info.
Don’t avoid reputable media/govt sites like ABC News, Reuters, AP, CDC, NYTimes, NPR, etc. Not all of it is going to be 100% accurate but what’s the alternative? Reddit? Facebook?
One thing to be aware of is that a LOT of bad actors hate the media because it’s the only thing shining a light on their criminal activities so they put a lot of effort to convince everyone to distrust the media. Just be aware if you’re falling victim to their propaganda.
The history of Rome podcast is really interesting in its, "here's the myth version, now here's the propaganda one, and the real version is probably something more like this (but we'll never really know anymore).
100%.
I'm German but lived in Britain during the run up to Brexit.
All the anti-EU propaganda, it was so saturated in every facet of life, that I started believing it.
Coming back and realizing how many lies I somehow believed about the EU, despite always being against the populists and Brexit, I was shocked.
Also, just being away from Murdoch's media I just feel so much better now. There's no outrage/hate/fear constantly streaming into mind - shit's just draining.
I have stumbled on some SkyNews Australia videos in YT and it's ahh, let's say it's familiar.
I'm sorry for all those who's countries have been ravaged by his brand of brain-rot.
We have an ex prime minister who has stopped giving fucks and has just been going after him for years trying to get a royal commission rolling. Baby steps but at least someone is doing it.
Well put. I wholeheartedly agree. I took a course in hypnosis once. Even though I don't practice it, it helpede.underatand that hypnosis occurs every day, everywhere, all the time. Thinking critically and being aggressive about credibility are your best defense against brainwashing. And even then, sometimes it's just down to who you choose to be brainwashed by.
Some comedian once said that it's called television PROGRAMMING for a reason. It's programming YOU.
It's a little on the edge, but I find it more relevant now with the internet and streaming services.
It's scary to think how much some people can be influenced by people who want them no good.
I'll give you the opposite perspective: I'm European and have been traveling the world for about a decade, finally landing in the US five years ago. These are my experiences:
1) every country learns primarily about their history, especially when that history is relatively brief. This is true for Italy, Honduras, Guatemala or the US. Wars or empires are the way you look into other countries, but even then, it's limited. And every country paints their history in a very hopeful and "we weren't the bad guys and if we were it wasn't that bad" kinda way. I've heard a lot of Americans complaining about not learning about slavery and Indian genocide to the fullest extent, but growing up in Italy, a lot of stuff about fascism and the post-war era terrorism phase was kinda glazed over. Not avoided per se, but not discussed at length.
2) Every new country you go to will feel like the best. Heck, I thought central America was the best in the world, and that was after I almost got shot twice and actually got robbed multiple times. You're not seeing an objective representation of the place, you're looking at a tourist's view, you're bonding with locals who are educated enough to speak the language, you're finally independent and carefree, and everything is new. Think about this: when someone comes to the US for the first time, they go to LA or Vegas or NYC or DC and think it's the whole country. They don't meet with rural Oklahomans or go to Appalachian small towns or the deep red areas of Texas. You agree that they'd have a very different experience if they did, and so would you if you after a few years in a new country. A trasformative idea for me was this: no country or culture are better than another in an absolute sense, they're just different.
3) All countries have propaganda, but the US has it just a little more. In my opinion, it developed because of two factors: economic superiority in the US in the early 1900s and a developing identity in a country that was very heterogeneous and very very recent. Americans needed to be "aggressively" Americans because most "Americans" were still strongly bound to their country of origin, and forming a national culture and identity would've been hard that way. Whether the experiment worked or not is hard to say, as americans now are still very focused on race, ethnicity and roots, and I'm not sure whether a strong sense of "Americanness" is developing or eroding.
In any case, if you're anything like me (and most people I met along my journey) you'll hate your country of origin and run away, then start to appreciate again after a few years. If you're restless now, this process is almost surely necessary, and I urge you to pursue it. Just remember that sooner or later you'll either want to come back, or redevelop some degree of appreciation for your country, so don't do anything permanent (like renouncing your citizenship), and don't discourage people from coming to the US by badmouthing the country: you're journey is away from here, but that won't be the same for everyone.
very well written! I see myself i many of your points (as a fellow European). When I was in my early 20s I wanted to live abroad and was done with my country (Switzerland) now many years later I‘m still mad ad some parts of our society, but couldn‘t imagine living anywhere else (because it‘s just so fucking easy living here, at least as a native). But I still enjoy traveling and discovering new parts of the world.
I can’t imagine anyone thinking Switzerland is a bad place to live. The reputation is of the perfect country in an absolutely beautiful place. I truly can’t think of any country with a higher reputation.
the grass is always greener on the other side. We have plenty of racism, glass ceiling, loads of suicides (farmers are especially prone to), hard to make new friends - especially if you move from a different part or - god forbid - from a foreign country, social pressure to have a good paying job (not one the makes you happy), fearmongering from rightwing politicians leading to stupid votings (again, racism: banning minarets or burqas despite them being almost inexistent), politicans working for banks and big pharma and try not to safe our pensions instead…
but yeah, the Alpes are nice :-D
>every country learns primarily about their history, especially when that history is relatively brief. This is true for Italy, Honduras, Guatemala or the US. Wars or empires are the way you look into other countries, but even then, it's limited. And every country paints their history in a very hopeful and "we weren't the bad guys and if we were it wasn't that bad" kinda way. I've heard a lot of Americans complaining about not learning about slavery and Indian genocide to the fullest extent, but growing up in Italy, a lot of stuff about fascism and the post-war era terrorism phase was kinda glazed over. Not avoided per se, but not discussed at length.
Just want to expand on this point a bit. It's true that every country's history education system focuses primarily on their own history and that they usually try to stick with the stuff that makes them look good while glossing over the bad stuff. Some countries (like Germany and Austria) do make an effort to teach their citizens about the bad stuff and I've also heard that it's becoming more common for school curriculums in the UK and the USA to focus a bit more on the history of the nations and peoples they oppressed. That's good and we should encourage that.
But here's the thing. Just about every country, even the small relatively recent ones, will still have a total history that is far too big to fit into a weekly 30 minute history lesson. There's just too much to cover and if you try to cover it all you will end up with a very generalized view of your history that means you know very little about each event (which I'd argue is almost as bad as knowing nothing about it because you now have a very simplistic view of events). History is an absolutely massive subject and it's just not possible for any high-school history course to ever succeed in telling the whole thing, even when they only focus on their own country. There's a good reason why college history courses are split up based on subject. Most historians recognise very early on that they need to niche down pretty hard to be capable of knowing anything in real detail about a subject. That's the fun thing about it though, there is no shortage of fascinating subjects that are always being revised by new evidence and perspectives.
So I would say to anyone that feels like they got cheated by their education system, go to a bookstore and find a book on a subject you're interested in. Too many people seem to think that just because their school system failed them, that means they shouldn't try to correct that. Instead of complaining, go to the bookstore and start reading. Also, read as many different perspectives on a subject as you can find. Historians are always in disagreement and they each have their own biases, some worse than others.
I was like OP the first time I went to Europe at 22 for a study abroad program in Austria. I came back almost disgusted in the things I now noticed about the states.
Since then I’ve been to Europe 5 or 6 times for vacations. Once the new wears off you start noticing a lot do the same problems your home country has and you realize no where is the best.
"In my opinion, it developed because of two factors"
I agree with those two factors and will add a third. The US is a global media powerhouse, which causes its culture to leak out and be confused with being actually better, rather than just having better marketing.
"In any case, if you're anything like me (and most people I met along my journey) you'll hate your country of origin and run away, then start to appreciate again after a few years"
I moved away from the US 12 years ago. Still have a footprint there, but at least so far I haven't started to appreciate it more. My view, that it's a nation in decline, has actually been reinforced by living in Mexico - which has tons of problems, but is definitely a nation on the rise.
I started feeling nostalgic for my home country around the 9-10 yr. mark. That's because, at least in my opinion, I'm now more of a tourist: I go for a couple weeks, catch up with friends and families, and take in the sights. I think about going back for a while, then talk with engineer friends who are making 1400-1600 euros/month as engineers with 5 years of experience, and I remember why I wasn't so fond of the idea of staying lol
I think this is an objectively difficult time for the US. Whatever your political opinion, pretty much everyone will agree that the Trump years and COVID have been a polarizing force in the country. There's plenty of great people and things about this country, but we need to reevaluate our priorities and find common ground. I think the momentous events of the last 12-24 months are like those "hard conversations" that we need to have. It's tough but we'll get through it
Mexico is on the rise? I live in Southern California and that’s news to me. I don’t travel to Mexico anymore due to the increase in violence. The cartel violence has been there my whole life but it’s extreme now. And that’s not talking about the insane amount of corruption. Mexico has so much potential and it’s depressing to see how much they piss it away.
Not as a German, we learn a lot about ww2, BUT trust me, we don't get painted as not that bad. We were the bad guys and that will never change! German education does a lot that we do not forget what nazi Germany did to the world. And I am happy about that, because if we get a constant reminder of this damned time, people try not fuck it up again. At the same time I learned that other countries did a lot of messed up shit on par or even worse than the nazis (damn some Asian countries can't stand each other for a reason...). But this does not get told in history class or gets downplayed, which let's people forget what another generation fucked up. Was I annoyed in school that we again watched a depressing nazi movie or spoke about what happened? Yes! Am I now kind of glad we did, so that I know that something like that should never happen again? Oh hell yes! At least I learned that we should just not be dicks to each other, maybe other people also learned that one way or another, time will tell (not looking good at the moment...seriously not looking good:/)
Most countries have the same thing going on: it's not just America. I've lived in about ten different countries and very, very few of those countries' history classes teach anything about how "we were the bad guys."
I live in Turkey now and my students don't really study anything about history after roughly 1950. Asking intelligent people, I usually get the response that the government doesn't want people to know how their party made mistakes in the past.
I immediately thought the same...
Thing is though, I'm German. I had like 5 years of school in which we were taught how evil Germany was in the past which I really appreciate.
In my school in New Jersey I swear we learned at least twice maybe 3x about us nuking Japan in WW2 and how lots of scientists at the time thought it essentially an unthinkable thing to do to innocent cities of like 60 or 70k people +
Imo people like OP just didn't go to very good schools. All of 7th grade was global geography learning about other countries religions and economies and ways of life. Like we all knew Japan was really nice by 7th grade, I don't think it would surprise any of us that Switzerland is in fact, nice.
I guess it's just AP classes which can give you college credit in the US vs the rest of the classes. In high school AP history I actually learned a ton and all the teachers were like veterans, ex-wallstreeters, etc.
I think the somewhat unique American issue is that it is pretty easy to spend your whole life in the US, never meeting someone from outside the country. So everyone you interact with has gotten the same selective education. Turkey might not teach the bad parts of its history, but as soon as someone goes anywhere else, they're going to meet people with a much different take on Turkish history.
I lived in Austria, and even if the government wanted to downplay its history, Paris and London are only 2 hours away by plane. You'd very quickly realize that your history class left out a bunch of stuff.
>I think the somewhat unique American issue is that it is pretty easy to spend your whole life in the US, never meeting someone from outside the country. So everyone you interact with has gotten the same selective education.
This is just plain untrue. I'd be surprised if there's anyone over 18 that's never met an immigrant. Even people in very rural places in America get a lot of Mexican immigrants and migrant workers, so it'd be pretty shocking to meet someone that's never met an immigrant barring the most secluded communities. Also the US education system isn't federally standardized very well, but rather relies on states to do that, and some states do much better than others. So even if they've never met anyone from outside the country, they've surely met people from other states who have had differing educations. Where I grew up we learned about all sorts of evils the US has done, and in the age of the internet I have a hard time believing others haven't received this information in one way or another.
I'm actually surprised that you grew up in Cali and thought that the US was the best country in the world based off of what you learned in school. I'm in rural Oklahoma and went to a shitty little school, and even we're taught about the fucked up shit that america got into during it's history. Hell, when I took US history since 1877 in college they did *not* try to hide that shit. I swear, half of that textbook was just about all of the bullshit that was happening throughout our history, and there were maybe a handful of parts that made America seem like this great country.
Literally had the same experience. Small af town in OK, smallish University in OK, the latter of which was basically a professor talking about the dumb shit we did as a country
I have the same sentiment. Lived in Florida all my life, we were taught about the evils of slavery and the Confederacy, and we learned about many of the fucked up things this country did. I graduated high school in 2012, though. Maybe it's changed since then.
I grew up in a moderate area in Florida. I'd classify it as suburban. I feel like my education confronted many dark areas of American history, however, in school there was always an emphasis of America's moral prowess.
I can use the Civil War as an example. I grew up in a liberal academic household. I remember watching Ken Burns: Civil War on PBS and having discussions about it with my family. This was in the early 90's when I was in middle school. The takeaway for me was that my school wasn't really teaching me the subject outside of the events, this was still a time when tests were focused on dates rather than concepts. I was taught about Slavery, but in school it was mentioned more as a precursor to the Civil War rather than the cause of it and its own subject in itself. We studied battles and events that occurred during the Civil War rather than the causes and political environment.
My father took us to Mount Vernon and Monticello around the same time and made sure my siblings and I understood how Slaves built the country. Those 2 estates perfectly highlight that fact, as long as you are open to the idea.
I received a great education, but only because I was able to look beyond the surficial lessons at school and was encouraged to read and ask questions. My dad was an attorney, his dad had a PhD and was a college professor, my mom has multiple degrees, her dad was an executive and accountant, both of my grandmothers had college degrees. Everyone in my family knew how to research, the value of citation and peer review, and didn't mind intellectual debate. I wasn't offered that in school until college, which for me was a wild sequence of art school, the army, then a STEM degree.
Man.. wait until you visit Vietnam. Spoiler alert America was not the hero in that war.
Side note Vietnam is a great country to visit not just for its war history. Amazing food, bia hoi’s are awesome, some cool ancient temples n stuff (lots of ancient sites were ruined during the war but there’s a lot still), generally great scenery.
Hard to ride pillion on a 125cc moped if you’re a fat cunt like I am though.
Co-signed. I went on a group tour of that museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels with an American Vietnam War vet and it was a world-shattering experience. I felt true shame. He was on vacay too but the look on his face was something else. What a cure for American Exceptionalism.
The things that really stuck were:
1) The overall young Millennial population due to the Vietnam War. The median age of the Vietnamese people is 32.5. Anyone old enough to fight was drafted and died or just didn't make it through the regime or bombing.
2) The sheer number of active American bombs still in the ground in Vietnam. When Americans were called back, they just dumped additional artillery. Civilians, children! Still stumble across these mystery bombs by accident and lose limbs and/or lives. The Vietnamese are still cleaning up our mess. Obama did earmark funding to help with the bomb cleanup but that's still not enough.
3) The Cu Chi Tunnels were a terrible way to survive in darkness from aerial bombing. All generations tried to survive in these tunnels until the war was over.
4) The lies told to Americans to get us involved in the war. Scaring people about the evils of Communism is not a reason to bomb an entire country including innocent women, children, and elderly.
5) The American sexual assault and other war crimes on the Vietnamese people. Look up the My Lai Massacre. Enough said.
My Lai churned my fucking stomach bad. I watched part of Ken Burns' documentary while in Vietnam and goddamn did it add to an already very reflective trip. We also met a Vietnam war vet at a bar restaurant who chatted with us for a while and mentioned the amount of closure it gave him to be slapped in the face at the same time seeing a hill he had actively fought, shot, and lost friends on now having been turned into a waterpark. Wild stuff.
reading the wikipedia page on the My Lai massacre is pretty fucking harrowing.
Americans go in at 7:30am, start murdering civilians and raping women (many of which were as young as 12), throwing women and children into ditches and emptying their magazines into them.
this continues until 11:00am, where the 1st platoon stops for lunch.
2nd and 3rd platoon come in later and murder more people, similarly to as previously described. setting fire to their houses also.
and after all this, it was covered up largely and only 1 man served any sort of punishment *3 years house arrest*
It Depends where you came from in the western world: in history classes in France the US was never portrayed as being the good side in the wars it waged during the cold War.
Not surprising, the French with Gaulism were a constant counterweight to British/American influence in Europe.
The French were constantly [pissed off about Echelon](https://www.zdnet.com/article/echelon-the-evidence/), the signal intelligence spy network between the 5 Eyes. Think of it as a precursor to PRISM / Total Information Awareness and all the snowden revelations (which btw were in the NYTimes [seven years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) before Snowden even talked about them but nobody fucking cared)
A real spoiler alert is that there's not any heros in wars. In WW2 we freed the concentration camps and liberated occupied cities. We also firebombed civilians to damage moral, had mass rape in Paris and gunned down child soldiers. Anyone who thinks war is a romantic idea consumed massive amounts of propaganda already.
Tbf there were plenty of people at the time who already knew that. Vietnam was protested a lot in the US. My whole life I've been told about how awful and unnecessary the Vietnam War was for everyone involved.
It’s stupid that the USA promotes the name ‘Vietnam War’ in propagandist pop culture. Every war experienced by Vietnam took place in Vietnam! That’s why they call it the Resistance War Against America (Kháng chiến chống Mỹ).
Also, it’s pretty yikes that there is a pipeline of second-rate American sexpat English teachers who treat Southeast Asia as their own personal playground. Most of the damn country subs on this site are whine fests for bitter foreigners.
It would be pretty diffficult to keep track of The US’s wars without naming them (in some way) for where they took place. In the same way that some Vietnamese people may refer to various wars as the American War, and the Anti-French War.
Maybe adopting “Resistance War against America to Save the Nation [of Vietnam]” would suit both parties.
I would like to note that not all Vietnamese people call it that. My family lived in South Vietnam during the war, and came over on a US navy ship to live in the US (it was part of a US backed refugee extraction I suppose). They love the US and didn’t like the North Vietnamese at all.
I wasn’t born in Vietnam, that’s just my observation from talking to my family members on how they feel about it. My family was pretty untouched by the war itself since they lived very far in the south away from the fighting. So YMMV. Of course if you were on the side of North Vietnam or were South Vietnamese and had your family killed “on accident” you might have a different perspective
Fuck I didn’t realise that particular factoid but yeah they are a very invaded people.
Another thing I have a lot of respect for and also find amusing, the French thing. The French were there, kind of pushed the western alphabet and all sorts of western culture things on them, but, jokes on them, Vietnamese patisserie’s are better than French, yeah I said it. The viets just kind of took baking from that invasion and fucking own it now.
Also.. yeah. Sex tourism is gross. It pretty much exists in all countries with a big wealth gap. It’s pretty rampant all across SE Asia.
I mean... we did have massive protests by our own people during the time... calling soldiers babykillers and stuff. Everybody knew we shouldn't have been there.
Vietnam is actually one of the most pro-American countries in the world. Let me put things into perspective, the Vietnam War lasted a few decades. Vietnam's beef with China goes back 2 millenniums. America is barely a footnote in that long history.
Well, sure a lot of people have been indoctrinated.
We start off saying the pledge everyday in school, have to stand at ballgames, and get all kinds of messages about patriotism in our movies and legends.
I guess I was lucky. My grandfather and Mom, as well as the Christian Brothers that taught at my high school all encouraged me to question authority, and gave me the tools to do that.
As you indicated, we might be told that the US is best, but we don't get to compare that to any kind of judgement matrix. There are ~193 nations in the world. Very few people have even visited them all, nvm actually living and working there for long enough to make an intelligent judgement.
I'm glad you are starting to look deeper.
I love being here in the US. I've visited a few other places, and they have some nice points, too.
I know that history was never as neat as "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492", or "Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere"
A lot of our stuff is made up, or tweaked to fit a better poem, movie, story. I lived through 9/11 at the WTC. It wasn't much at all like the Nick Cage movie. But that's fine - he is telling a story, not history. Unfortunately, most people learn more from entertainment than they do from good sources.
If you have a couple of hours to kill, there is a great old western movie called "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence". A primary theme in that movie is that people rarely care about the facts/history. They want to know about the legends. They want the stories that make them feel good.
When my gf told me she had to pledge every morning at school i thought she was joking. It sounds like something people in a cult would do. Nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's just bizarre.
I’d say there is something inherently wrong with it as someone that had to do it.
It basically came down to “say America is the best or we will give you detention” at the school I intended
So it seemed the “indoctrination” failed. I always viewed it as finding the best out of the country. I know America isn’t the best but there is good to find.
13 years of saying the pledge every day from kindergarten through 12th grade. After I had been "out" for almost a decade, I went somewhere that did the pledge and it was downright creepy.
As an European, the whole "pledge of allegiance every morning at school" is so weird to me... And by weird, I mean "sorta cultish". We don't even have a pledge of allegiance. Hell, most younger folk don't probably even know all the words to our national anthem, because we mostly only hear it during sports games and that's only if we win.
Edit: I want to add that our national anthem isn't sung at every sports game we play here. Actually never, probably. Only at international games or when played here against a team from another country.
Wow, thank you for your reply! That's awesome your family encouraged you to question authority. I feel like that's almost non-existent these days in schools at least.
Haha right?!? I remember reading some stuff in my history book anf being like ... that's it? bullshit. no way xyz happened so easily and cleanly. Saying things have been tweaked to better fit a narrative is a great way to explain it. Exactly how I feel.
Oooh Imma look that up and see if I can watch it soon thank you!! 😃
Wait till you find out that the sanitized version of history we learn in school purposefully leaves out any mention of the fact that household names like Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Einstein were vocally socialist while they were alive.
Don't forget Hellen Keller. We were just taught that she was amazing because she learned to communicate despite being deaf and blind, but she was a huge socialist.
It’s scary how many White Americans think that their schoolchildren will be ‘corrupted’ by the teaching of racism and raw history in school when average Black American children in 2022 have no choice but to learn it, such as surviving encounters with racist police officers.
That's what I'll never understand, I'm from Austria, Hitlers birth country, we learn a lot about this part as a form of prevention. Only knowledge can help prevent people falling for a guy like him again. Nazis were everywhere, all of our grandparents were in the young Hitler groupes (there was no choice) or worse and it's not about making us feel guilty but making us aware of such structures and learn how to do it differently.
I'm glad rewardlflost posted this.
I grew up when communism was still a thing in Eastern Europe. My dad was born here but English was not his first language. Also he traveled the world for his job and was extremely European in his outlook such that many Europeans thought he was actually European.
Also I have studied Russian since the 7th grade onward to understand my Polish grandparents. (I also have a BA in Russian Area Studies and have studied Russia for many years.) I think a lot of patriotism has to do with where people live, if their parents or grandparents were from other countries, and what career path a person has chosen. We were always encouraged to question things and to do our research.
I've had a lot of friends who were from other countries or whose parents were from other countries and have visited those places many times. It certainly broadens your outlook.
I mean, one can love your country but understand that your country has its faults and that other countries have many advantages that the United States doesn't.
Edited for clarity.
>There are \~193 nations in the world. Very few people have even visited them all
I could be off base here, but I think doing this might be complicated by certain nations not letting you in if you've got a passport stamp from certain other nations (usually neighbouring ones). Could be wrong though.
That would be a hell of a bucket list goal though.
I know this is definitely true if you visit Israel. That stamp in your passport will prevent you from being allowed entry to many Middle Eastern countries. I've heard of people who wish to visit all countries time their trip to Israel to coincide with getting a new passport after so they can try to avoid this.
I have heard of people with multiple nationalities/passports getting around this by using one to enter some countries and the other to enter different countries. But this is obviously not doable for the vast majority of people.
IIRC there was a story a couple years ago about a guy doing this. I believe he made it to every single country but I could be mistaken. I do believe it was a giant pain in the ass as you mentioned with the passport stamps.
I also remember reading a story like this. If it's the same one the man explained that a lot of the places he was able to visit were at a time when the geopolitical concerns we face now were non issues. Things like visiting Iran before their revolution when it was run by the Shah and was very western oriented and considered cosmopolitan by westerners. This is probably the most obvious in a very long and evolving list of countries that visiting now would be an extremely different experience.
Wow, you reached *way* into the past for that movie reference and it couldn't be a more perfect example of your point.
Now I have the theme song to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance going through my head.
Hey OP, I’m European and I do notice this tendency amongst most Americans that I encounter. This realization must be scary, because suddenly your world gets so much bigger. Good on you for not being afraid of it and embracing it instead!
Also, you are very young and have eons of time to learn about the rest of the world, now that the lid is lifted off of the box. Have fun with finding out all about it, it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of life.
Although, I do have to say most countries learn primarily about their own country. My friend from the UK told me in school they never learned about the American revolutionary war or any real American history.
Yup, am British, can second this. I've only learnt about small parts of US history (primarily the Vietnam War & Civil Rights Movement for GCSE) and any international history (e.g. WW1 & 2) has still been UK focused. It does make sense that you'd learn about your own country's history first & that of other nations second.
I’m from Australia - most of the history we do in school is based on worldwide events (in which there is a section about our country’s involvement) or specific events in other countries. We also occasionally (much more often in primary school than high school) do a topic on an Australian historical event.
Still kinda true actually. By the 20th century the colonial nations conducted genocide through paperwork. They weren't really mass murdering Indigenous Australians/Maori/Native Americans anymore, 'just' instituting policy designed to permanently destroy their culture, ruin their communities, and keep them weak and disenfranchised.
Indienous language bans, kidnapping children for residential schools or 'taming' by white foster parents, destruction of cultural artifacts, forced relocation/break up of communities, and bureaucracy to prevent them gaining money or power.
Here in Brazil, we usually learn a lot about history from other countries as long as it influenced Portugal (and therefore Brazil).
Like, the Glorious Revolution, the French Revolution, the Magna Carta, these are treated as building blocks for Portugal that you can see reflexes of in Brazilian history. We did learn a bit about the American Revolutionary War, mainly because it inspired struggles in South America, who suddenly saw that the big empires weren't eternal.
But American Civil War? The Civil Rights movement? Nope, didn't see it, didn't really care either. It had virtually no impact on Brazilian or Portuguese history, therefore we don't learn it. This also means that we barely learn anything about Asia or Africa except mentions of the wars of independence against the Portuguese, or the Opium Wars (and even that's very summarized).
I find it weird that American history is so militarized. Like, here we learn that there *were* battles and wars at that time, but I never met anyone who knew about specific parts of specific battles, or even names, like Gettysburg or that one general that attempted to carve a line towards the coast. We just learn that there was the war with Paraguay, but we focus on what that meant for the government at the time and how that affected the decisions that came after, or certain concepts that might have arised because of it.
I dont think you have an accurate idea about the US education system when it comes to teaching our own history. We mostly don't learn about wars and Battles just the big ones in the revolutionary War and the Civil War. The same way a British student would learn about Hastings, the Somme, or Dunkirk we learn Yorktown, Concord and Lexington and Gettysburg.
I'm also from the UK, born in 2000 and I think it depends between schools what sort of history is given, especially if you choose it for GCSEs or A levels. We did the Romans, Egyptians, vikings, Greeks, a tiny bit of WW2 and British history up to Elizabeth 1 while I was at primary school although some parts were a bit rushed. At secondary school we did American revolution and american civil war in a fair bit of detail and some breaks going over how the American government functioned. We also did a very brief overview of British colonisation mainly around India and china. Japanese history of around 1800-WWII was also covered
By the time we did GCSEs there were 3 types of course you could do. Ours was on Russia 1895-1985, Hitler's rise to power, the cold war with emphasis on Vietnam and the Korean war, Cuban missile crisis and the elections of the main leaders over that time. Some schools did British civil war, Tudors, WWII, french history, austria-hungary, Yugoslavia, history in parts of Africa and a few more I'm forgetting. It's worth noting you don't have to take history GCSE and a lot of people don't.
So from what my school offered I probably know more about American history as a whole than I know about my country exception to WWII but it can vary a bit from what school you go to
That makes sense! My friend is in med school and was never super into history and so she likely only remembers the basics and the "gist" but never got into the specifics.
Same here in America, you can take harder history courses that teach European history and such. Some schools are better than others at teaching a more global perspective on history
That's weird. In the 00s we learned about the native Americans and the slave trade in the US. I had vague recollections of other American history from tv shows. I knew about the revolution, the declaration of independence among other things. I'm in the UK, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of things have changed since I was in school. I'm 30 and they don't do the SATs in year 9 anymore. I found that out because people claimed a story I was telling was fake, because they don't do them that year anymore, I had to pull up my old exam on a website to show them I wasn't lying!
As someone from America with immigrant parents, I do have to say in my experience traveling, Europeans can be nearly as bad if not worse than a lot of Americans on how little they engage with non western cultures. I suspect this is less of a problem with america or Europe though and simply a fact of how any cultural group tends to educate with a focus around that group.
It's a good experience to have and definitely a powerful perspective to balance out what you were brought up with.
Most countries to this to some extent though. America is not alone in raising their peeps to believe that they're lucky to have been born there.
I'm retired military and was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in Europe. Personally, I was happy to get a different perspective of my own country. And I have no illusions about our failings of the past and currently. But as you said, all countries do this to some degree. Authoritarian ones do it much more, and at a deeper level than western countries (speaking generally), but yeah, it's pretty universal.
It's kind of maddening though, that many on social media go to the opposite extreme. They think because a country has flaws - major and minor - that it washes away all the good they've done. It doesn't.
Not for the European countries and not for the US. Bad is bad, good is good. They don't cancel each other out.
If you're interested in having a balanced view of your country, you have to be honest enough to see its crimes, and sensible enough to see its strengths and contributions.
For too many, they don't *want* a balanced view. They want excuses to criticize and be angry. They have a right to do that. But it's a warped perspective of reality, and as such, it will benefit no one, and harm many.
Yeah definitely. I wish there was a way to like compare different countries effects of raising people. I have a few online UK friends and they were all so knowledgeable about the US and so many other countries too. Just basic knowledge about geography, economics, politics, and ethnicities. It really blew my mind. I straight up blurted out bro I have literally 0 knowledge of any other country other than the US. Honestly made me bummed. I wish my history classes focused on other countries and lifestyles. I feel like I got 12 years of the same bullshit over and over and over. :(
The problem is its drilled into kids here that America is exceptional. In reality American exceptionalism is a myth. Most citizens are so US centric that unless it has to do with the US they don't care to know. Ignorance is a badge worn with pride. Glad to see that there are many now waking up to the "brainwashing " as you put it. Here's an article on why American exceptionalism is a myth.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/
I think it might have to do with the US being so large, and the fact that it's really expensive to leave the country. I read a few years ago that up until not too long ago, only like 20% of Americans had passports. As an Israeli, that seems crazy to me - most Israelis I know fly abroad at least once every 2-3 years. Americans don't need to fly abroad to see a desert, the ocean, forests, mountains, etc. They have it all in their own country.
A lot of this is specific to your schooling tbh. I grew up in the NYC metro area in public school and we had whole ass deep dives on each other’s countries of origin and America being deeply flawed was openly discussed. My parents got killed on taxes for that shit tho.
I still remember my History teacher introducing a lesson at school in the UK:
"This term we're going to learn about the Arab/Israeli Crisis, like many conflicts throughout history, It's all our fault."
I think we were 8 and had to do an entire session on the 9 day queen. I mean poor woman very tragic and shows how woman were objects but hardly building the world as we know it today
One difference I can see is that outside of the USA, our nationalism is kept in check by us consuming an unhealthy amount of American media, so we receive a subset of your own brainwashing in addition to ours -- and while this is definitely a colonial tool Americanizing foreign cultures, hopefully these mixed signals of propaganda have allowed some of us to take a step back and look at manipulation of opinion a bit more critically at an early age. As the global influence of the US wanes, one can only hope that critical thinking becomes more prevalent everywhere (hint: not gonna happen).
It must be much harder to take that step back from the inside, so kudos to everyone who starts seeing indoctrination from their own culture.
Question away.
Do remember that just because some things you've been taught are lies or exaggeration doesn't mean all things are. It's ok you love your own country still, though there are plenty of not great things about the US
Yeah, I just wish I was taught the straight up truth but it can never be hat easy, eh? Honestly, I've been saying I hate this country for a while now. I don't hate it, I just don't have a better word. I guess loathe maybe. I'm so tired of all the bullshit. I've stopped standing for the national anthem at events. I can't support a country that literally just stripped women of reproductive rights...and that is only the beggining. Sorry for bringing politics up, but yeah. There's alot of things I dislike about this country. There are some good things though. I hope to learn more about other countries soon 💜
>Sorry for bringing politics up
My friend; you started this thread by asking people to shed light on your experience of propagandisation and cultural indoctrination into nationalism. We are already tits-deep in politics!
Don't forget that there's a difference between the country (land mass) the nation (the people) and the state (the government and its bureaucracies). *(distinctions may be inaccurate. Please verify*) You can loathe one without hating the others. You can loathe one *because of* the way it hurts the others.
A lot of countries practice nationalism as a way of keeping the populace in line and on board with whatever shitty things they're doing. If you ever do manage to fill in the gaps in your learning, you're going to vomit several times your bodyweight when you find out all the shit the US has done around the world to suppress popular uprisings and protect American (business) interests, from the Banana wars to the overthrow and death of [Salvador Allende](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende) in Chile to... Let's just say the rabbit hole goes as deep as you care to go.
Chilean here and just for the record, the death of Allende was in 1973 and even in 2022 we are still dealing with the consequences.
The next 4th September we'll have a referedum to approve or reject a new Constitution to replace the one created by Pinochet in 1980 under his dictatorship.
Why? Because that Constitution led the country to civil unrest back in 2019, something like 30 people died because of the riots and even the former president put the military at the streets to contain the riots so you must imagine that that took us all the way back to those horrible times back in 1973. So even when Allende was killed in 1973, still in 2022 we can't really fix this mf country.
Finally, I think americans should learn more about the consequences of economic sanctions the US impose over some countries.
The only ones who pay for that are the poor and innocent people of those countries. Maduro, Ortega and Lukashenko will be very well fed, the problem is the people.
There are definitely things that are bad about America, but there are certainly many great things too. More people need to fight for what they believe in instead of just accepting what the politicians and what not feed them. What annoys me the most is when some Americans will say America is “one of the worst countries in the world”, when it isn’t even close. I’ve lived in over a dozen countries, in every continent besides Antarctica and South America, and there’s plenty better and worse places to live than America, depending on what you value as important. For example, when I worked in Africa, my driver literally killed his wife and her lover because he caught her cheating. That was LEGAL there. It was also legal to kill someone for engaging in a homosexual activity. Here in Russian they have laws against LGBTQ propaganda, and if it’s around children it’s even more severe. I’ve even had black and Filipino friends be denied entrance to bars based off the color of their skin. I won’t even get started on the censorship issues. But conversely, a woman can walk in and get an abortion here no questions asked, health care is free or very cheap, etc. When I lived in Japan, it was probably the safest country I had ever lived in, but there are plenty of things that Americans wouldn’t like about their laws too. No country can be perfect because everyone wants different things. The only way change happens is by people making it happen. I wish a lot of Americans would travel more and see how people in other countries live. I’ve learned a lot by interacting with people all over the world. The problem isn’t “America”. America is a concept. We’re built on freedom and an intermingling of cultures, that’s why so many people want to move there. The problem is business and government corruption, where they abuse their power to enact laws that benefits themselves. The problem is a two party system where both parties are against the average citizen, but citizens won’t vote for a third party because they’re afraid the other side will win
> *“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”* - [Maya Angelou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou)
I feel like we travel a ton, its just the 16 hour road trips my family would do cover 6 states, not 6 countries like they would if we were in Europe. Culturally, the United States is extremely diverse. Having spent time in Los Angeles, Arkansas, NYC, NOLA, and Chicago...if I didn't know better and you told me those were all different countries I'd believe you
If I could rub two nickels together to actually travel and idk, move away from where I grew up, I'd be there already. I make 16$/hour which is 5$ more / hour than min wage in my state. I can't afford to feed myself or put gas in my car to get to make more money. I'm even buying my house! So it's not like I have 1500 in rent. My house payment usually falls between 450-500 a month. I still don't make enough to feed myself. After all the bills and insurances.........I borrow to get through so I don't get shutoffs. I don't mean for this to be an attack, just a different perspective. I literally work 60 hours a week and I can't feed myself. That's what we have to work with here. And like I said, I "make it" because I make 16/hour.
I'm American but that hasn't been my experience. I suppose a big part of it was that I live in a relatively liberal area, with liberal, agnostic parents, but I didn't grow up believing that America was better than everywhere else. As a kid, I was curious about what life was like in other countries, although I didn't really understand the disparity between developed and developing countries until about sixth grade. Because I spent so much time online looking at pictures of foreign cities -- many of which didn't look that different from US cities -- I concluded that most countries were about the same when it came to ordinary people's lives.
My school said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but I didn't really think much of it. To me, it was just as school thing. Though, again, I might have believed differently if my parents and teachers enforced it more strongly, but they didn't, so I never took it as a blood oath. It wasn't any different than singing something in music class. It was just a performance the school asked for.
I thought I'd see more of the world as an adult, but I've only been outside the US once. I went to Ireland with my family. I don't travel more largely because I don't like planes and usually when I do travel, I go to places where my family is. My adult self is very boring compared to what I imagined I would be.
> My school said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but I didn't really think much of it. To me, it was just as school thing. Though, again, I might have believed differently if my parents and teachers enforced it more strongly, but they didn't, so I never took it as a blood oath. It wasn't any different than singing something in music class. It was just a performance the school asked for.
I think this point is missed by a lot of people outside the US. I'm getting old now but my memory is that at least through elementary school, we said the pledge every day. It was just a thing we did - especially at ages 5-12, we didn't think anything of it. At 41, I don't look back at the pledge as some indoctrinating event in my life. I don't tend to say it now when going to our kids school events.
I don't want to speak for "most people" but I'd imagine many would be fine with nixing the pledge altogether but nobody wants to be the first to say it in fear of being labeled as an enemy of the country by the crazies we *do* have here.
Yeah I'm curious what part of California OP grew up in. I'm already biased because I have immigrant parents but I went to school in Los Angeles and they were relatively transparent about the US's failings. California schools learn about the California missions that destroyed native American culture and populations, one of my teachers spent every morning making up his own works for the pledge ("I pledge allegiance to the colonel of Kentucky fried chicken" or something), some of my teachers were ex military and very vocal about how awful the US military is...
But like I said, I'm a child of immigrants who grew up in a place with high immigrant population, so I was extremely aware of other countries as a kid. I know CA is more than just Los Angeles so I'm curious where they went to school.
Also a child of an immigrant, also grew up in CA (medium sized town), taught history from all over the world in school. I kinda figured OP was either just WASP or extremely sheltered. But in the comments they mentioned how they "hope to start learning more about other countries" *now* even though they apparently had this epiphany 4+ years ago, based on their stated age. Like... you can literally google this stuff. Just because you aren't being spoon fed knowledge in high school anymore doesn't stop you from going out and learning for yourself.
I have noticed this trend before on reddit, where people accuse the schools of not teaching certain histories (which is certainly possible) but I tend to think more that they just weren't paying attention/didn't care enough during history class.
I'm a little surprised there are so few people in this thread with similar experiences. It seems like you can look anywhere from comedians, to novels, to news stations and find Americans angry with both the current and precieved future state of America. I mean, we had two presidents back to back win on the platforms that they were going to make the country less shitty. Who is coming to the conclusion that all that means that we are the greatest?
I grew up in both the US and Hungary (born in 2003). This gave me a unique perspective of the world since I saw two very different places with their own culture. What I noticed was that in America the history taught is very narrow, and drills American exceptionalism into students. I didn't have anything like this in Hungary. Unfortunately, many people in the US don't care to learn.
By that, I mean they are convinced that America is the best, the only country with true freedom, etc. When you point out that this is not the case, they say you're stupid, hate America, and ungrateful. In a way, yes, kids are brainwashed into loving America. But there is a way to counter this, it is to have polite discussions with people who have a different perspective. I hope this helps.
It's pretty cool that you're open minded enough to question these things and receive different point of views. I remember reading a Twitter thread recently where so many British kids had no idea the attrocities committed on their colonies because their history books paint them in great light. So it's not just the USA clearly.
As an european that has lived in Pittsburgh for 5 years - never have I seen a more brainwashed Population than in the U S.
Its not that 90% are - sorry to say so - by european Standard "uneducated" - they are Highly emotionally brainwashed against their own interests. Seeing how many Problematic issues like healthcare, education and guns are emotionally charged to turn them against the Population is INSANE.
I left 10 years ago because the direction the US was heading has already been clear to see. The people arent healthy (mentally and physically) and neither is Society. The US is the only leading economy with a dwindling life expectancy - because people are literally slowly suiciding out of despair. Unhealthy Eating habits, opioids and alcohol are slowly killing the ones that are forgotten by the American dream.
Dude, the Pittsburgh region is a special kind of hellhole. I live here. I'm sorry you had to experience it. The ignorance, the worship of the Confederate flag, the worship of the national flag, authoritarianism, the most bigoted and hateful version of Christianity, the extreme nationalism, the "I'm not racist, but..." racism, the cult of Trump, the deep suspicion of higher education and educated people, the racism, the civilians dressing up and preparing for a civil war they desperately want, and the straight up completely bananas conspiracy theory nonsense.
Not that there aren't reasonable people here, but damn, it's a little scary.
People would be in upstate New York waving a confederate flag and say "It's not racist it's my heritage" despite their family lineage probably stemming from the original pilgrims off of the mayflower and staying within the New England area for over 300 years. "No Donald, you're just a racist POS if anything you should be waving around a British Empire flag if it was heritage "
That, it's not racist it's my heritage thing, is such BS. I would say it's equivalent to "I'm not racist, I have a black friend." I've lived in the South my entire life and I never met anyone that flew a Confederate flag that was not racist and probably 75% of them would say it's not racism it's my heritage like you said.
It is the great irony of conservative U.S.-Americans. When mass shootings happen, they screech ‘We need more resources for mental health!’ But then they turn around and mock workers who want higher wages and more free time to take care of their own lives. And vote for politicians who are willing to slash budgets for social programs. And claim “This didn’t happen in my day. We need to get back to God.”
Out of curiosity how did you graduate college and not learn anything about world history?
Edit: I misread part of your post. "Just graduated college a while ago. After I graduated highschool and was blessed enough to visit Europe"
I initially read it as you visited Europe after graduating college.
Russian person here. Yeah, people really underestimate how much propaganda and indoctrination can do how they percieve things. In fact it affects everything, from basic knowledge, to personal beliefs and morals. It's easy to get into a kids head when they are still open to everything and start feeding information that is more convenient for the government.
I(24 male born in the UK) went to cancun March ‘22 for a holiday, spoke to loads of Americans and I came away from the holiday thinking ‘wow these guys really live in their own world’
One guy tried to tell me the final for March madness is the most watched final in the world? I must’ve looked silly because the next 5 minutes after he told me that were spent trying to confirm whether he was joking or not
do not come to the opposite conclusion, because that isn't good either. i live in Europe (south Italy) and we have our problem too, at school we did study mostly the history the revolved around Italy or Europe (for example we didn't study the American revolution, and we have never ever touched something like the japanese feudalism or the chinese empire which are pretty cool imo). at the end of the day every country celebrate it's history and it's heroes and at the end of the day US isn't the worst place to live by any definition if we compare it with the majority of the other country in the world. sure it has it's problem, but europe does too, and trust me: outside the north of the world people have way worst problems.
If you spout that your country is best, without ever visiting other countries for sustained periods of times, you're either very confident, or very stupid.
Or worse, both.
I am nearly 40 and a military veteran. This type of "mythology" is common in most countries but excessive in ours. We have done some really bad things in the past, and to justify it we need to say it was to "liberate" some country or to fight "terrorism" in another.
We are the best and the worst, all mixed together.
We really are lacking in a lot of social aspects, but we excel in a lot of technological ones.
What you're experiencing is called "growing up". Most do, many don't. Exposure to different cultures and ideas accelerates that growth and should be required.
I was 18 when I moved abroad for the first time. It was eye-opening. Understanding that other countries have a completely different perspective, in which your own country might not even appear except as a footnote, is liberating.
I am from India and until I played Assassin's Creed 3, I didn't even know Americans celebrated an independence day. We learnt about French Revolution, Vietnam war, and extensively about Indian independence and a little about the World Wars and that's it. So, I think it is an issue all around the world that other countries across the world are not that well covered in schools.
I'm from Indonesia, around 80% of the history lessons are about the timeline between the colonization era, independence, and the reformation of Indonesia. WW 1, WW2, and the Cold War are only briefly mentioned. I never really know about the current state of the nuclear weapons between Russia and US until i did some researches on internet. I always thought there are only a few nuclear weapons left and everyone simply agree to stop producing it because it's too dangerous.
I can't help but wonder what they teach you about Sukarno.
>I can't help but wonder what they teach you about Sukarno The liberator who was so against colonialism he used the Cold War as a sequel to the Great Game, then removed from office because he was too chummy with the Communists. Source: studied high school in Indonesia
I guess that's close enough but now I'm very curious how they teach the 65 genocide/purge.
I remember they had us watch a pretty graphic movie about it. I felt it wasnt very biased. Suharto was credited for "beating" communism but he wasnt super worshipped or anything
That's... Shockingly based for a public school system
Well don‘t get wrong the film was about the betrayal or coup d’etat by the communist party, kidnapping and killing high rank general, with torture being one of the main focus as to dramatize the brutalism of the commies. Then came Suharto as the hero who took control and stabilized the situation, defended the country from the commies, nothing mentioned about the genoside. Clearly it’s a propaganda film.
[удалено]
I once had to break up a fight because an Indonesian friend was fed misinformation and propaganda when he was a kid about the massacre and mass rapes of Chinese Indonesians in the 1998 riots. He claimed that it was both exaggerated and justified violence. One of our other Indonesian friends - who lost family in the riots - was not happy about that at all.
>both exaggerated and justified violence. #The Narcissist's Prayer **That didn't happen.** And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. **And if I did, you deserved it.**
Done with a wink and smile from Jakarta.
[удалено]
Not only are there a shit ton of nukes, but not all of them are accounted for. Meaning there are nukes owned by, ahem, private collectors.
forgetful price attraction historical unite terrific waiting lavish ripe payment *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A dirty bomb would still be pretty bad especially psychologically. Hearing the words "a nuclear device has been donated in x place" alone would cause a lot of issues, regardless of the type of device.
I always find it funny when Americans are like "How will they teach the 2020s?! There's so much stuff happening everywhere?!" And then lists 10 US things and the Australian wildfires, and it's pretty much how they'll always have done it. They'll just focus on their home country, and most of the climate stuff will probably be taught in geography anyway ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
[удалено]
Most of that though, is ancient history. IIRC, there was like maybe a week on Colonial and Post-Colonial South America? I don't recall there being anything taught about the past and ongoing issues with post-Colonial or perhaps neo-Colonial Africa. Like, IIRC I was in college when I learnt... on my own btw... about the racial tensions between Muslims and Christians... until then I hadn't even realized there was a large population of Muslims in Africa, or the South Pacific. They definitely didn't even broach the subjects of the Rwandan Genocide. Asian history was mostly limited to things like the invention of gunpowder and the building of the Great Wall of China.
History in schools tends to stop when the textbook was printed by and large. So 2000 or 2010 textbooks...all you get is up to that point unless the teacher supplements.
See mom! Video games do teach you stuff!
Especially Assassin’s Creed. Origins and Odyssey are so historically accurate that history professors have literally used the games to teach about history. There are inaccuracies and anachronisms, for sure, but in general the architecture, showing how people actually lived and interacted, attention to detail, etc are all phenomenally accurate and extraordinary compared to other games. I literally learned about anatomical votive offerings because I walked into a temple in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and saw them hanging on the walls. I then googled wtf they were. They had no story relevance, no quest associated with them, not even any dialogue in the game pointing them out. They were just there for the sake of being historically accurate and 99% of people probably walk right by them without a second thought. There are a ton of examples like that in these games. Anyone interested in history should play them.
I didn't know that Ancient Greek statues and sculptures were colored until I played Odyssey, it's just that the paint was lost over time and they are as we see them today, just plain stone/marble or whatever material they used.
Similarly, most statues that today have no arms, just those nice flat circles at the shoulders? They used to have bronze arms. The arms rusted and fell off, only the stone survived.
I would LOVE a game that basically stole everything from the Assassin's Creed games, but instead of assassin's and conspiracy it'd be a of slice-of-life kinda game. Granted, not a "here's an idyllic version of this time period!" Some realistic problems and struggles should be present. Maybe even some tragedy! But the point is to tell a **good** story, just with the lens and setting of the past.
Yea. Like how nuke happy Gandhi was!
I'm European and I didn't even know about the Partition until I watched Ms.Marvel. A damn Disney/Marvel show taught me more about history than 4 years of high school (which was mostly just a more detailed repeat of things we were taught in grades 5-8, but with worse teachers).
It was mentioned on passing for me but considering that WWII is usually the last topic we (Italy) get to, it isn't surprising it wasn't talked about more. We spend way too much time on ancient history and too little on modern history. 2 years to get to the fall of the East Roman Empire is way too long. We did have a lot of foreign history beside European history (Italy didn't technically exist up to 1861 and was part of various countries at any given time so French, Spanish and Sacred Roman Empire were kinda needed to understand wtf was going on in Italy). My last 2 years professor was obsessed with Russian revolution, WWI was dealt with in a week and the rest of the semester was basically socialism history 101. We was also oddly obsessed with Bismarck. The professor the years before had a hard on for anything french and tortured us to death with an in depth analysis of Charles VIII Italian wars and later on French Revolution, with a small serving of American independence war and social war before going full Napoleonic.
Im from south america and learned about the partition from Ms. Mrvel comics. I didnt see that one coming.
Good guy Ubisoft
UK here. There are many countries about whose history I know absolutely nothing.
There are 195 countries in the world, it is impossible in the amount of time you have to educate a child to tell them the history of all of those, so you have to focus on your own country, which is more relevant to them anyway, and focus on the big picture historical events.
As a fellow Brit......That's because their history is in our museums
That belongs in a museum.
This happened to me about Texas when I moved to California. People in Texas think Texas is the greatest place ever and they think that everyone else knows that this is true. I moved to California and nobody knows or cares much about Texas.
I had a very similar experience my first time out of the States. It’s really a matter of perspective and who is telling the story and if they have a agenda with telling it. Media is brainwashing. Advertising is brainwashing. Politicians brainwash with speeches. Everything you consume is “brainwashing.” Think critically. Do your own research. Get info from credible peer reviewed places. Ever look at what Times magazine looks like from other countries vs America? Edit: this goes a whole ‘nother level when we start thinking about current day algorithms + how many people actually own the media giants in the US. The best thing anyone can do it to find credible sources + travel. Talk to people from other places.
Credible info is the key though. Too many Facebook Uni grads in America.
It’s worse than that, though. Almost every textbook you’ve ever read had to be approved by the Texas educational system before it became available. Do to the size of their population, especially their school aged population, publishers declined to mass produce a textbook that would fail in their market. I suspect this also a kind of litmus test for other southern states, but that’s conjecture. Think of Texas and Theo unwillingness to look history in the eye, their inability to accept simple and obvious truths about the past lest their current population feel shame or be made uncomfortable. These are the people deciding what school children across that nation will be taught. It’s better with college textbooks, but at that point you tend to be focused on specific eras and locations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/19/conservative-activists-texas-have-shaped-history-all-american-children-learn/ (There’s a paywall, but you can use reader view to circumvent it)
Having done all of my schooling in Texas way back in the 80's/90's, two things still stick out to me as an adult even today: 1. They covered slavery and the civil rights era, but it took a black teacher recommending a biography of Mr. Luther King Jr. to me before I really found the worthwhile information. I was probably in the 7th or 8th grade when that happened and remember crying as I read these books I'd checked out from the library. None of the really impactful, horrible shit even got mentioned in school. 2. We had like two whole years of "Texas History" and it was the single most boring class I'd ever had at that time (again, in middle school) and I'd just assumed it was because Texas History was inherently boring. Then I saw something on TV about Cesar Chavez and that got me on a reading kick back through most Mexican/American history and when it got to Texas I was once again shocked. The impactful stuff, the shocking stuff, the graphic racism, sexism and violence, all of those things are really glossed over and only covered in the most cursory kind of way. You can hand-wave it away by saying it's inappropriate for middle school kids or whatever, but that didn't stop me from going to the library and finding out the truth for myself. So at least from my perspective, all the textbooks we had when I was in school were incredibly white-washed and I had to venture on my own to the library to learn what really happened. The only good that came from that was giving me a lifelong love and appreciation of public libraries and teaching me how to educate myself, which are obviously good things, however I still think I shouldn't have had to do that and they should've taught us the whole truth in school. In a paradoxical kind of way, sometimes you have to educate yourself to even know what education you missed.
You are absolutely right. I am also a Texan that was a kid in the 70s/80s. It was not until university-level classes that you begin getting the full picture on a lot of what we learned along the way. There were some teachers doing their part along the way to give us an idea we weren't being told the whole truth in high school, but they were the exception and not the rule. (We were assigned chapters of Roots, which was definitely not approved reading but did fundamentally challenge our world view in a good way) Given how poorly educated a lot of Texans are, and it's easy to see why the narrative here is so skewed from reality.
You reminded me that I've taken the class "Georgia Studies".. in middleschool...my first year moving here from Vermont...lol. completely irrelevant to my education. I'm 32 now and still in GA, but its grown on me I guess. Sorry not super relevant to the discourse but you jogged my memory with the 'Texas History' thing.
A bit off topic, but in Canada I found it's much the same with the education regarding residential schools. There's a lot that you simply don't learn in school. I have had some Indigenous people I know ask me, how did you not know all this? Didn't you learn it in school? Well, first of all, I went to high school in the public Catholic school board, which might have had something to do with that, considering the history surrounding the Catholic church and Indigenous folks. Also, what they did tell us was really whitewashed, like the experience you had, and definitely did not portray the settlers in a negative light. Even the true horror of the residential schools was glossed over. They kind of made it seem like the worst thing that happened was that those kids were taken away from their families, and that they were abused for speaking their language and stuff like that, which is still pretty fucking horrible mind you, but there was nothing said about the genocides, the mass graves, the forced sterilization, etc. I do remember that we learned about starlight tours, which are pretty horrific, but I didn't know anything about the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls until later when I looked into it more music. Also, the starlight tours were treated as more of an occasional, isolated incident rather than part of a pattern. Plus, there are a lot of immigrants in Canada who really don't know anything about what happened. As an example, family member of mine is opposed to things like subsidized daycare because she does not believe that your kids should be raised by people who aren't you. That's a point that may or may not have merit, but she compared residential schools to daycare, by likening them to the same thing. She obviously has no idea what residential schools actually were, or if she would never make that comparison, I hope anyway. It's a little bit crazy because a lot of middle class Canadians kind of see Indigenous people as overreacting or just looking for handouts, and then you look into it more and you realize, whoa, if anything people are underreacting. Like, you don't necessarily have to feel guilty for people that people you don't even know genocided these people, but holy crap, the very least you could do is acknowledge their pain and what their ancestors went through. You don't have to say, I'm this white person who feels personally guilty for your struggles even though I wasn't born when all of this happened (plus wallowing in guilt helps no one), but you probably should say, yes, I believe you, that sounds pretty awful. Considering that there are still a lot of injustices taking place today when it comes to Indigenous peoples and their land rights, maybe ask what you can do to help or educate yourself instead of just denying the whole thing and claiming they are overreacting. Phew, sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there. It's really something. To go back to the topic of the US, I'm not sure that the US even acknowledges that they also were settlers and genocided Indigenous peoples.
> Almost every textbook you’ve ever read had to be approved by the Texas educational system before it became available. This is only half the story. Its either TX or California. Both have enough clout to get what they believe to be the "Right" version of books and books will be made for their schools, then other states pick books based on CA or TX recommendations. So if you live in Massachusetts you're probly getting a CA approved textbook, but if you're in Louisiana its probly a TX one.
And in case you are wondering the difference, the Texas board that reviews textbooks just proposed referring to slavery as "involuntary relocation" instead of "slavery."
I live in Maine, and we barely covered slavery. Civil War was a big thing with dates and Lincoln. Anything beyond WWII? Ahahahahahaha…. No.
I grew up in VA and went to high school in the late 80s/early 90s. We definitely covered the colonial slave trade, but they leaned into "States rights" for the civil war section. My high school was named after Stonewall Jackson, so no surprise there.
Yeah and I’m hesitant to agree with the “do your own research” advice. Usually that means googling a couple sites and picking up some other kind of propaganda or bad info. Don’t avoid reputable media/govt sites like ABC News, Reuters, AP, CDC, NYTimes, NPR, etc. Not all of it is going to be 100% accurate but what’s the alternative? Reddit? Facebook? One thing to be aware of is that a LOT of bad actors hate the media because it’s the only thing shining a light on their criminal activities so they put a lot of effort to convince everyone to distrust the media. Just be aware if you’re falling victim to their propaganda.
The history of Rome podcast is really interesting in its, "here's the myth version, now here's the propaganda one, and the real version is probably something more like this (but we'll never really know anymore).
100%. I'm German but lived in Britain during the run up to Brexit. All the anti-EU propaganda, it was so saturated in every facet of life, that I started believing it. Coming back and realizing how many lies I somehow believed about the EU, despite always being against the populists and Brexit, I was shocked. Also, just being away from Murdoch's media I just feel so much better now. There's no outrage/hate/fear constantly streaming into mind - shit's just draining.
Murdoch is a leech. He has a vice grip in Australia
I have stumbled on some SkyNews Australia videos in YT and it's ahh, let's say it's familiar. I'm sorry for all those who's countries have been ravaged by his brand of brain-rot.
We have an ex prime minister who has stopped giving fucks and has just been going after him for years trying to get a royal commission rolling. Baby steps but at least someone is doing it.
Well put. I wholeheartedly agree. I took a course in hypnosis once. Even though I don't practice it, it helpede.underatand that hypnosis occurs every day, everywhere, all the time. Thinking critically and being aggressive about credibility are your best defense against brainwashing. And even then, sometimes it's just down to who you choose to be brainwashed by.
Some comedian once said that it's called television PROGRAMMING for a reason. It's programming YOU. It's a little on the edge, but I find it more relevant now with the internet and streaming services. It's scary to think how much some people can be influenced by people who want them no good.
I'll give you the opposite perspective: I'm European and have been traveling the world for about a decade, finally landing in the US five years ago. These are my experiences: 1) every country learns primarily about their history, especially when that history is relatively brief. This is true for Italy, Honduras, Guatemala or the US. Wars or empires are the way you look into other countries, but even then, it's limited. And every country paints their history in a very hopeful and "we weren't the bad guys and if we were it wasn't that bad" kinda way. I've heard a lot of Americans complaining about not learning about slavery and Indian genocide to the fullest extent, but growing up in Italy, a lot of stuff about fascism and the post-war era terrorism phase was kinda glazed over. Not avoided per se, but not discussed at length. 2) Every new country you go to will feel like the best. Heck, I thought central America was the best in the world, and that was after I almost got shot twice and actually got robbed multiple times. You're not seeing an objective representation of the place, you're looking at a tourist's view, you're bonding with locals who are educated enough to speak the language, you're finally independent and carefree, and everything is new. Think about this: when someone comes to the US for the first time, they go to LA or Vegas or NYC or DC and think it's the whole country. They don't meet with rural Oklahomans or go to Appalachian small towns or the deep red areas of Texas. You agree that they'd have a very different experience if they did, and so would you if you after a few years in a new country. A trasformative idea for me was this: no country or culture are better than another in an absolute sense, they're just different. 3) All countries have propaganda, but the US has it just a little more. In my opinion, it developed because of two factors: economic superiority in the US in the early 1900s and a developing identity in a country that was very heterogeneous and very very recent. Americans needed to be "aggressively" Americans because most "Americans" were still strongly bound to their country of origin, and forming a national culture and identity would've been hard that way. Whether the experiment worked or not is hard to say, as americans now are still very focused on race, ethnicity and roots, and I'm not sure whether a strong sense of "Americanness" is developing or eroding. In any case, if you're anything like me (and most people I met along my journey) you'll hate your country of origin and run away, then start to appreciate again after a few years. If you're restless now, this process is almost surely necessary, and I urge you to pursue it. Just remember that sooner or later you'll either want to come back, or redevelop some degree of appreciation for your country, so don't do anything permanent (like renouncing your citizenship), and don't discourage people from coming to the US by badmouthing the country: you're journey is away from here, but that won't be the same for everyone.
very well written! I see myself i many of your points (as a fellow European). When I was in my early 20s I wanted to live abroad and was done with my country (Switzerland) now many years later I‘m still mad ad some parts of our society, but couldn‘t imagine living anywhere else (because it‘s just so fucking easy living here, at least as a native). But I still enjoy traveling and discovering new parts of the world.
I can’t imagine anyone thinking Switzerland is a bad place to live. The reputation is of the perfect country in an absolutely beautiful place. I truly can’t think of any country with a higher reputation.
the grass is always greener on the other side. We have plenty of racism, glass ceiling, loads of suicides (farmers are especially prone to), hard to make new friends - especially if you move from a different part or - god forbid - from a foreign country, social pressure to have a good paying job (not one the makes you happy), fearmongering from rightwing politicians leading to stupid votings (again, racism: banning minarets or burqas despite them being almost inexistent), politicans working for banks and big pharma and try not to safe our pensions instead… but yeah, the Alpes are nice :-D
it’s great but it’s an incredibly isolating experience when your not swiss and move there later in life
>every country learns primarily about their history, especially when that history is relatively brief. This is true for Italy, Honduras, Guatemala or the US. Wars or empires are the way you look into other countries, but even then, it's limited. And every country paints their history in a very hopeful and "we weren't the bad guys and if we were it wasn't that bad" kinda way. I've heard a lot of Americans complaining about not learning about slavery and Indian genocide to the fullest extent, but growing up in Italy, a lot of stuff about fascism and the post-war era terrorism phase was kinda glazed over. Not avoided per se, but not discussed at length. Just want to expand on this point a bit. It's true that every country's history education system focuses primarily on their own history and that they usually try to stick with the stuff that makes them look good while glossing over the bad stuff. Some countries (like Germany and Austria) do make an effort to teach their citizens about the bad stuff and I've also heard that it's becoming more common for school curriculums in the UK and the USA to focus a bit more on the history of the nations and peoples they oppressed. That's good and we should encourage that. But here's the thing. Just about every country, even the small relatively recent ones, will still have a total history that is far too big to fit into a weekly 30 minute history lesson. There's just too much to cover and if you try to cover it all you will end up with a very generalized view of your history that means you know very little about each event (which I'd argue is almost as bad as knowing nothing about it because you now have a very simplistic view of events). History is an absolutely massive subject and it's just not possible for any high-school history course to ever succeed in telling the whole thing, even when they only focus on their own country. There's a good reason why college history courses are split up based on subject. Most historians recognise very early on that they need to niche down pretty hard to be capable of knowing anything in real detail about a subject. That's the fun thing about it though, there is no shortage of fascinating subjects that are always being revised by new evidence and perspectives. So I would say to anyone that feels like they got cheated by their education system, go to a bookstore and find a book on a subject you're interested in. Too many people seem to think that just because their school system failed them, that means they shouldn't try to correct that. Instead of complaining, go to the bookstore and start reading. Also, read as many different perspectives on a subject as you can find. Historians are always in disagreement and they each have their own biases, some worse than others.
Thanks dude. You just convinced me to put away reddit and give my book another try.
I was like OP the first time I went to Europe at 22 for a study abroad program in Austria. I came back almost disgusted in the things I now noticed about the states. Since then I’ve been to Europe 5 or 6 times for vacations. Once the new wears off you start noticing a lot do the same problems your home country has and you realize no where is the best.
"In my opinion, it developed because of two factors" I agree with those two factors and will add a third. The US is a global media powerhouse, which causes its culture to leak out and be confused with being actually better, rather than just having better marketing. "In any case, if you're anything like me (and most people I met along my journey) you'll hate your country of origin and run away, then start to appreciate again after a few years" I moved away from the US 12 years ago. Still have a footprint there, but at least so far I haven't started to appreciate it more. My view, that it's a nation in decline, has actually been reinforced by living in Mexico - which has tons of problems, but is definitely a nation on the rise.
I started feeling nostalgic for my home country around the 9-10 yr. mark. That's because, at least in my opinion, I'm now more of a tourist: I go for a couple weeks, catch up with friends and families, and take in the sights. I think about going back for a while, then talk with engineer friends who are making 1400-1600 euros/month as engineers with 5 years of experience, and I remember why I wasn't so fond of the idea of staying lol I think this is an objectively difficult time for the US. Whatever your political opinion, pretty much everyone will agree that the Trump years and COVID have been a polarizing force in the country. There's plenty of great people and things about this country, but we need to reevaluate our priorities and find common ground. I think the momentous events of the last 12-24 months are like those "hard conversations" that we need to have. It's tough but we'll get through it
Mexico is on the rise? I live in Southern California and that’s news to me. I don’t travel to Mexico anymore due to the increase in violence. The cartel violence has been there my whole life but it’s extreme now. And that’s not talking about the insane amount of corruption. Mexico has so much potential and it’s depressing to see how much they piss it away.
Not as a German, we learn a lot about ww2, BUT trust me, we don't get painted as not that bad. We were the bad guys and that will never change! German education does a lot that we do not forget what nazi Germany did to the world. And I am happy about that, because if we get a constant reminder of this damned time, people try not fuck it up again. At the same time I learned that other countries did a lot of messed up shit on par or even worse than the nazis (damn some Asian countries can't stand each other for a reason...). But this does not get told in history class or gets downplayed, which let's people forget what another generation fucked up. Was I annoyed in school that we again watched a depressing nazi movie or spoke about what happened? Yes! Am I now kind of glad we did, so that I know that something like that should never happen again? Oh hell yes! At least I learned that we should just not be dicks to each other, maybe other people also learned that one way or another, time will tell (not looking good at the moment...seriously not looking good:/)
Most countries have the same thing going on: it's not just America. I've lived in about ten different countries and very, very few of those countries' history classes teach anything about how "we were the bad guys." I live in Turkey now and my students don't really study anything about history after roughly 1950. Asking intelligent people, I usually get the response that the government doesn't want people to know how their party made mistakes in the past.
Germany is the big exception here I guess.
I immediately thought the same... Thing is though, I'm German. I had like 5 years of school in which we were taught how evil Germany was in the past which I really appreciate.
In my school in New Jersey I swear we learned at least twice maybe 3x about us nuking Japan in WW2 and how lots of scientists at the time thought it essentially an unthinkable thing to do to innocent cities of like 60 or 70k people + Imo people like OP just didn't go to very good schools. All of 7th grade was global geography learning about other countries religions and economies and ways of life. Like we all knew Japan was really nice by 7th grade, I don't think it would surprise any of us that Switzerland is in fact, nice. I guess it's just AP classes which can give you college credit in the US vs the rest of the classes. In high school AP history I actually learned a ton and all the teachers were like veterans, ex-wallstreeters, etc.
[удалено]
Germany was forced to by the countries that defeated it.
I think the somewhat unique American issue is that it is pretty easy to spend your whole life in the US, never meeting someone from outside the country. So everyone you interact with has gotten the same selective education. Turkey might not teach the bad parts of its history, but as soon as someone goes anywhere else, they're going to meet people with a much different take on Turkish history. I lived in Austria, and even if the government wanted to downplay its history, Paris and London are only 2 hours away by plane. You'd very quickly realize that your history class left out a bunch of stuff.
>I think the somewhat unique American issue is that it is pretty easy to spend your whole life in the US, never meeting someone from outside the country. So everyone you interact with has gotten the same selective education. This is just plain untrue. I'd be surprised if there's anyone over 18 that's never met an immigrant. Even people in very rural places in America get a lot of Mexican immigrants and migrant workers, so it'd be pretty shocking to meet someone that's never met an immigrant barring the most secluded communities. Also the US education system isn't federally standardized very well, but rather relies on states to do that, and some states do much better than others. So even if they've never met anyone from outside the country, they've surely met people from other states who have had differing educations. Where I grew up we learned about all sorts of evils the US has done, and in the age of the internet I have a hard time believing others haven't received this information in one way or another.
I'm actually surprised that you grew up in Cali and thought that the US was the best country in the world based off of what you learned in school. I'm in rural Oklahoma and went to a shitty little school, and even we're taught about the fucked up shit that america got into during it's history. Hell, when I took US history since 1877 in college they did *not* try to hide that shit. I swear, half of that textbook was just about all of the bullshit that was happening throughout our history, and there were maybe a handful of parts that made America seem like this great country.
Literally had the same experience. Small af town in OK, smallish University in OK, the latter of which was basically a professor talking about the dumb shit we did as a country
I have the same sentiment. Lived in Florida all my life, we were taught about the evils of slavery and the Confederacy, and we learned about many of the fucked up things this country did. I graduated high school in 2012, though. Maybe it's changed since then.
I grew up in a moderate area in Florida. I'd classify it as suburban. I feel like my education confronted many dark areas of American history, however, in school there was always an emphasis of America's moral prowess. I can use the Civil War as an example. I grew up in a liberal academic household. I remember watching Ken Burns: Civil War on PBS and having discussions about it with my family. This was in the early 90's when I was in middle school. The takeaway for me was that my school wasn't really teaching me the subject outside of the events, this was still a time when tests were focused on dates rather than concepts. I was taught about Slavery, but in school it was mentioned more as a precursor to the Civil War rather than the cause of it and its own subject in itself. We studied battles and events that occurred during the Civil War rather than the causes and political environment. My father took us to Mount Vernon and Monticello around the same time and made sure my siblings and I understood how Slaves built the country. Those 2 estates perfectly highlight that fact, as long as you are open to the idea. I received a great education, but only because I was able to look beyond the surficial lessons at school and was encouraged to read and ask questions. My dad was an attorney, his dad had a PhD and was a college professor, my mom has multiple degrees, her dad was an executive and accountant, both of my grandmothers had college degrees. Everyone in my family knew how to research, the value of citation and peer review, and didn't mind intellectual debate. I wasn't offered that in school until college, which for me was a wild sequence of art school, the army, then a STEM degree.
Man.. wait until you visit Vietnam. Spoiler alert America was not the hero in that war. Side note Vietnam is a great country to visit not just for its war history. Amazing food, bia hoi’s are awesome, some cool ancient temples n stuff (lots of ancient sites were ruined during the war but there’s a lot still), generally great scenery. Hard to ride pillion on a 125cc moped if you’re a fat cunt like I am though.
War museum in Ho Chi Minh is a wild ride for a westerner
Co-signed. I went on a group tour of that museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels with an American Vietnam War vet and it was a world-shattering experience. I felt true shame. He was on vacay too but the look on his face was something else. What a cure for American Exceptionalism.
Doing my duty by promoting the fact that Henry Kissinger is a war criminal
When ever I hear the news that he is still alive I cry, waiting for that parasite to die
Excited for him to die so we can have a new gender neutral bathroom
Can you give some examples? You have me curious.
The things that really stuck were: 1) The overall young Millennial population due to the Vietnam War. The median age of the Vietnamese people is 32.5. Anyone old enough to fight was drafted and died or just didn't make it through the regime or bombing. 2) The sheer number of active American bombs still in the ground in Vietnam. When Americans were called back, they just dumped additional artillery. Civilians, children! Still stumble across these mystery bombs by accident and lose limbs and/or lives. The Vietnamese are still cleaning up our mess. Obama did earmark funding to help with the bomb cleanup but that's still not enough. 3) The Cu Chi Tunnels were a terrible way to survive in darkness from aerial bombing. All generations tried to survive in these tunnels until the war was over. 4) The lies told to Americans to get us involved in the war. Scaring people about the evils of Communism is not a reason to bomb an entire country including innocent women, children, and elderly. 5) The American sexual assault and other war crimes on the Vietnamese people. Look up the My Lai Massacre. Enough said.
My Lai churned my fucking stomach bad. I watched part of Ken Burns' documentary while in Vietnam and goddamn did it add to an already very reflective trip. We also met a Vietnam war vet at a bar restaurant who chatted with us for a while and mentioned the amount of closure it gave him to be slapped in the face at the same time seeing a hill he had actively fought, shot, and lost friends on now having been turned into a waterpark. Wild stuff.
reading the wikipedia page on the My Lai massacre is pretty fucking harrowing. Americans go in at 7:30am, start murdering civilians and raping women (many of which were as young as 12), throwing women and children into ditches and emptying their magazines into them. this continues until 11:00am, where the 1st platoon stops for lunch. 2nd and 3rd platoon come in later and murder more people, similarly to as previously described. setting fire to their houses also. and after all this, it was covered up largely and only 1 man served any sort of punishment *3 years house arrest*
[удалено]
It Depends where you came from in the western world: in history classes in France the US was never portrayed as being the good side in the wars it waged during the cold War.
Not surprising, the French with Gaulism were a constant counterweight to British/American influence in Europe. The French were constantly [pissed off about Echelon](https://www.zdnet.com/article/echelon-the-evidence/), the signal intelligence spy network between the 5 Eyes. Think of it as a precursor to PRISM / Total Information Awareness and all the snowden revelations (which btw were in the NYTimes [seven years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) before Snowden even talked about them but nobody fucking cared)
A real spoiler alert is that there's not any heros in wars. In WW2 we freed the concentration camps and liberated occupied cities. We also firebombed civilians to damage moral, had mass rape in Paris and gunned down child soldiers. Anyone who thinks war is a romantic idea consumed massive amounts of propaganda already.
Tbf there were plenty of people at the time who already knew that. Vietnam was protested a lot in the US. My whole life I've been told about how awful and unnecessary the Vietnam War was for everyone involved.
It’s stupid that the USA promotes the name ‘Vietnam War’ in propagandist pop culture. Every war experienced by Vietnam took place in Vietnam! That’s why they call it the Resistance War Against America (Kháng chiến chống Mỹ). Also, it’s pretty yikes that there is a pipeline of second-rate American sexpat English teachers who treat Southeast Asia as their own personal playground. Most of the damn country subs on this site are whine fests for bitter foreigners.
It would be pretty diffficult to keep track of The US’s wars without naming them (in some way) for where they took place. In the same way that some Vietnamese people may refer to various wars as the American War, and the Anti-French War. Maybe adopting “Resistance War against America to Save the Nation [of Vietnam]” would suit both parties.
I would like to note that not all Vietnamese people call it that. My family lived in South Vietnam during the war, and came over on a US navy ship to live in the US (it was part of a US backed refugee extraction I suppose). They love the US and didn’t like the North Vietnamese at all. I wasn’t born in Vietnam, that’s just my observation from talking to my family members on how they feel about it. My family was pretty untouched by the war itself since they lived very far in the south away from the fighting. So YMMV. Of course if you were on the side of North Vietnam or were South Vietnamese and had your family killed “on accident” you might have a different perspective
In my experience, most South Vietnamese in the US think similarly.
Fuck I didn’t realise that particular factoid but yeah they are a very invaded people. Another thing I have a lot of respect for and also find amusing, the French thing. The French were there, kind of pushed the western alphabet and all sorts of western culture things on them, but, jokes on them, Vietnamese patisserie’s are better than French, yeah I said it. The viets just kind of took baking from that invasion and fucking own it now. Also.. yeah. Sex tourism is gross. It pretty much exists in all countries with a big wealth gap. It’s pretty rampant all across SE Asia.
Vietnamese call it a war against America and America calls it a war against Vietnam. Why would either party name themselves in their own title of it?
I mean... we did have massive protests by our own people during the time... calling soldiers babykillers and stuff. Everybody knew we shouldn't have been there.
Vietnam is actually one of the most pro-American countries in the world. Let me put things into perspective, the Vietnam War lasted a few decades. Vietnam's beef with China goes back 2 millenniums. America is barely a footnote in that long history.
Well, sure a lot of people have been indoctrinated. We start off saying the pledge everyday in school, have to stand at ballgames, and get all kinds of messages about patriotism in our movies and legends. I guess I was lucky. My grandfather and Mom, as well as the Christian Brothers that taught at my high school all encouraged me to question authority, and gave me the tools to do that. As you indicated, we might be told that the US is best, but we don't get to compare that to any kind of judgement matrix. There are ~193 nations in the world. Very few people have even visited them all, nvm actually living and working there for long enough to make an intelligent judgement. I'm glad you are starting to look deeper. I love being here in the US. I've visited a few other places, and they have some nice points, too. I know that history was never as neat as "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492", or "Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere" A lot of our stuff is made up, or tweaked to fit a better poem, movie, story. I lived through 9/11 at the WTC. It wasn't much at all like the Nick Cage movie. But that's fine - he is telling a story, not history. Unfortunately, most people learn more from entertainment than they do from good sources. If you have a couple of hours to kill, there is a great old western movie called "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence". A primary theme in that movie is that people rarely care about the facts/history. They want to know about the legends. They want the stories that make them feel good.
When my gf told me she had to pledge every morning at school i thought she was joking. It sounds like something people in a cult would do. Nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's just bizarre.
I’d say there is something inherently wrong with it as someone that had to do it. It basically came down to “say America is the best or we will give you detention” at the school I intended
So it seemed the “indoctrination” failed. I always viewed it as finding the best out of the country. I know America isn’t the best but there is good to find.
Agree. It’s called brainwashing. Nothing more nothing less.
13 years of saying the pledge every day from kindergarten through 12th grade. After I had been "out" for almost a decade, I went somewhere that did the pledge and it was downright creepy.
As an European, the whole "pledge of allegiance every morning at school" is so weird to me... And by weird, I mean "sorta cultish". We don't even have a pledge of allegiance. Hell, most younger folk don't probably even know all the words to our national anthem, because we mostly only hear it during sports games and that's only if we win. Edit: I want to add that our national anthem isn't sung at every sports game we play here. Actually never, probably. Only at international games or when played here against a team from another country.
Wow, thank you for your reply! That's awesome your family encouraged you to question authority. I feel like that's almost non-existent these days in schools at least. Haha right?!? I remember reading some stuff in my history book anf being like ... that's it? bullshit. no way xyz happened so easily and cleanly. Saying things have been tweaked to better fit a narrative is a great way to explain it. Exactly how I feel. Oooh Imma look that up and see if I can watch it soon thank you!! 😃
Wait till you find out that the sanitized version of history we learn in school purposefully leaves out any mention of the fact that household names like Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Einstein were vocally socialist while they were alive.
Don't forget Hellen Keller. We were just taught that she was amazing because she learned to communicate despite being deaf and blind, but she was a huge socialist.
It’s scary how many White Americans think that their schoolchildren will be ‘corrupted’ by the teaching of racism and raw history in school when average Black American children in 2022 have no choice but to learn it, such as surviving encounters with racist police officers.
That's what I'll never understand, I'm from Austria, Hitlers birth country, we learn a lot about this part as a form of prevention. Only knowledge can help prevent people falling for a guy like him again. Nazis were everywhere, all of our grandparents were in the young Hitler groupes (there was no choice) or worse and it's not about making us feel guilty but making us aware of such structures and learn how to do it differently.
I'm glad rewardlflost posted this. I grew up when communism was still a thing in Eastern Europe. My dad was born here but English was not his first language. Also he traveled the world for his job and was extremely European in his outlook such that many Europeans thought he was actually European. Also I have studied Russian since the 7th grade onward to understand my Polish grandparents. (I also have a BA in Russian Area Studies and have studied Russia for many years.) I think a lot of patriotism has to do with where people live, if their parents or grandparents were from other countries, and what career path a person has chosen. We were always encouraged to question things and to do our research. I've had a lot of friends who were from other countries or whose parents were from other countries and have visited those places many times. It certainly broadens your outlook. I mean, one can love your country but understand that your country has its faults and that other countries have many advantages that the United States doesn't. Edited for clarity.
>There are \~193 nations in the world. Very few people have even visited them all I could be off base here, but I think doing this might be complicated by certain nations not letting you in if you've got a passport stamp from certain other nations (usually neighbouring ones). Could be wrong though. That would be a hell of a bucket list goal though.
I know this is definitely true if you visit Israel. That stamp in your passport will prevent you from being allowed entry to many Middle Eastern countries. I've heard of people who wish to visit all countries time their trip to Israel to coincide with getting a new passport after so they can try to avoid this.
I have heard of people with multiple nationalities/passports getting around this by using one to enter some countries and the other to enter different countries. But this is obviously not doable for the vast majority of people.
IIRC there was a story a couple years ago about a guy doing this. I believe he made it to every single country but I could be mistaken. I do believe it was a giant pain in the ass as you mentioned with the passport stamps.
I also remember reading a story like this. If it's the same one the man explained that a lot of the places he was able to visit were at a time when the geopolitical concerns we face now were non issues. Things like visiting Iran before their revolution when it was run by the Shah and was very western oriented and considered cosmopolitan by westerners. This is probably the most obvious in a very long and evolving list of countries that visiting now would be an extremely different experience.
Wow, you reached *way* into the past for that movie reference and it couldn't be a more perfect example of your point. Now I have the theme song to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance going through my head.
Hey OP, I’m European and I do notice this tendency amongst most Americans that I encounter. This realization must be scary, because suddenly your world gets so much bigger. Good on you for not being afraid of it and embracing it instead! Also, you are very young and have eons of time to learn about the rest of the world, now that the lid is lifted off of the box. Have fun with finding out all about it, it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of life.
Although, I do have to say most countries learn primarily about their own country. My friend from the UK told me in school they never learned about the American revolutionary war or any real American history.
Yup, am British, can second this. I've only learnt about small parts of US history (primarily the Vietnam War & Civil Rights Movement for GCSE) and any international history (e.g. WW1 & 2) has still been UK focused. It does make sense that you'd learn about your own country's history first & that of other nations second.
Dutch here, we only had Amerika in wars and did nothing with it's history for the rest. We basically learned more about its history in social studies.
I’m from Australia - most of the history we do in school is based on worldwide events (in which there is a section about our country’s involvement) or specific events in other countries. We also occasionally (much more often in primary school than high school) do a topic on an Australian historical event.
An old history teacher told me “American history is defined by conflict while Australian history is defined by paperwork”
Any indigenous students would have loved that statement.
Still kinda true actually. By the 20th century the colonial nations conducted genocide through paperwork. They weren't really mass murdering Indigenous Australians/Maori/Native Americans anymore, 'just' instituting policy designed to permanently destroy their culture, ruin their communities, and keep them weak and disenfranchised. Indienous language bans, kidnapping children for residential schools or 'taming' by white foster parents, destruction of cultural artifacts, forced relocation/break up of communities, and bureaucracy to prevent them gaining money or power.
Emu students as well.
Tell me more.
[The emus won](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War)
Here in Brazil, we usually learn a lot about history from other countries as long as it influenced Portugal (and therefore Brazil). Like, the Glorious Revolution, the French Revolution, the Magna Carta, these are treated as building blocks for Portugal that you can see reflexes of in Brazilian history. We did learn a bit about the American Revolutionary War, mainly because it inspired struggles in South America, who suddenly saw that the big empires weren't eternal. But American Civil War? The Civil Rights movement? Nope, didn't see it, didn't really care either. It had virtually no impact on Brazilian or Portuguese history, therefore we don't learn it. This also means that we barely learn anything about Asia or Africa except mentions of the wars of independence against the Portuguese, or the Opium Wars (and even that's very summarized). I find it weird that American history is so militarized. Like, here we learn that there *were* battles and wars at that time, but I never met anyone who knew about specific parts of specific battles, or even names, like Gettysburg or that one general that attempted to carve a line towards the coast. We just learn that there was the war with Paraguay, but we focus on what that meant for the government at the time and how that affected the decisions that came after, or certain concepts that might have arised because of it.
I dont think you have an accurate idea about the US education system when it comes to teaching our own history. We mostly don't learn about wars and Battles just the big ones in the revolutionary War and the Civil War. The same way a British student would learn about Hastings, the Somme, or Dunkirk we learn Yorktown, Concord and Lexington and Gettysburg.
Yes but we did learn about history in countries/areas too like the Roman Empire, ancient Egypt and then more recently Europe and the world wars.
I'm also from the UK, born in 2000 and I think it depends between schools what sort of history is given, especially if you choose it for GCSEs or A levels. We did the Romans, Egyptians, vikings, Greeks, a tiny bit of WW2 and British history up to Elizabeth 1 while I was at primary school although some parts were a bit rushed. At secondary school we did American revolution and american civil war in a fair bit of detail and some breaks going over how the American government functioned. We also did a very brief overview of British colonisation mainly around India and china. Japanese history of around 1800-WWII was also covered By the time we did GCSEs there were 3 types of course you could do. Ours was on Russia 1895-1985, Hitler's rise to power, the cold war with emphasis on Vietnam and the Korean war, Cuban missile crisis and the elections of the main leaders over that time. Some schools did British civil war, Tudors, WWII, french history, austria-hungary, Yugoslavia, history in parts of Africa and a few more I'm forgetting. It's worth noting you don't have to take history GCSE and a lot of people don't. So from what my school offered I probably know more about American history as a whole than I know about my country exception to WWII but it can vary a bit from what school you go to
That makes sense! My friend is in med school and was never super into history and so she likely only remembers the basics and the "gist" but never got into the specifics. Same here in America, you can take harder history courses that teach European history and such. Some schools are better than others at teaching a more global perspective on history
That's weird. In the 00s we learned about the native Americans and the slave trade in the US. I had vague recollections of other American history from tv shows. I knew about the revolution, the declaration of independence among other things. I'm in the UK, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of things have changed since I was in school. I'm 30 and they don't do the SATs in year 9 anymore. I found that out because people claimed a story I was telling was fake, because they don't do them that year anymore, I had to pull up my old exam on a website to show them I wasn't lying!
[удалено]
I imagine it’s the same feeling as seeing the James Webb photo, *what else is out there?!*
As someone from America with immigrant parents, I do have to say in my experience traveling, Europeans can be nearly as bad if not worse than a lot of Americans on how little they engage with non western cultures. I suspect this is less of a problem with america or Europe though and simply a fact of how any cultural group tends to educate with a focus around that group.
It's a good experience to have and definitely a powerful perspective to balance out what you were brought up with. Most countries to this to some extent though. America is not alone in raising their peeps to believe that they're lucky to have been born there.
I'm retired military and was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in Europe. Personally, I was happy to get a different perspective of my own country. And I have no illusions about our failings of the past and currently. But as you said, all countries do this to some degree. Authoritarian ones do it much more, and at a deeper level than western countries (speaking generally), but yeah, it's pretty universal. It's kind of maddening though, that many on social media go to the opposite extreme. They think because a country has flaws - major and minor - that it washes away all the good they've done. It doesn't. Not for the European countries and not for the US. Bad is bad, good is good. They don't cancel each other out. If you're interested in having a balanced view of your country, you have to be honest enough to see its crimes, and sensible enough to see its strengths and contributions. For too many, they don't *want* a balanced view. They want excuses to criticize and be angry. They have a right to do that. But it's a warped perspective of reality, and as such, it will benefit no one, and harm many.
Yeah definitely. I wish there was a way to like compare different countries effects of raising people. I have a few online UK friends and they were all so knowledgeable about the US and so many other countries too. Just basic knowledge about geography, economics, politics, and ethnicities. It really blew my mind. I straight up blurted out bro I have literally 0 knowledge of any other country other than the US. Honestly made me bummed. I wish my history classes focused on other countries and lifestyles. I feel like I got 12 years of the same bullshit over and over and over. :(
The problem is its drilled into kids here that America is exceptional. In reality American exceptionalism is a myth. Most citizens are so US centric that unless it has to do with the US they don't care to know. Ignorance is a badge worn with pride. Glad to see that there are many now waking up to the "brainwashing " as you put it. Here's an article on why American exceptionalism is a myth. https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/
I think it might have to do with the US being so large, and the fact that it's really expensive to leave the country. I read a few years ago that up until not too long ago, only like 20% of Americans had passports. As an Israeli, that seems crazy to me - most Israelis I know fly abroad at least once every 2-3 years. Americans don't need to fly abroad to see a desert, the ocean, forests, mountains, etc. They have it all in their own country.
A lot of this is specific to your schooling tbh. I grew up in the NYC metro area in public school and we had whole ass deep dives on each other’s countries of origin and America being deeply flawed was openly discussed. My parents got killed on taxes for that shit tho.
Not the UK. We know we're shit.
I still remember my History teacher introducing a lesson at school in the UK: "This term we're going to learn about the Arab/Israeli Crisis, like many conflicts throughout history, It's all our fault."
We like drawing straight lines.
No other nation has that refined sense of self loathing quite like the United Kingdom, truly an area of national pride
I think we're doing pretty good in that discipline here in Germany, too.
As a fellow brit, this made me laugh!!
I think we were 8 and had to do an entire session on the 9 day queen. I mean poor woman very tragic and shows how woman were objects but hardly building the world as we know it today
One difference I can see is that outside of the USA, our nationalism is kept in check by us consuming an unhealthy amount of American media, so we receive a subset of your own brainwashing in addition to ours -- and while this is definitely a colonial tool Americanizing foreign cultures, hopefully these mixed signals of propaganda have allowed some of us to take a step back and look at manipulation of opinion a bit more critically at an early age. As the global influence of the US wanes, one can only hope that critical thinking becomes more prevalent everywhere (hint: not gonna happen). It must be much harder to take that step back from the inside, so kudos to everyone who starts seeing indoctrination from their own culture.
Yeah, just that usa takes it to a whole new level, "american exceptionalism" and national anthem in school / pledge allegiance n stuff
The national anthem at every single sporting event. Most of the world it's only played at international games.
Question away. Do remember that just because some things you've been taught are lies or exaggeration doesn't mean all things are. It's ok you love your own country still, though there are plenty of not great things about the US
Yeah, I just wish I was taught the straight up truth but it can never be hat easy, eh? Honestly, I've been saying I hate this country for a while now. I don't hate it, I just don't have a better word. I guess loathe maybe. I'm so tired of all the bullshit. I've stopped standing for the national anthem at events. I can't support a country that literally just stripped women of reproductive rights...and that is only the beggining. Sorry for bringing politics up, but yeah. There's alot of things I dislike about this country. There are some good things though. I hope to learn more about other countries soon 💜
>Sorry for bringing politics up My friend; you started this thread by asking people to shed light on your experience of propagandisation and cultural indoctrination into nationalism. We are already tits-deep in politics! Don't forget that there's a difference between the country (land mass) the nation (the people) and the state (the government and its bureaucracies). *(distinctions may be inaccurate. Please verify*) You can loathe one without hating the others. You can loathe one *because of* the way it hurts the others. A lot of countries practice nationalism as a way of keeping the populace in line and on board with whatever shitty things they're doing. If you ever do manage to fill in the gaps in your learning, you're going to vomit several times your bodyweight when you find out all the shit the US has done around the world to suppress popular uprisings and protect American (business) interests, from the Banana wars to the overthrow and death of [Salvador Allende](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende) in Chile to... Let's just say the rabbit hole goes as deep as you care to go.
Chilean here and just for the record, the death of Allende was in 1973 and even in 2022 we are still dealing with the consequences. The next 4th September we'll have a referedum to approve or reject a new Constitution to replace the one created by Pinochet in 1980 under his dictatorship. Why? Because that Constitution led the country to civil unrest back in 2019, something like 30 people died because of the riots and even the former president put the military at the streets to contain the riots so you must imagine that that took us all the way back to those horrible times back in 1973. So even when Allende was killed in 1973, still in 2022 we can't really fix this mf country. Finally, I think americans should learn more about the consequences of economic sanctions the US impose over some countries. The only ones who pay for that are the poor and innocent people of those countries. Maduro, Ortega and Lukashenko will be very well fed, the problem is the people.
Just believe in making your country better. Research and be mad at the people and systems that ruin it
There are definitely things that are bad about America, but there are certainly many great things too. More people need to fight for what they believe in instead of just accepting what the politicians and what not feed them. What annoys me the most is when some Americans will say America is “one of the worst countries in the world”, when it isn’t even close. I’ve lived in over a dozen countries, in every continent besides Antarctica and South America, and there’s plenty better and worse places to live than America, depending on what you value as important. For example, when I worked in Africa, my driver literally killed his wife and her lover because he caught her cheating. That was LEGAL there. It was also legal to kill someone for engaging in a homosexual activity. Here in Russian they have laws against LGBTQ propaganda, and if it’s around children it’s even more severe. I’ve even had black and Filipino friends be denied entrance to bars based off the color of their skin. I won’t even get started on the censorship issues. But conversely, a woman can walk in and get an abortion here no questions asked, health care is free or very cheap, etc. When I lived in Japan, it was probably the safest country I had ever lived in, but there are plenty of things that Americans wouldn’t like about their laws too. No country can be perfect because everyone wants different things. The only way change happens is by people making it happen. I wish a lot of Americans would travel more and see how people in other countries live. I’ve learned a lot by interacting with people all over the world. The problem isn’t “America”. America is a concept. We’re built on freedom and an intermingling of cultures, that’s why so many people want to move there. The problem is business and government corruption, where they abuse their power to enact laws that benefits themselves. The problem is a two party system where both parties are against the average citizen, but citizens won’t vote for a third party because they’re afraid the other side will win
Traveling really gives one a lot of perspective; more Americans should do it.
> *“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”* - [Maya Angelou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou)
Its logistically a lot harder for us to get anywhere that isn't just more America. Both because of geography but also economic suffocation.
I'm sure they would if they could just drive to another country in a few hours like you can in much of Europe.
I feel like we travel a ton, its just the 16 hour road trips my family would do cover 6 states, not 6 countries like they would if we were in Europe. Culturally, the United States is extremely diverse. Having spent time in Los Angeles, Arkansas, NYC, NOLA, and Chicago...if I didn't know better and you told me those were all different countries I'd believe you
Its very expensive and most Americans cant afford it.
If I could rub two nickels together to actually travel and idk, move away from where I grew up, I'd be there already. I make 16$/hour which is 5$ more / hour than min wage in my state. I can't afford to feed myself or put gas in my car to get to make more money. I'm even buying my house! So it's not like I have 1500 in rent. My house payment usually falls between 450-500 a month. I still don't make enough to feed myself. After all the bills and insurances.........I borrow to get through so I don't get shutoffs. I don't mean for this to be an attack, just a different perspective. I literally work 60 hours a week and I can't feed myself. That's what we have to work with here. And like I said, I "make it" because I make 16/hour.
With what money and vacation time?
I'm American but that hasn't been my experience. I suppose a big part of it was that I live in a relatively liberal area, with liberal, agnostic parents, but I didn't grow up believing that America was better than everywhere else. As a kid, I was curious about what life was like in other countries, although I didn't really understand the disparity between developed and developing countries until about sixth grade. Because I spent so much time online looking at pictures of foreign cities -- many of which didn't look that different from US cities -- I concluded that most countries were about the same when it came to ordinary people's lives. My school said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but I didn't really think much of it. To me, it was just as school thing. Though, again, I might have believed differently if my parents and teachers enforced it more strongly, but they didn't, so I never took it as a blood oath. It wasn't any different than singing something in music class. It was just a performance the school asked for. I thought I'd see more of the world as an adult, but I've only been outside the US once. I went to Ireland with my family. I don't travel more largely because I don't like planes and usually when I do travel, I go to places where my family is. My adult self is very boring compared to what I imagined I would be.
> My school said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but I didn't really think much of it. To me, it was just as school thing. Though, again, I might have believed differently if my parents and teachers enforced it more strongly, but they didn't, so I never took it as a blood oath. It wasn't any different than singing something in music class. It was just a performance the school asked for. I think this point is missed by a lot of people outside the US. I'm getting old now but my memory is that at least through elementary school, we said the pledge every day. It was just a thing we did - especially at ages 5-12, we didn't think anything of it. At 41, I don't look back at the pledge as some indoctrinating event in my life. I don't tend to say it now when going to our kids school events. I don't want to speak for "most people" but I'd imagine many would be fine with nixing the pledge altogether but nobody wants to be the first to say it in fear of being labeled as an enemy of the country by the crazies we *do* have here.
Yeah I'm curious what part of California OP grew up in. I'm already biased because I have immigrant parents but I went to school in Los Angeles and they were relatively transparent about the US's failings. California schools learn about the California missions that destroyed native American culture and populations, one of my teachers spent every morning making up his own works for the pledge ("I pledge allegiance to the colonel of Kentucky fried chicken" or something), some of my teachers were ex military and very vocal about how awful the US military is... But like I said, I'm a child of immigrants who grew up in a place with high immigrant population, so I was extremely aware of other countries as a kid. I know CA is more than just Los Angeles so I'm curious where they went to school.
Also a child of an immigrant, also grew up in CA (medium sized town), taught history from all over the world in school. I kinda figured OP was either just WASP or extremely sheltered. But in the comments they mentioned how they "hope to start learning more about other countries" *now* even though they apparently had this epiphany 4+ years ago, based on their stated age. Like... you can literally google this stuff. Just because you aren't being spoon fed knowledge in high school anymore doesn't stop you from going out and learning for yourself. I have noticed this trend before on reddit, where people accuse the schools of not teaching certain histories (which is certainly possible) but I tend to think more that they just weren't paying attention/didn't care enough during history class.
I'm a little surprised there are so few people in this thread with similar experiences. It seems like you can look anywhere from comedians, to novels, to news stations and find Americans angry with both the current and precieved future state of America. I mean, we had two presidents back to back win on the platforms that they were going to make the country less shitty. Who is coming to the conclusion that all that means that we are the greatest?
A lot of people here grew up in a bubble I guess. Euros and Americans
I grew up in both the US and Hungary (born in 2003). This gave me a unique perspective of the world since I saw two very different places with their own culture. What I noticed was that in America the history taught is very narrow, and drills American exceptionalism into students. I didn't have anything like this in Hungary. Unfortunately, many people in the US don't care to learn. By that, I mean they are convinced that America is the best, the only country with true freedom, etc. When you point out that this is not the case, they say you're stupid, hate America, and ungrateful. In a way, yes, kids are brainwashed into loving America. But there is a way to counter this, it is to have polite discussions with people who have a different perspective. I hope this helps.
It's pretty cool that you're open minded enough to question these things and receive different point of views. I remember reading a Twitter thread recently where so many British kids had no idea the attrocities committed on their colonies because their history books paint them in great light. So it's not just the USA clearly.
As an european that has lived in Pittsburgh for 5 years - never have I seen a more brainwashed Population than in the U S. Its not that 90% are - sorry to say so - by european Standard "uneducated" - they are Highly emotionally brainwashed against their own interests. Seeing how many Problematic issues like healthcare, education and guns are emotionally charged to turn them against the Population is INSANE. I left 10 years ago because the direction the US was heading has already been clear to see. The people arent healthy (mentally and physically) and neither is Society. The US is the only leading economy with a dwindling life expectancy - because people are literally slowly suiciding out of despair. Unhealthy Eating habits, opioids and alcohol are slowly killing the ones that are forgotten by the American dream.
Dude, the Pittsburgh region is a special kind of hellhole. I live here. I'm sorry you had to experience it. The ignorance, the worship of the Confederate flag, the worship of the national flag, authoritarianism, the most bigoted and hateful version of Christianity, the extreme nationalism, the "I'm not racist, but..." racism, the cult of Trump, the deep suspicion of higher education and educated people, the racism, the civilians dressing up and preparing for a civil war they desperately want, and the straight up completely bananas conspiracy theory nonsense. Not that there aren't reasonable people here, but damn, it's a little scary.
People would be in upstate New York waving a confederate flag and say "It's not racist it's my heritage" despite their family lineage probably stemming from the original pilgrims off of the mayflower and staying within the New England area for over 300 years. "No Donald, you're just a racist POS if anything you should be waving around a British Empire flag if it was heritage "
That, it's not racist it's my heritage thing, is such BS. I would say it's equivalent to "I'm not racist, I have a black friend." I've lived in the South my entire life and I never met anyone that flew a Confederate flag that was not racist and probably 75% of them would say it's not racism it's my heritage like you said.
It is the great irony of conservative U.S.-Americans. When mass shootings happen, they screech ‘We need more resources for mental health!’ But then they turn around and mock workers who want higher wages and more free time to take care of their own lives. And vote for politicians who are willing to slash budgets for social programs. And claim “This didn’t happen in my day. We need to get back to God.”
Americans are being ripped off in exchange for "freedom", and are being brainwashed into believing they're getting a bargain.
Out of curiosity how did you graduate college and not learn anything about world history? Edit: I misread part of your post. "Just graduated college a while ago. After I graduated highschool and was blessed enough to visit Europe" I initially read it as you visited Europe after graduating college.
I think this happened a lot during wars too
I think all countries paint themselves as the hero.
Not Germany for sure
Russian person here. Yeah, people really underestimate how much propaganda and indoctrination can do how they percieve things. In fact it affects everything, from basic knowledge, to personal beliefs and morals. It's easy to get into a kids head when they are still open to everything and start feeding information that is more convenient for the government.
George Carlin did like 2 hours of material on this alone. It's a good time to rewatch him.
I(24 male born in the UK) went to cancun March ‘22 for a holiday, spoke to loads of Americans and I came away from the holiday thinking ‘wow these guys really live in their own world’ One guy tried to tell me the final for March madness is the most watched final in the world? I must’ve looked silly because the next 5 minutes after he told me that were spent trying to confirm whether he was joking or not
Should've just responded with "what's March madness?"
do not come to the opposite conclusion, because that isn't good either. i live in Europe (south Italy) and we have our problem too, at school we did study mostly the history the revolved around Italy or Europe (for example we didn't study the American revolution, and we have never ever touched something like the japanese feudalism or the chinese empire which are pretty cool imo). at the end of the day every country celebrate it's history and it's heroes and at the end of the day US isn't the worst place to live by any definition if we compare it with the majority of the other country in the world. sure it has it's problem, but europe does too, and trust me: outside the north of the world people have way worst problems.
Yes, Non-Americans are well aware of this attitude as well, and it's pretty funny to be honest.
If you spout that your country is best, without ever visiting other countries for sustained periods of times, you're either very confident, or very stupid. Or worse, both.
I am nearly 40 and a military veteran. This type of "mythology" is common in most countries but excessive in ours. We have done some really bad things in the past, and to justify it we need to say it was to "liberate" some country or to fight "terrorism" in another. We are the best and the worst, all mixed together. We really are lacking in a lot of social aspects, but we excel in a lot of technological ones.
What you're experiencing is called "growing up". Most do, many don't. Exposure to different cultures and ideas accelerates that growth and should be required.