Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> At 09:45 AM 6/5/01 -0700, joanna b wrote:
> the (often) deadly combination of arrogance
> >and ignorance--- the actual pride in being stupid, which I have not
> >encountered anywhere else so far.
> >
>
> Again, ditto. US is the only country where anti-intellectualism,
> provincialism and ignorance (but not necessarily plain stupidity) are so
> widely revered as role models. In the old world, even the most stupid
> people try to act smart, which often produces comic results, but that is
> another story.
>
> Also, do not forget US in-your-face religiosity, which is probably one of
> the most nauseating aspects of the US culture.
I think the religiosity, which is the cultural aspect of American exceptionalism, substitutes for class politics, which, in the old world, engages people of all classes and persuasions in larger questions. In the US, by contrast, all large social questions are supposed to have been solved by the existence of the US, and the only remaining large questions are existential ones, which one deals with in relating to God. But a certain practical/technical cleverness is valued as it keeps the noble enterprise going, and generates more wealth. Thus, it is considered bad form to be too smart, because that implicitly criticizes the national enterprise.
Here I am describing the American outlook in its floruit, forty or so years ago. Increasingly it is in disrepair. Challenges to racism gave, and still give it, some problems. Challenges to male dominance call the whole ideological edifice go farther. The loss of the automatic sense of certain and inexorable economic advance combines with these challenges to put the American outlook in increasing disrepair.
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema