Re: dumbing down
jason varsoke (jjv@caesun.msd.ray.com)
Fri, 19 Nov 1999 14:29:07 -0500 (EST)
> '... sometimes the best things come from those least
> educated ... '
>
> I'd always understood the Forest Gump Academy
> of Charm to be the Americans wittily sending themselves up.
> But obviously not. Nothing satiric there.
>
> Scottie B.
Well Scottie, I hoped that too when I noticed the passion for the film.
But unfortunately, I think the truth is more to the effect of dumb
americans still living the dream that their lack of intelligence doesn't
limit them.
The american ethic is "if you work hard, you can do anything." It is
not, "if you're smart enough, and you work hard, you can do anything -- oh
and btw you need to know the right people too."
Oh, and every box of chocolates I've ever encountered had a mapping of
what chocolate was in what place. Maybe Forest's mother just couldn't
read.
This brings me to something i've been discussing with my Croatian
girlfriend and my German tutor. We've been talking about national
identities -- the idiosyncracies of identities. For example the 20-30
something Germans seem to still hold on to their cultural supremacy,
their perfection, punctuality, great engineering etc, but it's tempered
by guilt of WWII. The English seem to be bent out of shape that they are
now a second rate country after losing all of their empire. The Croations
have an inferiority complex about being about the size of Rhode Island
(something we americans find it hard to remember is actually a state) or
the population of L.A. and having a hard time being recognized as an
independent nation by the UN.
I was wondering what generalizations of national identity you people
have noticed. That is, what do you see as people's opinion about their
country?
-j