Westerners Abroad

Yesterday on TJ's Take I introduced the show Idiot Abroad and I talked about why I love the show. But, there is also an eye opening truth about the show and it's why I love the show even more. Karl Pilkington is the epitome of an ordinary Westerner with skewed views on the world because of the nature around them. It is not necessarily a disrespect for culture, but more of plain ignorance. In a more globalized world, the importance of having a general intelligent view of the world is important. I mean, most Americans don't even know our own history, there was a video of a guy asking Americans simple questions about our history and they were clueless. But, it is ever so important now because of globalization. Right now, I can check my phone and know what is going on in India or Zambia. We are becoming a world of no borders and it is important to understand cultures or it could cause a fiasco.

Since I have been in school I have learned many things about Americans not being good at things, because in my field, Americans generally are not best suited for the International Field. But, general knowledge of just knowing where a country is. This picture below shows where Americans thought the Ukraine was, granted, many of them knew, but the fact that some put dots in the United States scares me, and this is what I mean about ignorance of there are other places in the world other than America.

Pretty scary stuff...

The next 20-30 years will be defined by what other countries do. The past 20 years, America has been the only Superpower in the world so our culture and language has dominated the global landscape. But, what if China becomes a superpower or India, do you think Americans are prepared to share the world stage again, I mean it went so well with the Russians. So the importance of being culturally aware is important to me and it should be important to the further development of Americans.