Americans and their knowledge about Europe

I have found on many history forums that there is really a lot of people in the USA whose knowledge about Europe and the nations which live there is almost none. Many of those educated US citisens are posting complete nuissnces but think in the same time that their posts are pure wisdom. Personally i love reading such things just for fun. On the other hand when i read it i always think about the level of schools and teachers in USA who allowed their students get such great education.

Here are some examples which i have jsut found on the different forums:

"This is how Europe SHOULD LOOK,with all Germanic countries under one country, all Slavic countries under one, all Spanish, English, etc.
Things would be much simpler and easier if Europe was like this. Since all other countries are affected by the 6 main European countries, in good and bad ways politically, economically, most obviously militarily. This reunification would strengthen Europe and i'm praying this is what will happen."

On this interesting topic other american replied:

the sad truth is that usa and france would be against it. france because it loses land and gains no new territory. the usa because germany would grow huge and everyone would say that germany is gonna start another world war so since usa has the most mukes it would have some athourity. but then we couldnt have the swiss army knife because germany would own switzerland. every major county in europe except france would like this. the chances of it happening soon are slim but it might happen in the distant future maybe 200 or 300 years from now. and the cpt is right about the english and may i add that a couple million germans can understand german and even more can speak it. this is partly because of the US occupation but many germnas knew before that. i would like it to happen mostly to end the fighting in the balkins ....

But that discussion didnt give full answer on the european question and someone else needed to start similar:

Why wont Europe unite and like form some new country?

and another guy told him:

Have you never heard of an organisation called the European Union which is trying to do what you suggest?

I guess thisone  was in a bit better school than those  guys before. But affcourse there were some more americans who wanted to take part in such interesting debate. Here are 3 posts of 3 different men:

welll i hope they never do if they do that will be one powerful nation and we would kinda screw ourselves over by doing so ,so leave them be also i need some infomation on the bible codes thing if anyone can help?

I think it's best to keep them arguing amongst each other while the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and the real civilized world goes on its merry way!

How could they be A danger to Britain isnt Britain apart of Europe?

Sometimes, when Americans dont talk about Europe, they talk about more or less famous europeans:

Contrary to popular belief, Ludwig Van Beethoven was actually Black.....(...)..Beethoven's family originated in Belgium, which had been ruled for centuries by the Spaniards, who had large numbers of Negro soldiers in their army there. Theophile Gautier speaks of a Belgian type characterized by brown skin and dark hair "a second race which the soldiers of the Spanish Duke of Alva have sown between Brussels and Cambrai."In short, the general description of Beethoven, even to his frizzly hair, fits that of many an Aframerican or West Indian mulatto. In the Southern States Beethoven would have been forced to ride in the jim-crow car. Everything indicates that Beethoven, one of the greatest musical composers of all times, was Black. Why aren't we generally taught this? What are your opinions on this?

You know what the funny/sad thing is? Those guys are the cream of the crop over here in the States...because they can actually name more than five European countries.

But my question is, how the hell it is possible that so many Americans got so limited knowledge about the world outside the USA. I have even heard that their knowledge about their own USA isnt much better than about the world.

USA is the most powerfull country all over the world. USA is one of the richest countires all over the world. USA is one of the most civilised countries all over the world. USA belongs to the countries where is the highest level of education.

So can someone explain how it is possible that so many Americans are so stupid ( i wont look for more polite words).

Or maybe it is the matter of genes? For centuries the poorest people from Europe, those who were the most miserable, often illiterate, who often in their home countries were suffering from hunger, they all were emigrating to USA, later to them joined liberated slaves from south and immigrants from other parts of the world. Is this the reason why so many americans are dumb?

It's not so much that American's know so little about Europe.

It's that they know less about the US, it's politics and history than Europeans. Now that's worrying...

  Hi Mosquito:

  If you believe that the americans knowlegde about Europe is limited, then you have to make a poll between americans about Mexico.

  Most of the americans believes that the mexican independence day is May 05th, that we all mexicans eats burritos, and even once the brother of my former boss ( american BTW ) was amazed because Mexico had Federal States as the US. He was under the idea that Mexico was a single entity as a country. He�s a school teacher in California.

  I bet you that most of the americans can not list more than 5 Latin American countries different than Mexico, Colombia, Brazil , Argentina and Cuba ( probably Nicaragua or El Salvador ).

   I want to point out by the other hand that the iliteracy is universal. Our good US friends on the forums ( Catt, Cornelia, Vagabond, Janus, Genghis, Tobodei, Battle Glory and many others ) are a probe that there are informed and educated people in the US.

   In the case of the USA, I believe that is part of their cultural isolation.

   It is true that the USA was born by the inmigrants , but it was not multicultural or tolerant at the very first beginning.  

    It is not that they don�t have a quality education, seems to me that the average american just don�t care about what happens in the world. The only contact that they have is CNN.

    Just a thought.

   Regards

I would like to stress that i dont talk here about people who earn monay cleaning windows or floors, driving taxi or about people who are farmers and spent their life on harvests. They are all similar all over the world.

I talk here about educated Americans, people who are teachers, doctors, lawyers, engeeners, etc. etc.

How it is possible that so many of them, after investing so much monay in their education (at least in the USA education is pretty expensive) are so limited or even ignorant?

Iv heard one different theory, that education in the USA is so specialised, that people becomes great specialists only in 1 thing and complete ignorants in everything else (altough such explanation is beyound my understanding).

Actually in High School I took a pretty extensive geography course, where we had to do the exact same thing you did Mosquito, except we did learn africa. Of course, you could easily discredit the course since one time I did have to correct the teacher when he said the four main islands of japan were Shikoku, Kyushu, Honshu and Sapporo.

Interesting thread.

I just read an article in the Opinion section of the L.A. Times were the writer said something to the effect that Europeans refer to any American who does not kiss their behinds as "arrogant."

       come on what? you mean that china lies about everything it teaches to it's students and chinese textbooks are all made up? i'd admitt that a chinese text book on the mainland is very biased towards the CCP....for example it exagerates what little effort the CCP made in fighting the japanese invaders and say the the KMT are more like passive resisters. but hiding the truth aren't exactly lying is it? much like that politically correct computer game that u mentioned. banning it from comming into the market aren't really what i'd call lying...that's just the communist censorship doing it's work...and what did you mean by "we all know"?

       BTW this is way off topic....i won't reply you anymore on this matter