The answer to my question for most Americans is that the vast, vast, vast majority of both "educated" and uneducated Americans know next to nothing about the outside world--nor do they know much about our own country. The mental space in most people's minds are occupied by family, work, social circles, and cultural tribe as one would expect. But just as much as these are important it is occupied with mass entertainments usually carefully engineered to particular demographics. "News" which I define as enforcement of the grand Narrative that provides some kind of framework for people to hang their lives on makes up much of this "entertainment" because its value as an information source is almost comically poor.
We don't have room in our lives to look at other countries and our cultural tendencies have always been towards isolationism. That's why it's easy for people to not know that problems think are unsolvable whether it's creating an efficient and high-quality health-are system, or having family-friendly policies like five weeks paid vacations, maternity leave and so on are normal in nearly all developed countries yet I don't think more than 1% of American people know about any of this nor, sadly, want to know. Look at it this way. If you know that people in the next neighborhood get free health-care and you don't and, furthermore, you know that no matter what you or anyone thinks that there is no way that will change, which is btw true, you will stop thinking about it to avoid beings stressed when it comes to writing that check for $1200 to cover your family with a policy that doesn't cover everything and has a relatively high deductible. And for those of you conservatives that talk about higher taxes in these countries know that their systems are cheaper (on average OECD countries pay about half of what we pay and cover everyone), more efficient and higher quality and no other developed country has a falling life expectancy like we do.
We also lack a conceptual framework to think about things that are painful. We don't want to think about the growth of suicide, depression, anxiety, poverty, drug addiction, autism and so on. We are actually becoming a culture not only of narcissists (that has been emerging for many decades) but we are becoming autistic in our life-styles as we entertain ourselves to death. Anyone like me who presents ideas and perspectives that provide facts and figures that go against the contemporary cultural myths is almost always met with a cold silence or a shrug of the shoulders (metaphocially speaking) almost no one, even those agreeing with me, wish to dwell on any of this because it is "negative." But within that negativity there is always a positive side and that's where we could go if we actually faced reality. We simply don't have conversations about any issues let alone foreign affairs other that throw out tribal propaganda at each other. If I post the fact, for example, the facts on health-care I cited above I get, in response from those in the "conservative" tribe, a rant on free-enterprise which doesn't address the data I cited. Maybe universal health-care is not a good idea but those who oppose it don't make a rational argument in favor of their position other than chant slogans and wave flags. I can understand why the politicians oppose any reform of the health-care system because they are bribed to do so (and I have some personal insight into how this works) and the mass-media won't report the facts about health-care or anything else that will upset parts of the coalition of oligarchs that control the media.
This willful ignorance and denial extends to climate-change. Few Americans know that Germany gets most of its energy from renewable sources and many other countries are leading the way including China in renewables while the USA is going backwards. Not only are we in denial about the problem but also about the solutions. We would rather take a chance with climate-change and endanger our children's and our grandchildren's lives than begin to explore the science and the risks. I've had numerous conversations about it with people who simply call it a "fraud" without evidence--opponents of climate science simply call it a name and that's the end of the discussions--they believe there is simply not even a remote possibility that there may be any truth to the possibility that large amounts of greenhouse gases could have ANY effect or that the effect will be good. None of them seem to have a clue about how systems in nature work and I mean NO CLUE.
Our permanent wars go on with no opposition by anyone. People simply support the military as a heroic institution that guarantee our "liberty" (almost gone as a practical matter unless we are rich) and security. Bombing peasants in Afghanistan somehow makes us safer--this notion is accepted without argument by most Americans and never questioned in any mainstream media account. Killing for peace and other Orwellian notions are routine in today's culture. At one time this idea met with a lot of resistance during the 60s but is nowhere present today. No one knows the history of the Middle East, for example, but most people imagine that the region has "always" experienced constant warfare for thousands of years which is utter fantasy but these statements can be made by people who have no idea what they are talking about but say this to justify the slaughter and displacements of tens of millions of people and the destruction of civil society as if we had nothing to do with any of it.
I have lived on this Earth for 69 years and I have seen great progress in many areas of life. People are less prejudiced against other races, even though this is beginning to be reversed, people are more tolerant of alternative lifestyles, women are far less repressed but still caught in the cultural assumptions of being female which seem to linger but that may be that we have reached a balance. But in the area of knowledge and critical thinking we are in steep collective nosedive. Most Americans know nothing about the outside world, want to know nothing and are primarily focused on very narrow personal concerns. I'm not blaming anyone--it is what it is and this is who we are. I do what I am called to do by alerting people to the sorts of things I write about--I don't have a particular interest on whether my thoughts have much of an effect--of course I'd like it but I still must do what I am called to do.
We don't have room in our lives to look at other countries and our cultural tendencies have always been towards isolationism. That's why it's easy for people to not know that problems think are unsolvable whether it's creating an efficient and high-quality health-are system, or having family-friendly policies like five weeks paid vacations, maternity leave and so on are normal in nearly all developed countries yet I don't think more than 1% of American people know about any of this nor, sadly, want to know. Look at it this way. If you know that people in the next neighborhood get free health-care and you don't and, furthermore, you know that no matter what you or anyone thinks that there is no way that will change, which is btw true, you will stop thinking about it to avoid beings stressed when it comes to writing that check for $1200 to cover your family with a policy that doesn't cover everything and has a relatively high deductible. And for those of you conservatives that talk about higher taxes in these countries know that their systems are cheaper (on average OECD countries pay about half of what we pay and cover everyone), more efficient and higher quality and no other developed country has a falling life expectancy like we do.
We also lack a conceptual framework to think about things that are painful. We don't want to think about the growth of suicide, depression, anxiety, poverty, drug addiction, autism and so on. We are actually becoming a culture not only of narcissists (that has been emerging for many decades) but we are becoming autistic in our life-styles as we entertain ourselves to death. Anyone like me who presents ideas and perspectives that provide facts and figures that go against the contemporary cultural myths is almost always met with a cold silence or a shrug of the shoulders (metaphocially speaking) almost no one, even those agreeing with me, wish to dwell on any of this because it is "negative." But within that negativity there is always a positive side and that's where we could go if we actually faced reality. We simply don't have conversations about any issues let alone foreign affairs other that throw out tribal propaganda at each other. If I post the fact, for example, the facts on health-care I cited above I get, in response from those in the "conservative" tribe, a rant on free-enterprise which doesn't address the data I cited. Maybe universal health-care is not a good idea but those who oppose it don't make a rational argument in favor of their position other than chant slogans and wave flags. I can understand why the politicians oppose any reform of the health-care system because they are bribed to do so (and I have some personal insight into how this works) and the mass-media won't report the facts about health-care or anything else that will upset parts of the coalition of oligarchs that control the media.
This willful ignorance and denial extends to climate-change. Few Americans know that Germany gets most of its energy from renewable sources and many other countries are leading the way including China in renewables while the USA is going backwards. Not only are we in denial about the problem but also about the solutions. We would rather take a chance with climate-change and endanger our children's and our grandchildren's lives than begin to explore the science and the risks. I've had numerous conversations about it with people who simply call it a "fraud" without evidence--opponents of climate science simply call it a name and that's the end of the discussions--they believe there is simply not even a remote possibility that there may be any truth to the possibility that large amounts of greenhouse gases could have ANY effect or that the effect will be good. None of them seem to have a clue about how systems in nature work and I mean NO CLUE.
Our permanent wars go on with no opposition by anyone. People simply support the military as a heroic institution that guarantee our "liberty" (almost gone as a practical matter unless we are rich) and security. Bombing peasants in Afghanistan somehow makes us safer--this notion is accepted without argument by most Americans and never questioned in any mainstream media account. Killing for peace and other Orwellian notions are routine in today's culture. At one time this idea met with a lot of resistance during the 60s but is nowhere present today. No one knows the history of the Middle East, for example, but most people imagine that the region has "always" experienced constant warfare for thousands of years which is utter fantasy but these statements can be made by people who have no idea what they are talking about but say this to justify the slaughter and displacements of tens of millions of people and the destruction of civil society as if we had nothing to do with any of it.
I have lived on this Earth for 69 years and I have seen great progress in many areas of life. People are less prejudiced against other races, even though this is beginning to be reversed, people are more tolerant of alternative lifestyles, women are far less repressed but still caught in the cultural assumptions of being female which seem to linger but that may be that we have reached a balance. But in the area of knowledge and critical thinking we are in steep collective nosedive. Most Americans know nothing about the outside world, want to know nothing and are primarily focused on very narrow personal concerns. I'm not blaming anyone--it is what it is and this is who we are. I do what I am called to do by alerting people to the sorts of things I write about--I don't have a particular interest on whether my thoughts have much of an effect--of course I'd like it but I still must do what I am called to do.
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