Hi, I checked the dates and I believe what I recalled was comments Wilson made regarding the Spanish after the Spanish American War that the Spanish needed "civilizing" as he called it. You are right in the respect that Wilson was not president during that war but came after. I have read a book on the Treaty of Versailles, and America, Britain, and France literally carved up the World according to their own plan. By the way, the human rights activities of the UN(post dating the League of Nations) has been called into question. The US press has cited that one of the prior major human rights committee leadership positions was Libya!

Dan, I know Teddy Roosevelt fought in the Spanish American War; but I have read that Wilson was President during that war. I have read quotes where Wilson described his desire to "civilize the Spanish." Otherwise, his League of Nations was liberal in trend. On the other hand, he, France, and Britain carved up the world at the Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI, much of what they did has led to our current problems in the Middle East. I don't think Wison's record is completely spotless.

Oh, William, I read your post and wasn't entirely sure you were right on a couple of little facts. Woodrow Wilson, as I remember, is most famous for the end of the First World War, espousing his Fourteen Points as the basis of the Treaty of Versailles. He hoped for liberalization, fairness and self-determination, which didn't really follow the ideas of European leaders who were pretty much imperialistic at the time, but the promises of self-determination left a lot of angry people who had their hopes dashed after the treaty was signed.

I think you mean, in terms of the Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt. He rather fits your description of someone who believed that Democracy should be spread. It was some of this same conflict of interest that had Americans torn in the Mexican War, since that was basically a big American land-grab and struck some leaders of the time as being imperialistic, and totally against their ideals. The other side saw Democracy the light of the world, and that it be their duty to spread it (see some parallels?).

This similarly fueled ideas of the Spanish-American War, in addition to the desire to gain prestige and status as a country which defeated the apparent modern-day imperial power of Spain. It was justified by some on the grounds that they were spreading democracy to their new territories (again the same parallels).

Yes, we agree on the point of benign autocrats, it can too easily turn ugly.

And we agree on, to use your term, Americanists. One could argue that it's because the American constitution upholds the idea of all men being free and equal, which suggests that Democracy is a universally applicable political idea.

To some extent, it is. I feel that people can generally have a right to representation. But the details of that are open to adjustment according to culture. After all, most South East Asian countries are democracies and republics, but with a highly involved government that doesn't correspond to the American model and probably wouldn't work that way. This, I think, is something they're discovering about their experiment in Iraq, where the competing factions make it impossible to directly drop an American system onto them.

Dan, here's the point: the benign dictatorship, can be effective and humane; but it can quickly be transformed into something terrible by revolution. In a elective democracy much misery and unfairness can be created by a bad elected official (George W. Bush) but this can only last two elections by law. Furthermore, he can be voted out of office and impeached. Manifest destiny was the philosophy of Andrew Jackson and lead to the large size of the current US. Projecting that to the rest of the world is the mistake the US has taken. And Geoge W. Bush was not the only proponent. It was practiced also by Woodrow Wilson during the Spanish American War. In other words he was out to "Americanize" others... this is simply wrong. We are what we have chosen to be, and other countries must choose for themselves. They must evolve politically on their own. A perfect example of the failure of the Wilson and Bush projection of America into a foreign culture was our failure in Vietnam. We Americans should remember that failure and why it occurred. All of our money and bombs couldn't change the direction another culture was taking, even though we tried to deforest southern Asia and destroy every semblance of resistance. When are these foolish Americanists going to learn?

I would agree with you that democracies are generally more peaceful than autocracies. This doesn't excuse Manifest Destiny and its more modern variants, because Democracy is a very stretched concept. When the Iraq War was relatively new, Egypt talked of having elections. Quite a few Americans I talked to took this as a good sign, that despite some fumbling and lack of faith, democracy was indeed being spread in the Middle East. This was later followed up by elections in the PLO.

Of course, the elections in Egypt were rigged, and the result of the PLO elections weren't satisfactory to the West (Hamas won, way up there on the CIA's Terrorist List). While this doesn't necessarily discredit Democracy, it does remind us that it's far from a simple solution to difficult countries. As much as Americans vaunt their freedoms, granting them to others doesn't automatically guarantee happiness and success.

Which is a somewhat different attittude to old style Manifest Destiny, but shares the perception that Democracy is the purest form of government around. There's a particular viewpoint among conservative Americans which puts democracies on the side of Good locked in perpetual competition and conflict against Evil autocracies.

The funny thing is that it really does depend. Indonesia is a great example. Suharto was a de facto dictator for 30+ years, but fulfilled many basic requirements for democracy: elections, an elected parliament, some (apparent) political freedoms. It had its wars: a Confrontation with Malaysia, the Aceh Independence War, the Annexation of East Timor, and the many tribal or religious conflicts which cropped up in the limitless diversity that is Indonesia, held together by induced nationalism. Yet Suharto's tough government saw some of the greatest economic growth and improvement of living standards in the country, arguably because an autocratic government has less red tape.

So again, it's never black and white. As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried." Personally, I feel there's something to the ideal of an Enlightened Despot, in the tradition of Frederick the Great, or Terry Pratchett's fictional Vetinari. The problem with despots is that while today's despot might be good, clever and enlightened, but there's no real way to tell that the next would. Or that he would continue to be so.

Dan, Political theorists claim that democracies are more peaceful than autocracies. More importantly, America emphsizes human rights, despite lapses in that(slavery, Guantanamo). I would say that America is obsessed with politics in general; but we do genereally believe in democracy and human rights. Marxism never really existed as a communist society; what the so-called marxists societies were in actuality were autocracies or elitist oligarchies without human rights: cite Mao and Stalin. The American form of democracy was an attempt to control the excesses of monarchies and the traditional Churches of Europe that grew powerful and destructive over the centuries, and the secular form of American government was an outgrowth of the philosophy of the enlightenment of eighteen century France.

America doesn't really get excused: America excuses itself even though it keeps doing it. And on the surface, the world goes along with it as long as it's the path of least resistance. America being powerful does help with the impression and relative support.

Money is power, and I think power is the grand derivative. And it decides... most things.

There's a long history with the region, as there are in many places. Cultures however, change in the region. Are we to assume that today's Italians are previous millenia's Romans? What is now China was a whole slew of kingdoms, ethnicities and cultures. To some extent it still is, bound together by the strands of nationstate.

So the history of America, as we know it today, is only truly tied with the European colonies and their development in North America. There isn't anything left of the various native tribes, not even notable ones like the Iroquois. Names and places are all that's left, and none of it transcribed into what we today call American culture. And that's fine and normal, but it does limit their cultural history to that period.

So yes, it doesn't get recognized in history in the way many losing tribes didn't. That's the way history works, but that sense of conquest and Manifest Destiny isn't that common. The feeling, as you describe it, that because they conquered this new land for themselves and are now entitled to a greater destiny. When Peter the Great spread Russia all the way across the continent, I'm fairly sure he didn't see it that way, most likely due to the imperial system. I imagine though, that it needs that nationalism that so propelled the US to expand.

On that note, we lament the US' recent obsession with Democracy, but it's fair to say it's no new phenomenon. All through their history they've seen themselves at the pinnacle of political systems and likely that it was, ironically as it's a Marxist saying, historically inevitable that all countries develop into a similar system.

Anyway, I love historical discussions. I would have lots of them on TCKid if it weren't off-topic. :D

Good question. A new country? Nah, I don't think so. I'd say America gets excused more because of its superpower status (which may now have seen the beginning of the end...maybe? mayybe not?). I've noticed that a lot of things around us (more than we'd like to admit) is about money. The more powerful your country or family, the more easily you or your culture are considered cool/better, etc. So, in a way, the new grad metaphor is good.

As for new country...that is precisely the problem - that Americans and the world thinks of US history as 'new'. Yes, the 'United States' in its current political form is new, but there was history way before the 'settlers' came in. It just doesn't get recognized as history because winners get to write history (and decide what word to use to describe themselves and others). So the new grad thinks that the way they conquered the land (and its people) means that they are strong and perhaps, if I use your metaphor of the Holy Land, the 'chosen ones'. Hence the sense of self-entitlement runs deep.

(And btw, about the length of colonialism...Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch for 350 years, a bit more than one century. Sorry for being picky about numbers here, it's just that I think it's important in helping us understand why some countries/people are the way they are today.)

But gosh, Uncle Dan. Your post 'rambly' personal post has turned into a discussion about history. How about that huh?

It's interesting that you cite WW2 and 9/11 as examples of American defense of themselves in conflict. Both catalyzed a strong defensive reaction from the US, somewhat unnecessarily: In the former, Germany and Japan honestly never had a chance to really invade the US, in the latter it was far less a defense as an over-reaction to the apparent insult and calamity of actually attacking them.

But in neither case was America truly threatened in the "they're-beating-down-the-door" sense. And yet there are people who seriously consider them examples of America's superiority under adversity. It is, as you say, like a newly graduated person, confident with new ideas... But to take your example a bit further: America's entry into WW2 was reasonable and necessary but not altogether decisive, and so might be painted as this graduate lending a hand to the old vets in the company and then taking full responsibility for its success.

Anyway... what makes a nation? Europe is old, and Asia is old. The cultures have been largely continuous it's true, but not always in the same form. It's easy to forget that Germany and Italy are also relatively new states: Germany formed in 1871, Italy in 1861. The same goes for many others: Indonesia was in no way united before the Dutch and Portuguese came; China was a mess from kingdom to Republic until the Communists won (and for some time after); and what of the Latin American states? Many are also new, and only sparingly linked with the older cultures which spawned them and were spawned upon.

What makes America so different that it continues be excused by its peers as a new country and can't help being a little silly?

First of all, Dan, it's always a learning experience when you see things differently now than 5 years ago :) And I agree that the environment changes things. People need to really get out more. I had a conversation with another TCK in CT about this and we find that too many locals are too comfortable in their own hometowns that they seem to find it necessary to dig up dirt and make life more interesting.

But you can't blame them.

And this goes on to the America vs. the rest of the world bit. America is still young - 200+ something years of history, it really doesn't have any history. Because by the time the US has formed itself the rest of the world already had at least 2000 years of history under their belt. The rest of the world has gone through so much already.

What they say, you can't deny history because that makes who you are. And history does play a HUGE part in the way the Americans are the way they are today and the way the rest of the world is. With only 200 years of history the US pretty much started off as a clean slate as HUMAN BEINGS instead of...I don't know, dinosaurs? Apes? Anyways...you get my point.

The US really didn't go through much of an evolution - they are already human and can pretty much take what they already know and build a country based on that while the rest of world knows what it was like to be living through the various generations of changes, wars, internal conflicts, drama, trying to ward off threats by another group of people etc.

The US NEVER had to protect themselves from outside threats, except perhaps just World War II and 9/11. But the fact that the US seem to have always won the wars or at least claim they have won have created this mindset that they are so much better than the rest of the world and make them more arrogant than modest.

But it's not the people's fault. The country is young - it's like a new grad who just got a new job and was able to solve a decade old hard problem that the veterans of the company have been unable to crack for years and all of a sudden he has this self-entitlement. What this grad needs is more experience to fail and learn - and that is exactly what the US needs.

Human beings normally don't cherish what they have until a life changing experience happens to them. And you hear a lot of that in the US. Everything is a life changing experience to them - everything that is "out of ordinary" for them, meaning when things are forcing them to abandon their comfort zone. Where to us, it's just an every day thing.

Dan, I've had my say, now its time for someone else.

That it did. All that conflict and old competition was too costly to continue, and I think served to illustrate that none of those cultures was particularly superior to any other. Of course, then the Cold War started grinding along and Europe got split between Russian ambition and a mix of the same from Americans, and some vague perception that Democracy was God's preferred form of government.

Strange, isn't it?

Regardless, I agree. America liked to think that its superpower status makes it the world's police force. That status has been called into question somewhat, but it does leave one to conclude that America needs to work in concert with the rest of the world. I have a suspicion that the various arms of the US government are aware of that, but those who vote them in are mostly not.

Dan, I think I took two brutal world wars after a century of ruthless colonialism and the Napoleanic Wars to bring Europe to a humaine and philosphical viewpoint. Frankly Americans have never suffered through similar tragedies and that is why they have a false invincible feeling about their own country: the so called "America love it or leave it attitude." It is high time we join the world community rather than trying to police it.

Well, the freedoms they now exalt (and hail to be the same freedoms that the Founding Fathers stood for) are pretty much centered around the freedom to make as much money as you can, however you want to, as long as it doesn't break laws (too much).

While I think the Founding Fathers are given a bit too much holy status (they were human and could bloody well make mistakes for themselves too), I think this wasn't exactly what they had in mind. It's gone beyond those old principles because the world has gotten complicated, but Americans still think the rights they're fighting for are the old ones they started out wanting.

Which isn't really true. It was memorial day recently. Everyone was thanking American troops for "defending our freedoms" as if they were the modern equivalent of some thin blue line between us and British bayonets. It'd be more accurate to say they defend our interests, because no one's going to march into America today with jackboots.

But the main point to take away is that there's an overriding perception that America is God's Country, the land that God Wanted Us To Live In. People justify this view with the scores of immigrants, as if developing countries were equal except in terms of political rights. The simple assumption is that there's no certainly no better place to live that this. It's such a simple, black-and-white view of the world that suits a sort of Christian evangelistic personality that this country sometimes exhibits: That as the Holy Land, they have a duty.

Europe is different. The UK had quite a bit of that Manifest Destiny idea too back in the Empire days, but it joined all the other European countries in seeing that their glory days are over and they're all the better for it. Their histories are long enough that "My country, right or wrong" has seen its day. They don't waste their time telling their people that theirs is the best country in the world to live in. This isn't to say they don't play the power and diplomacy game in world politics today, but they don't assume that simply because they are them, they are right.

I have a feeling I went too far. >.< I'm starting to generalize a bit too much, I feel.

Dan, I can see that you are probably correct. Here, the "American dream" is getting rich at any cost to the detriment of your neighbor. The divide between poor and the super weathly is incredibly huge, frankly I think those at the very top are grossly overpaid for the amount of real talent they have: baseball stars, pop stars. I feel that life in Europe may be more humaine than what we have over here. Americans should not be afraid of creating a social safety net for the less forturnate. While our "founding fathers thought they were creating a country for ...life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness...it has become a country for the pursuit of unlimited wealth and power.

We do agree about US TV! I get reminded now and then that there is loads of variety of American media, and that we shouldn't judge a few channels as the majority. But you know, I haven't seen it done well much, at least to the extent that I can think of a good example. And even when it's done well.. there's an overriding feeling that regardless they're missing the point.

Anyway, there's some attention lately on Europe, what with all the accusations that Obama is going to bring European-style socialism to the US and the ensuing debate. Now, outside of the drastic ignorance about how Europe actually works, there's an assumption that the European systems are less efficient, and Europeans don't work as hard as Americans.

To some extent, it's probably true. Europeans rarely work 3 jobs at once, for example. They get more holiday a year, too, generally twice as much as Americans. There's also a sense that by making it more comfortable to not have a job, they're encouraging unemployment, whereas in the US the unemployed are in such destitution that they have to at least try. Despite that competition, there's a feeling that if you're still homeless you're not trying hard enough.

But I form the opinion that the focus is different. Americans value work and achievement. Some European cultures do too, but what they seem to value more than that is life. Americans live to work, and Europeans (largely) work to live. Americans tend to make their career the focus of their lives, while for Europeans a job is a job and the more important part of their life takes place outside of it. That's why I think Americans seem to endlessly wrestle with themselves about what direction they want to take with their lives, because the job or industry they choose is so important.

Higher education gives them more and more time to decide, and they end up being relatively flexible in the job market anyway, switching careers and industries up to 2-3 times. A lot of European countries still practice apprenticeships, getting specific job-training out of the way early on along with solid work experience.

In fact, the education systems seem to vary wildly. American education before university is notoriously lax compared to European systems. American students by the end of high school need to really push to learn the same material that Europeans do, and most higher subjects are covered in university. Europeans on the other hand, learn a lot early on since many people then move onto a specific job apprenticeship, and only some carry on with intellectual academia.

Well... really I'm just running a lot of comparison. It's just what I've seen, and people can feel free to disagree. After all, France has strikes all the time, seemingly for fun, and Italy has had more governments than it's had years. Almost any German you meet can cite examples of people they know personally who take advantage of the social democratic system and bum off of unemployment benefits.

It's probably worth noting that the UK is a curious balance between everything. It has some of the same commercialism that makes the US a really energetic economy, but some of the social programs that keep the destitute from being walking humanitarian crises.

But probably the most striking thing is that the gap between rich and poor is far, far less apparent. Here in the US, I see homeless people who build their own beds out of boxes, and have a tiny nearby shopping cart loaded with the sum of their belongings. On TV, the local news channel will report that some celebrity is spending some inordinate amount of money on something as useless as a TV screen the size of a living room wall, and give the impression that this is something we should want.

In Europe... people just live. Even music stars go home to a family and seem to realize that for themselves. They can be very successful and be millionaires, but not get billions for a song. The poor may not get richer, but at least seem not to get much poorer.

I'm probably being biased again, and maybe haven't seen enough. But that's the impression I've gotten, having spent more or less the same amount of time in both continents.

Hi Dan, I would be interested in more on your views of Europe. I see we agree about US TV!

Haha ahh William, I was trying not to get too judgmental about Americans. I feel I'm biased enough already against their lifestyle that I'm compromising my objectivity.

But I also hate American TV. Blatantly commercialised to the point that even the news is unwatchable. I feel disturbing urges to beat Anderson Cooper down with a blunt instrument.

Anywayyy... America is a debt driven economy which can't sustain itself anymore, and that commercialism has left its imprint culturally on many Americans who appear to aspire to little more than a nice car, a nice house, and a big TV. Who needs to travel when you've got TV shows showcasing people who spend too much money on useless things for their house? (Gold plated bath tub on MTV Cribs, anyone?)

But still, you should stop feeding my pro-Europe stance. I might start ranting and raving (not the dance) on street corners here about how they're all doing it wrong. ;)

Dan, I have been here in the US longer than you and would like to make a few comments. First let me say that I have lived all over the US and have traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. I have been in the US since age 8; but not always in the same place.

American is self absorbed with the crazy idea that Americans are special and more worthly of life than others. Rampant materialism and its pursuit at any cost have put many Americans so far in debt that they cannot afford to travel and broaden themselves, it is more typical for them to chose to brag about their possessions and feel superior to others than to discuss philosophy as someone on this website noted. This is the signature characteristic of superficiality. Note the superficiality of entertainment on most American TV, which I refuse to watch. If my wife did not like some TV shows I would sell our TV and not buy another. So, wellcome to America!

Well, I was younger then. 4-5 years ago I was a much less patient person, and it wasn't entirely because of their being less exposed. It was just the point I was using for comparison here.

Anyway, I realize it's not entirely black and white that on one end we have globe trotters who are amazing and worldly and on the other end they be ignorant and terrible. We're all human beings, but I do think that travel in general is beneficial, more often than it's not.

I was thinking though, of the first time they went to Paris, as a family trip. My sister took the train up to show them around a little too. The summary? "It was too cold, and everybody smoked. " Which, I feel, is unjust for a place like Paris.

Discrimination of smokers is one sticking point with me, less to do with travel and more to do with being localized to suburban locales, particularly American. While smoking is indubitably unhealthy and indeed something I think people only start because they're young and don't realize how stupid it is (who become older and find it hard to stop if they want to)... it's still a human habit. They are perfectly good human beings who just happen to have an unhealthy habit.

Yet not just from my extended family, the cousins growing up to brainwashing that smoking is evil, I've noticed a lot of hostility towards smokers. Someone will walk by, smell tobacco, and pull the shirt up over their nose and mouth, make a face as if the person were urinating in public, or something equivalent. And while I understand much of the West is attempting to phaze smoking out in small steps, realistically speaking much of the world doesn't work like that.

We both know Jakarta. Imagine if such people walked anywhere there. It'd be ridiculous to expect that that kind of rudeness be tolerated in the way it's taken for granted that almost no one seems to smoke in picture-perfect American suburbia.

That's true. It is about not letting that daily grind consume us, as it so often does. It's also cultural. It's hard to imagine most Indonesians, for example, getting lost in their work life and stressing about it. Western European cultures seem to have a "Work Hard, Play Hard" tendency, in that they leave their work stress at work, and their lives take place elsewhere.

Americans though... they seem to live their work. They get conditioned into productivity for all their waking hours. As kids it's band, sports, church and other things. As teens, a part time job in addition to all that. As adults... well as I mentioned, I've met some people with 2-3 jobs all at once, where they try their best to fix their schedule so they at least have one day a week without any work.

While this doesn't necessarily make them closed-minded, it does lock them into that grind of making sure they earn enough to do the things they want to in life.

(I had to rewrite this because of a blackout - that's Jakarta for ya)

Hi Dan, I was very surprised that you didn't want much to do with your cousins because of their lack of exposure to the rest of the world. I've never felt that way about my cousins. Some of my cousins live in an out of nowhere town in Japan (far from Tokyo). Some grew up in a house in the outskirts of Jakarta in the middle of a wet market where you'd have to walk through mud (and maybe garbage) when it rains to get to their house. I have family friends in Toronto whose daughter did not know how to relate to people when she went to Hong Kong despite being fluent in Cantonese. (I found this amusing since I didn't have a problem relating to people in Hong Kong though I don't speak Cantonese.) But I've never felt that way about my cousins coz, well, they were family. To them I was simply me. And to me they were simply family. Sure, some look up to me because of my overseas experience, but it don't matter so much in the relationship. And I was often interested in their lives too because they lived a life that was foreign to me.

The only time people's ignorance annoys me is when they think less of the people they are ignorant about. Then it'll tick me off. Otherwise, I often find their ignorance or monoculturalness quite understandable. Hence my surprise at how you felt about your cousins. I wouldn't have been surprised had they looked down on you for being different, but that's not the case.

I agree about the effect of travel that you speak of and the reasons you listed (take you out of your daily grind, etc). But I wonder if there is more to it? My grandparents never traveled overseas (at least not until granddad was in his 80s), but they were by no means narrow minded. Life was hard. They worked the daily grind to feed their family. But it was because life was so hard that they appreciated people. They were MUCH more open minded than most globe trotters that I meet (myself included - sure, I'm a better cultural chameleon than them, but that doesn't mean I'm more open minded than they are). So, I wonder if it's more about letting the daily grind consume our minds and soul instead of just our body (and yes, I said 'our') that makes us forget who we are? Coz I doubt my grandparents needed holidays to remind themselves that they were not just 'economic actors'...Didn't Arthur Miller write about what you're talking about in 'Death of a Salesman'? I think (if I remember right) he was trying to suggest that it's a phenomenon peculiar to industrialized societies.

The fact that Asia do not get along with
each other has to do with the history too
(such as Japanese colonization at first half of
20th century), but I won't go anymore about it
Thanks for your opinion about time off too
I could use it to argue with my family if
I still haven't changed my mind in 1-2 years
(Although they have this attitude of 'you are
youngest, so you should listen to us'...esp my
Mom)
Why can't Americans think of how the International
crisis will affect their "(insert any ethnicity or
nation)/( )-American" friends and their families?
Oh well, the U.S. is salad, NOT melting pot after all
Off the topic again, I've been to Houston few years
ago to visit my high school friend who moved to TX
It made me realized a lot that even within the
same U.S., different states culture exist
Travel makes me feel free, and I'm not the person
who can be caged lol

I think I forgot to expand on the point being that time off, and especially leaving the normal local setting, reminds you you're not just an "economic actor", or a cog with which companies and economies spin.

It reminds you that you have aspirations, places you want to go, thoughts of your own, a personal history and things you believe in. If you work all the time, you're used to just being productive. It keeps you hemmed in to the environment you're surrounded by every day, and the stress and issues you deal with.

But when you travel, everything changes. You get in a little box, get jostled around, and a few hours later you get out of the box and the world has changed. Suddenly you're an individual and not a small part of a larger organization, and nothing in the world now around you can tie you to it.

And that's why travel is more wonderful than just getting to see somewhere new. And that's why, if you wait 50 years to travel, you can't escape being chained to your normal environment. If you travel while you're young, you're still open to the experience and still used to considering yourself a human being, rather than... well, a tool.

The whole point of the EU is for them to get along together. Who wants another WW2? Sharing resources and forcing governmental cooperation is the foundation of the EC... and very nice for us TCKs who like to travel. No border restrictions makes easy travel... and we love that, don't we?

Asia is a funny one. Technically ASEAN exists on the same principles as NATO, and its original concept was to buffer against Communist revolution, but it's evolved since then into a special and very... Asian, organization. Diplomacy in Asia is done very differently from the West. The West loves treaties with exact wording, fine lines and definite consequences and rules. Asia likes vague grey areas, and many of its states might support each other at face value, but simultaneously act to undermine each other. Of course, there are exceptions, but diplomacy is a fun, funny thing.

Anyway, the fact of the US being a huge country, and very far from others is a big contributor for sure. Another is certainly that the history taught to Americans is largely self-involved. The US has had relatively few major international interactions, and little formal history intertwined with other countries. What there is is informal (immigrants from Ireland/Scotland), brief (WW2), or hardly mentioned (War of 1812). They also hardly get taught international history or geography, so what they know is limited to only the smattering they get (Everything possible to know about Germany is: Nazis).

It's not quite so black and white, but I think it's a substantial trend. It's a market-based economy and culture too, so people get what they want, and what they want is what they've been getting. It's the equivalent of a child who didn't like vegetables and, because the parents indulged him, has continued to not get them to his own detriment. Consider the news. They report what people want, which is local and largely violent or celebrity related, reported in a way that they want to grab people's attention (I've seen news reports about the results of reality shows. How necessary is that?). But they're not reporting what people *should* know, only what the ratings say they actually watch.

And this is why a big international crisis often doesn't get reported, or only does sparingly and only if it affects them, and only what regards them. If North Korea detonates a nuclear weapon, as it has, Americans only ask "So what does that mean for us?" rather than the better, if more general, question "What does that mean for everyone, including the North Koreans?"

... But I return to my point. Culture begets institution, and vice versa. It can take ten years of company loyalty to get a yearly holiday time longer than two weeks. And this time is often subject to being chipped away in paid sick days. Meanwhile in Europe you're ENTITLED to a full four (and even six) weeks, sick days often not included. No wonder Europeans travel so much, and Americans so little. In fact, the majority of Americans seem to only find the opportunity to travel once they retire, which of course means they've lived the previous 60 years without significant international travel.

And travel opens minds. You don't need to be a TCK to benefit from that.

Maybe because geographically, U.S.
is more isolated than Europe and Asia...
but still, i don't think its good excuse for
ppl to not travel since we have all the info
and ways to travel (It's 21st century....)
Maybe you should keep telling them more
about your traveling stories, and even
compare them with U.S. once a while
For U.S., can it be one of the reasons that
unemployment rate among recent graduates
are high is that they only want to settle in
places close to their parents/hometown?
Off the topic, but one thing I envy about Europe
is that Europe gets along with each other
relatively well, through EU etc etc
While, other nations waste their time biting
off each other's head (Look at Asia -_-)