Are Americans Smart? Albeit unaware.

[Still Growing]

There is a popular opinion world wide that Americans are Dumb. We've all seen the videos showing stupid Americans.

I'd like to pose the question "Are Americans Smart? Albeit unaware"

First of all, the US is a land of immigrants. Pioneers who mostly wanted to break away from Europe for a new start. By a sort of natural selection it would seem that the type of people who would come to the US would at least be smart enough and resourceful enough to venture to a new land. Most likely these people were not from nobility or from the upper class in Europe and elsewhere.

Through a very short period of time, these resourceful, hardworking and free spirited individuals (although maybe not worldly or cultured) fought to build a country where they could earn more and pay less taxes. By their very nature they are agressive, adventurous and fighters. There have been successes via inventions, entertainment, franchising, and the US has become a major country in the world.

While these hardworking immigrants built their little businesses under the separation of the US as a country; slowly the old money, private banks and world money came in to dominate big American business. Now it seems that these big guys would love to take Americans freedoms, raise taxes, use the middle class as their personal military militia and slowly gain control over the wild American people.

Middle class Europeans love to feel superior over Americans. They value their "average" education being higher than ours, their "average" income being higher, their "average" social system being more stable. They don't mind that their "average" socio economic status may never change. Even if they did make more, certainly the taxes would knock them right back down. The ruling elite of Europe has control over the Euro sheep and slowly but surely the US is loosing more rights, will gain higher taxes and will slowly become more like Europe in time.

Isn't it Ironic that Europeans have the hindsight of their own mistakes and they use this hindsight to call Americans stupid.

Imagine Europe as a orderly sheep farm full of caged in sheep. They are baaing across the field at the wild American sheep who are all being herded and ready to be caged in. Granted the caged European sheep know more about what is going on because they have already been herded. I guess you could say the caged Euro sheep is more knowledgeable of the entire caging process. At first sight the American wild sheep may seem less refined and inexperienced however "stupid" isn't really the right word. Imagine the caged Euro sheep rolling his eyes at the wild American sheep ready to be caged.... "Dumb American sheep he baaas" as he goes back to crazing in his tidey fenced in jail. He's living in a sheep utopia and doesn't even know it. In the end we'll all be caged.

[Bruce Achterberg]

I know plenty of Americans with lots of knowledge and good mental skill, but very few with awareness. In those with awareness there is a prevalent conditioning that seems to be a particular shared cultural challenge for Americans.

As an Australian, I'm much more used to... well, most "true blue" Aussies are very easy going, and while they are simple, they are present. So there is power in what they do. There is an expansion on the intelligence side needed, though. Or so I think. It's hard to say such things without succumbing to your own bias.

Interestingly, Steve doesn't seem to have the American conditioning, from what I can tell. Steve seems very aware, but it's not a level you reach and then be done with--there are key things he's done to maintain such a different paradigm in the face of constant social conditioning.

I'm not American, so I can't really speak about the cause of the conditioning, but I think it might have something to do with the school system. Someone once said to Marcus Buckingham that people have a packed hard drive, but no processor. He liked that analogy, and I do, too. People know lots of stuff, and are good at it even, but there's no real direction behind it.

I guess you could call it"social conditioning 2.0." Those with 2.0 are more conscious than those who are much more heavily conditioned (i.e. 1.0), but it's still awareness in a micro scale. You need to apply it to the macro scale and completely turn your assumptions upside down, if only to become aware of them.

A case of chop wood, carry water. But perhaps a necessary process. Although without reinforcement to back it up, it won't last for long.

I wonder: if you put someone else in Steve's life situation, would they sustain a degree of awareness similar to his, or would the environment be secondary to their prevalent thinking? Perhaps the entire premise is flawed, since I guess it wouldn't happen.

[lasti]

We all know that Steve is the smartest man on the world as he runs a website for smart people. And he is American, right?

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

Isn't it Ironic that Europeans have the hindsight of their own mistakes and they use this hindsight to call Americans stupid.

I think America was built on the hindsight of Europe's problems. We have a common currency, individual liberty, free enterprise, separation of church and state, a federal government to over-see the integrity of individual states and a republic as opposed to an imperialist regime. That's at least what the US was about. I'm not sure it is anymore... that's probably why we have the problems we have right now. We are re-learning some of the lessons our forefathers tried to teach us.

I think there are many intelligent Americans but the current culture does not prize intelligence. It considers smart people a threat. If you watch the news in the US, people are told what to think instead of being asked to question current events themselves. Movies and television project an image of smart people as being socially inept losers in need of a makeover. That's due to the fact that we don't care what people produce, we care what they consume. People in need of makeovers need to buy things.

[Marco Polo]

I like living in Scandinavia because of all the benefits and the tranquility. And the system works, fairly well (even though it requires lots of immigration to sustain itself now). But yeah... it's more or less true that Europeans were "domesticated", for better or worse I suppose.

I'm not such a touter of universalism, so I usually go with this instead: let's diversify the Western world. That has been the big strength of the West plus Russia now for hundreds of years - we diversified, competed and thereby we prospered more than any of the collectivist civilizations (I'm not saying that's the only thing, but yeah). If all nations go the same way, we're screwed.

One thing that goes lost in a socialized system is the basic survival instinct. When all traditional responsibilites of adulthood are annexed by the state (including physical protection), by what means will you reconnect with that survival instinct when you need it?