Americans are subjected to extreme levels of propaganda from childhood onward, and the propaganda is just subtle enough that many don’t see it for what it is. I think it’s hard for outsiders to appreciate this, but if you dig into American news sources it’s quite shocking how twisted it all is.
Unlike the people I went to highschool with, I have been able to travel the world, back in highschool they all seem smart and cool to me, now they all sound like hateful stupid people. Stuck in their close minded deeply red and religious surroundings the propaganda did its work on them. It’s like a horror film, they’re completely different people it seems.
What’s funny is those people likely view you as the one that is twisted, or tainted, etc, especially if you also went away to go to a university.
I grew up in a similar area though I was spoiled by having parents (and friends of my parents) that had a much broader view than most of my neighbors and other school children.
I would mostly keep my thoughts to myself unless I knew the other peer rather well, since all that high-falutin’ thinking and open mindedness was viewed as dangerously subversive by the local hicks.
But I remember going back to visit a few times during university and in the years shortly after completing university, and…it was always a trip to engage with some of these types again. They don’t seem to have any awareness of how benighted they really are. I still see a few of them on Facebook when I peek in on it. It’s so incredible how these people manage to remain so provincial even after the online world became a thing. I just don’t get it. I was one of the cyberoptimist types in the early 90s that thought the information superhighway would illuminate these types, even if only a little bit. I think the exact opposite happened.
I worked with a guy, who grew up in the US Deep South. He told me he joined the marines after Sept 11, 2001 to (and this is the quote he used) to get revenge on, and kill the “ragheads” that attacked his country.
He told me the cure for his racist idiocy was going to Afghanistan and meeting the people there and discovering they’re just normal people like the ones he knew back home and it wrecked (and fixed) his world view.
Honestly, I wish there was some kind of travel program that was required for all children/adolescents somehow. Or at least a well-funded option.
Something where virtually everyone travels outside the country. We could start slow, and maybe just have people travel even within the country at first. If you live in the burbs or in a rural area, you are sent into some metro areas (ideally multiple states), put up in hotels and taken to various things to be seen. If you live in the cities, same thing - you visit some deep rural areas and learn something about that area.
I grew up with people that were proud of the fact that they never lived outside the county, and had not even left the state. Their whole lives. And didn’t really go into the cities within the state. They were just as provincial as you might imagine. They had all kinds of ideas about people in foreign lands, and within American cities, and within states (like California), but had never been there and didn’t even have any kind of interest in learning more via books or documentaries, etc., even if travel was too cost prohibitive.
Oh they see me as all that Fox News has told them I am, and they behave like pack animals any view that doesn’t fit in. It’s kind of scary.
I too, enjoyed the brief period of the enlightenment and renaissance of the early days of the internet before it became weaponized. I even thought in 2007 the first iPhone was a true moment of change, I was right, but very very wrong at the same time.
Smartphones killed the internet we once thought possible.
And here we are like refugees in a tiny corner of the internet, trying to stay away from all the awful, yet still be connected.
I really didn’t appreciate it until I had to come to the US for a week for work in NC (in Nov during election week!). Its utterly relentless. Watching TV from my hotel room was utterly exhausting. So much blatant propaganda and lies shown with alarming frequency.
I don’t think it’s hard for outsiders to understand. I think it’s harder for Americans to understand. Those of us on the outside can see it easily and obviously. And it’s not subtle.
In the movie U-571, it depicts the Americans capturing the first enigma machine, thus helping to lead to an end to WW2. The reality is, the Royal Navy had them before the US even entered the war.
As a Canadian, I know that we were heavily involved with freeing the Iranian hostages, but if you watch the movie Argo, you would think the United States did everything. Jimmy Carter, President at the time of the event, decried the movie saying that Canada did 90% of the op.
The Great Escape portrays the escape from Stalag Luft III as an American affair, when it was a Commonwealth operation, and not a single American escaped.
Black Hawk Down. If you watched the movie, you would think the rescue was done by US forces, completely disregarding the fact it was largely Pakistani and Malaysian forces that rescued the American service people.
That’s not even getting into the non-war movies where the US is represented as the ultimate moral authority in all things.
How about the “World Series”, where with the exception of one team, every one is in the United States.
Co-opting the term “American”. The Americas includes more than just the USA. Mexicans, Argentinians, Canadians, Hondurans, Columbians, etc. are all “American”.
Even the implication that no one outside the United States would understand how bad the propaganda there is, is American exceptionalism.
I have spent almost my whole life outside the USA myself, and though I saw these things in American movies etc., I wasn’t really aware of how little Americans know about what’s going on in the world, and how tilted all the information they consume is, in school and in the general culture, until I spent some time living in the USA. You make a good point though, and I wasn’t the most perceptive.
Soo many of us are total fucking idiots. I’ve known people who were proud to have never, ever left their home county (no r, smaller than the state). Education has been extremely watered down and NEVER included anything that wasn’t in someway tied to or implied to involve the u.s. The teeeensy bit of world history is glossed over quickly with dry dates and facts to memorize until that class is finally over.
Higher education for the rich is for socializing and pretending you learned things other than that.
For a lot of the poor, higher education isn’t even possible, many of those poor folk that are rural even scoff at the idea it’s needed or think it’s the devil’s knowledge or some shit. A local, near my current area, said “I don’t believe in science”. …Like, at all??? I was part of a group that split off right then, wasn’t able to question about it. …But, like at all gravity, chemical reactions… nothing?
People are both proud of being and, think you called them something else, now hella angry, ignorant.
Now, they are more worried about being in good christian, republican (white) private schools than funding public education (California, by law, will not allow any textbook that Texas approves for their schools, in use for their public schools. That’s how useless the bible belt education has become). I have now met more than a few children who don’t “see the point in learning to read”. Various ages. And I dont have kids or close young family around. It fucking kills me to hear that shit.
Movies, tv, YouTube, anything mindless is way more approved for discussion in mixed random social gatherings than anything historical, higher arts related, scientific, god forbid global not involving the u.s.! Instantly labeled libruhl, demoncrat, fanatical left… ugh.
Anyway, yeah, it’s hard to get a world/outside view for so many over here, to the point that I think most have nooo idea a view other than a us-ian one even exists. I wish exchange programs were more of a thing and more available to ‘lower class’ folks. Just getting out of the fucking bubble of constant, subconscious propaganda, from everything one encounters, might really help a number of folk.
Sorry, I love learning, reading, cultures, etc., it has hurt my soul all my life to feel this country smothering learning and curiosity! Even seeking it, it has been hard to come by, especially pre-internet. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Eta: I am not sure how I came across, so I want to mention, yes! We should be smart enough to see a lot of this shit, but not only are we too dumb, we are proud of being dumb for some fucking reason. I hope I didn’t seem argumentative, I’ve got a love of learning and it’s irritating to have been raised and educated over here. Glad y’all see it, cause in general, we really don’t.
Schoolhouse Rock was a foundational part of my childhood. It’s because of those songs that I have the preamble to the Constitution memorized, and know what a preposition is
But the history songs… Wow. Presented as fun and educational, but the one about Manifest Destiny might as well be called “Lebensraum”
Americans are subjected to extreme levels of propaganda from childhood onward, and the propaganda is just subtle enough that many don’t see it for what it is. I think it’s hard for outsiders to appreciate this, but if you dig into American news sources it’s quite shocking how twisted it all is.
This.
Unlike the people I went to highschool with, I have been able to travel the world, back in highschool they all seem smart and cool to me, now they all sound like hateful stupid people. Stuck in their close minded deeply red and religious surroundings the propaganda did its work on them. It’s like a horror film, they’re completely different people it seems.
It breaks my heart, as there’s no saving them.
What’s funny is those people likely view you as the one that is twisted, or tainted, etc, especially if you also went away to go to a university.
I grew up in a similar area though I was spoiled by having parents (and friends of my parents) that had a much broader view than most of my neighbors and other school children.
I would mostly keep my thoughts to myself unless I knew the other peer rather well, since all that high-falutin’ thinking and open mindedness was viewed as dangerously subversive by the local hicks.
But I remember going back to visit a few times during university and in the years shortly after completing university, and…it was always a trip to engage with some of these types again. They don’t seem to have any awareness of how benighted they really are. I still see a few of them on Facebook when I peek in on it. It’s so incredible how these people manage to remain so provincial even after the online world became a thing. I just don’t get it. I was one of the cyberoptimist types in the early 90s that thought the information superhighway would illuminate these types, even if only a little bit. I think the exact opposite happened.
I worked with a guy, who grew up in the US Deep South. He told me he joined the marines after Sept 11, 2001 to (and this is the quote he used) to get revenge on, and kill the “ragheads” that attacked his country.
He told me the cure for his racist idiocy was going to Afghanistan and meeting the people there and discovering they’re just normal people like the ones he knew back home and it wrecked (and fixed) his world view.
Honestly, I wish there was some kind of travel program that was required for all children/adolescents somehow. Or at least a well-funded option.
Something where virtually everyone travels outside the country. We could start slow, and maybe just have people travel even within the country at first. If you live in the burbs or in a rural area, you are sent into some metro areas (ideally multiple states), put up in hotels and taken to various things to be seen. If you live in the cities, same thing - you visit some deep rural areas and learn something about that area.
I grew up with people that were proud of the fact that they never lived outside the county, and had not even left the state. Their whole lives. And didn’t really go into the cities within the state. They were just as provincial as you might imagine. They had all kinds of ideas about people in foreign lands, and within American cities, and within states (like California), but had never been there and didn’t even have any kind of interest in learning more via books or documentaries, etc., even if travel was too cost prohibitive.
Oh they see me as all that Fox News has told them I am, and they behave like pack animals any view that doesn’t fit in. It’s kind of scary.
I too, enjoyed the brief period of the enlightenment and renaissance of the early days of the internet before it became weaponized. I even thought in 2007 the first iPhone was a true moment of change, I was right, but very very wrong at the same time.
Smartphones killed the internet we once thought possible.
And here we are like refugees in a tiny corner of the internet, trying to stay away from all the awful, yet still be connected.
I’m grateful I knew that fleeting world.
I really didn’t appreciate it until I had to come to the US for a week for work in NC (in Nov during election week!). Its utterly relentless. Watching TV from my hotel room was utterly exhausting. So much blatant propaganda and lies shown with alarming frequency.
They CHOOSE to accept whatever propaganda they are exposed to instead of relying on their intelligence and fact checking.
I don’t think it’s hard for outsiders to understand. I think it’s harder for Americans to understand. Those of us on the outside can see it easily and obviously. And it’s not subtle.
In the movie U-571, it depicts the Americans capturing the first enigma machine, thus helping to lead to an end to WW2. The reality is, the Royal Navy had them before the US even entered the war.
As a Canadian, I know that we were heavily involved with freeing the Iranian hostages, but if you watch the movie Argo, you would think the United States did everything. Jimmy Carter, President at the time of the event, decried the movie saying that Canada did 90% of the op.
The Great Escape portrays the escape from Stalag Luft III as an American affair, when it was a Commonwealth operation, and not a single American escaped.
Black Hawk Down. If you watched the movie, you would think the rescue was done by US forces, completely disregarding the fact it was largely Pakistani and Malaysian forces that rescued the American service people.
That’s not even getting into the non-war movies where the US is represented as the ultimate moral authority in all things.
How about the “World Series”, where with the exception of one team, every one is in the United States.
Co-opting the term “American”. The Americas includes more than just the USA. Mexicans, Argentinians, Canadians, Hondurans, Columbians, etc. are all “American”.
Even the implication that no one outside the United States would understand how bad the propaganda there is, is American exceptionalism.
I have spent almost my whole life outside the USA myself, and though I saw these things in American movies etc., I wasn’t really aware of how little Americans know about what’s going on in the world, and how tilted all the information they consume is, in school and in the general culture, until I spent some time living in the USA. You make a good point though, and I wasn’t the most perceptive.
Soo many of us are total fucking idiots. I’ve known people who were proud to have never, ever left their home county (no r, smaller than the state). Education has been extremely watered down and NEVER included anything that wasn’t in someway tied to or implied to involve the u.s. The teeeensy bit of world history is glossed over quickly with dry dates and facts to memorize until that class is finally over.
Higher education for the rich is for socializing and pretending you learned things other than that.
For a lot of the poor, higher education isn’t even possible, many of those poor folk that are rural even scoff at the idea it’s needed or think it’s the devil’s knowledge or some shit. A local, near my current area, said “I don’t believe in science”. …Like, at all??? I was part of a group that split off right then, wasn’t able to question about it. …But, like at all gravity, chemical reactions… nothing?
People are both proud of being and, think you called them something else, now hella angry, ignorant.
Now, they are more worried about being in good christian, republican (white) private schools than funding public education (California, by law, will not allow any textbook that Texas approves for their schools, in use for their public schools. That’s how useless the bible belt education has become). I have now met more than a few children who don’t “see the point in learning to read”. Various ages. And I dont have kids or close young family around. It fucking kills me to hear that shit.
Movies, tv, YouTube, anything mindless is way more approved for discussion in mixed random social gatherings than anything historical, higher arts related, scientific, god forbid global not involving the u.s.! Instantly labeled libruhl, demoncrat, fanatical left… ugh.
Anyway, yeah, it’s hard to get a world/outside view for so many over here, to the point that I think most have nooo idea a view other than a us-ian one even exists. I wish exchange programs were more of a thing and more available to ‘lower class’ folks. Just getting out of the fucking bubble of constant, subconscious propaganda, from everything one encounters, might really help a number of folk.
Sorry, I love learning, reading, cultures, etc., it has hurt my soul all my life to feel this country smothering learning and curiosity! Even seeking it, it has been hard to come by, especially pre-internet. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Eta: I am not sure how I came across, so I want to mention, yes! We should be smart enough to see a lot of this shit, but not only are we too dumb, we are proud of being dumb for some fucking reason. I hope I didn’t seem argumentative, I’ve got a love of learning and it’s irritating to have been raised and educated over here. Glad y’all see it, cause in general, we really don’t.
Schoolhouse Rock was a foundational part of my childhood. It’s because of those songs that I have the preamble to the Constitution memorized, and know what a preposition is
But the history songs… Wow. Presented as fun and educational, but the one about Manifest Destiny might as well be called “Lebensraum”