They haven't been taught about and don't read about their own history and are generally ignorant of and freaked out by "Others", perhaps most especially those in Michigan... they know Motown music but nothing about its history in Detroit (and, of course, have never heard of the MC5). Hell, I'd be happy if they just went to and learned something about local rural and urban social and environmental history... even the "left"ish students are neo-Malthusian technophiles who see the urban poor in the global North and rural poor in the global South as key sources of the problems they care about.
If they even travelled to and knew the differences between Detroit, Chicago, the Twin Cities, NY, LA and Houston - which for them would be wildly diverse - their level of cosmopolitanism would be increased by multiple orders of magnitude and while some would become more close-minded most would become more receptive to more complex and provocative takes on the world.
On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Percival Myers <permaceaem at gmail.com>wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
>
> > OK, I had forgotten about the Americans. The main thrust was about the
> Chinese.
>
> Normally I would agree with Alan Rudy that exposure to other cultures
> via the usual method of traveling abroad is beneficial and for a
> number of reasons, but in this case I must object. Most Americans (and
> Chinese) were held to be backwards provincials, farmers with no
> outside ken (in the specific case of the Chinese) due to a failure to
> travel "outside the country." Because of what amounts to luck of the
> draw in where they were born, whom their parents are, etc. The quite
> ridiculous logical conclusion (spotlighted by your "amazing" comment
> re: your relatives in Germany) is that those who do not become
> "worldly" in that fashionably popular, western European sense you
> invoked are somehow flawed, perhaps morally. A number of Russians (and
> others) are similarly afflicted, supposing that this shortcoming is
> real and not your notional figment.
>
> The conversation thus far has only concerned itself with the proximity
> of those "correctional" destinations, in this thread we have not begun
> to address differences in earned or awarded vacation time, ability to
> afford or other considerations that were glossed over.
>
> For these reasons, your "widely traveled" comment about Americans (and
> Chinese) and probably the objection that brought it forth, can safely
> be dismissed as irrelevant hogwash.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>