Ignorant American Pigs

[Phaedrus]

A recurring theme the last couple of weeks has been the ignorance of Americans. Everyone knows Americans are all ignorant, well most of them, well no not you Phaedrus but him, that one I disagree with.

Some interesting statistics:

(taken from a study done by the OECD [a rabidly anti-American institution btw] of education levels in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States)

Highest level of education for adults aged 26-64:

Pre-primary/primary (i.e., lacks even a high school or equivalent education)

Average 15%

United States 5%

High school/lower secondary

Average 19%

United States 8%

Secondary (Bachelor or Advance Vocational)

Average 41%

United States 50%

Tertiary/Doctoral:

Average 8%

United States 9%

Post-doctoral and advanced research:

Average 15%

United States 28%

Source available here in .xls format.

As an aside, America also has by far the largest per capita incidence of entreprenuerialism in the world (the concept of self-made wealth is no doubt so far removed from the OECD's raison d'etre that it never occured to them to study it.) Many noteworthy successful Americans never attended a day of college, and I'm not talking about rock stars and lottery winners.

As a typically ignorant American, I'd like to suggest that some of you kiss my illiterate, gun-toting, flag-waving, culturally-intolerant ass.


Phaedrus

 

[JohnnyDetroit]

I had this debate while at UofM. Americans get the bad education rap because of our mid-level educational institutions. Our high level education BURIES anything the rest of the world has to offer. In the class was the French student who would not shut up about European schooling. So, I did my research and brought in rankings of the best schools per area. Majority were American schools. I made sure to let her rant and rave before I let know that these were from European magazines and sites that reviewed high education. MIT, Harvard etc. Whether it was technical or Business, us morons in the USA for some odd reason ranked highest??? Odd.

Something like 13 of the top 15 companies in the world are American. Is this by luck or because maybe wez not bez az dumbz az everyonzes thinkz.

 

[kayaman+]

I think there are several factors that contribute to the rep we get.

While our very best universities are probably the best or among the best in the world, I don't think that's necessarily the case with your run of the mill college in the states. My Dad's a retired college prof that taught in a community college, three catholic colleges and a state college in PA. He used to say in frustration that the college level educational system has broken down to the point that it no longer produces thinkers, just robots that memorize and regurgitate facts.

Another point I see as a factor is that I think that a lot of people look at college as a means to an end, in short to get a job. There's a lack of desire to learn just for the point of learning.

Also I think in the states we've lost the appreciation of a classic well rounded education. There's no interst in arts, languages, geography, world culture, etc.

I see those factors leading to another problem which is that once a person has made it into the professional world in whatever endevour there's a sort of, that's it I made it, type of attitude. Basically education stops there unless required due to the nature of the persons work. From there we have tendency to dumb back down. Newspapers, magazines tend to be written at some where around an 8th grade reading level, news is presented in a simplist limited vocabulary, etc. As an example for comparison, in Costa Rica it's quite common to see professionals in their 30's, 40's or even older going back to college to specialize in their field or even to venture into new areas. IMO that's not as common in the states.

Another factor in my mind is our ethnocentric educational system and media. We show very little interest in the rest of the world and the world equates that to ignorance.

Of course those polls you see every so often about how much (or little maybe the right way to say it)the average joe knows about who our elected officers are don't help either.