Question for OOT in light of what yesterday was?

[sethypooh21]

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Seth - haha actually I thought Friedman's book was really weak.

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If it's not clear, so did I. Let me see if I can google up one of the awesomely bad reviews it got.

Ahh yes, linky.

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So I tried not to think about it. But when I heard the book was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:

I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.

Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.

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[gusmahler]

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dates referred to numerically are becoming more common. see my VT massacre and "4-16" post above as well as nbc and the beijing olympics with "8-8-08."


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This thread isn't merely about dates being referred to numerically. The original question is why does everyone remember what date 9/11 happened and fewer people remember what date Katrina happened? Of course people know when 9/11 happened, for the same reason they remember when the July 4th holiday is--because the event name is the date. They don't remember Katrina because people don't refer to Katrina as 8/29.

I've never heard of the VT massacre reffered to by date, only as the VT massacre (I don't watch VT football). Same with the 2008 Olympics. I had no idea it was referred to by date.

I don't remember 9/11 being called anything other than 9/11.

You're probably right about 9/11 and 911. Maybe the press wanted to differentiate it from the first WTC attacks? I don't know. But they've referred to the events as 9/11 almost from the beginning, which is why that date is easily rememberd while the dates of Katrina, Waco, OK City, the Tsunami, etc. aren't as easily remembered.

[Aloysius]

Seth - haha, nice, for some reason I thought this book was fairly well reviewed, good to see such an excoriating review. You know, to be fair, Friedman had some sweet Op-Ed columns, but for the most part he is just not that bright, imo.

Another choice quote from that review:

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On an ideological level, Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow [censored]. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is.

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-Al

[J-Mac]

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Compare that with friends I've had who are either Israeli or who have lived there. They tell me that buses have radios with the news on them, and the general culture is such that everybody is pretty informed on American politics and global news too. I don't even bump into many Americans who are informed on American politics, or even basic geography, and as to global politics, they're largely a complete mystery. Many Americans can't name their vice-president, or mayor, or senators or congressmen. Do you think on average they know much, or by extension care much, about Mexico or Canada when they don't even pay attention to what's going on in their own back yards? I think it's pretty fair to say they don't. Certainly the vast majority that I have spoken to all my life.


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I'm not going to dispute that Americans may be less internationally aware than citizens of other countries. But a couple things should be pointed out:

-An Israeli who is familiar with Turkey and Egypt has international knowledge. He's also aware of places a few hundred miles away. Ditto the Brit who knows about Italy. A New Yorker who has knowledge of what's going on in L.A. has domestic awareness, but it is of an area thousands of miles away. You can be very aware of a very large area and group of people and know only about the US. Europeans have more international awareness partly because they can only go so far and be in their own country.

-People that I've met from outside the US, who tend to be travelers, love to compare their friends and acquantainces, who share a similar background and tend towards affluence and intelligence, with some generic "dumb Americans". Comparing your best to our worst is a flawed argument. There are dumb, ignorant people everywhere.

-Citizens of other nations know more about us than we know about other nations because we are more influential and important on the world stage. I think everyone's aware of this, so why is the fact that we know less about your nation surprising to anyone and a valid point?

[keepitreal]

re: gus...

yea i think it comes down to a mix of things. the fact that there was a previous WTC attack as u mentioned and as somebody else did, the fact that the pentagon was hit and united 93 was headed to DC as well makes referring to the september 11th attacks as just the WTC would be in poor taste.

hypothetically speaking, if hurricanes were not previously named, how do u think the storm that hit new orleans would be referred to as?

[sethypooh21]

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-Citizens of other nations know more about us than we know about other nations because we are more influential and important on the world stage. I think everyone's aware of this, so why is the fact that we know less about your nation surprising to anyone and a valid point?

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I'm struggling for the words to adequately express my disgust for the ethnocentrism reflected in this post. Unless I'm misreading you badly, you're basically saying "we matter more, so we don't need to know". Such an attitude might just get us in trouble somewhere, somehow. Perhaps even embroiled in a sectarian struggle of which we have little understanding and even less desire to know more.

[Jay Riall]

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-Citizens of other nations know more about us than we know about other nations because we are more influential and important on the world stage. I think everyone's aware of this, so why is the fact that we know less about your nation surprising to anyone and a valid point?

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I'm struggling for the words to adequately express my disgust for the ethnocentrism reflected in this post. Unless I'm misreading you badly, you're basically saying "we matter more, so we don't need to know". Such an attitude might just get us in trouble somewhere, somehow. Perhaps even embroiled in a sectarian struggle of which we have little understanding and even less desire to know more.

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I agree completely with the first guy. America is a more prominent country on almost every stage, so its pretty obvious the rest of the World is going to know more about America than America knows about them. Just common sense really. This doesn't excuse Americans from not knowing or wanting to know anything beyond their own borders obviously though.

[sethypooh21]

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-Citizens of other nations know more about us than we know about other nations because we are more influential and important on the world stage. I think everyone's aware of this, so why is the fact that we know less about your nation surprising to anyone and a valid point?

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I'm struggling for the words to adequately express my disgust for the ethnocentrism reflected in this post. Unless I'm misreading you badly, you're basically saying "we matter more, so we don't need to know". Such an attitude might just get us in trouble somewhere, somehow. Perhaps even embroiled in a sectarian struggle of which we have little understanding and even less desire to know more.

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I agree completely with the first guy. America is a more prominent country on almost every stage, so its pretty obvious the rest of the World is going to know more about America than America knows about them. Just common sense really. This doesn't excuse Americans from not knowing or wanting to know anything beyond their own borders obviously though.

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I suppose I'm possibly conflating explanations for justifications.

[Blarg]

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Compare that with friends I've had who are either Israeli or who have lived there. They tell me that buses have radios with the news on them, and the general culture is such that everybody is pretty informed on American politics and global news too. I don't even bump into many Americans who are informed on American politics, or even basic geography, and as to global politics, they're largely a complete mystery. Many Americans can't name their vice-president, or mayor, or senators or congressmen. Do you think on average they know much, or by extension care much, about Mexico or Canada when they don't even pay attention to what's going on in their own back yards? I think it's pretty fair to say they don't. Certainly the vast majority that I have spoken to all my life.


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I'm not going to dispute that Americans may be less internationally aware than citizens of other countries. But a couple things should be pointed out:

-An Israeli who is familiar with Turkey and Egypt has international knowledge. He's also aware of places a few hundred miles away. Ditto the Brit who knows about Italy. A New Yorker who has knowledge of what's going on in L.A. has domestic awareness, but it is of an area thousands of miles away. You can be very aware of a very large area and group of people and know only about the US. Europeans have more international awareness partly because they can only go so far and be in their own country.

-People that I've met from outside the US, who tend to be travelers, love to compare their friends and acquantainces, who share a similar background and tend towards affluence and intelligence, with some generic "dumb Americans". Comparing your best to our worst is a flawed argument. There are dumb, ignorant people everywhere.

-Citizens of other nations know more about us than we know about other nations because we are more influential and important on the world stage. I think everyone's aware of this, so why is the fact that we know less about your nation surprising to anyone and a valid point?

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On point 1, we are talking about knowledge and concern about things outside one's own immediate country and culture, which isn't really a matter of miles. If America was like Canada and had multiple official languages and very distinct cultures within its borders that never really assimilate, it would be different. Then just by being aware of what's going on in your own country, you would be aware of something truly besides yourself. A New Yorker who knows something about Hollywood isn't at all on the same level of understanding as someone whose understanding truly extends across cultures.

On point 2, I never compared anybody's best to anybody's worse. I made zero distinctions. I don't think the average joe riding a bus in Israel is at the top end of society. It's just a societal orientation. FWIW, I don't think knowing current events makes you smarter or dumber, either. Just focused differently. America seems to me to focus largely on its own navel.

On point 3, first of all, I'm American too. But to the meat of it, a country's power has no effect on a person's level of ignorance or involvement. There's no free ride to be handed out. People are people and we all have the same brains. If less is known or cared about, it's because less effort is being expended and attention paid, period. And that strikes me as both a moral and intellectual choice. Nobody can force curiosity upon anyone. There's rising to the occasion, and I guess there's stumbling to it as well. If Americans are not pressed to learn or care as much about others as others commonly do, a sort of comparative void or moral or intellectual vaccuum is created to fill with whatever one wishes. I don't see that by and large we fill it with much. And so in some ways we suffer by comparison.

Can't have everything. There are many good things about America. But not all good things. It's fair to take our lumps where deserved.

[gusmahler]

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-Citizens of other nations know more about us than we know about other nations because we are more influential and important on the world stage. I think everyone's aware of this, so why is the fact that we know less about your nation surprising to anyone and a valid point?

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I'm struggling for the words to adequately express my disgust for the ethnocentrism reflected in this post. Unless I'm misreading you badly, you're basically saying "we matter more, so we don't need to know". Such an attitude might just get us in trouble somewhere, somehow. Perhaps even embroiled in a sectarian struggle of which we have little understanding and even less desire to know more.

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You know more about George W. Bush than he knows about you. Is that fair?