It takes a village to educate an American

Reporting in Opposition: Super Bowl opulence: spectacular or spectacle?

Last weekend millions of Americans utilized their inalienable right to property. They stockpiled and consumed enormous quantities of food and alcohol while using incredible amounts of energy to power their sound, entertainment, and climate control systems. I watched the Super Bowl, and it hurt.

Reporting in Opposition: Robinson's approach to race

His approach to racial identity is intriguing. What does it mean to be African-American, if not simply to share a common skin pigmentation? Is it simply a cosmetic characteristic? Does it have actual political implications? Is it determined by historical forces and tradition? No one person has all the answers to these questions, and as a young Caucasian, I am certainly not eminently qualified to comment on how it feels to be African-American.

Reporting in Opposition

It takes a village to educate an American

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

February 18, 2005

The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations discovered in its 2004 general public opinion survey that only 53 percent of American adults could correctly name the currency of the European Union (the "euro") and just 22 percent knew the name of the current Secretary-General of the United Nations (Kofi Annan). It's no surprise that the same survey found that nearly 40 percent of Americans follow international affairs "not very closely" or "not at all."

We've all heard the statistics about the average American's global awareness. Jay Leno made it a regular segment, "Jaywalking," where he hit the streets to find that many Americans couldn't name their own Vice President, foreign leaders, or find anything on a map outside of their state. It is a laughable shame that so many Americans know so little about the world that they live in.

What's even more concerning, however, is how this translates into actions. Anyone who has been abroad recently knows that anti-Americanism is on the rise, and that the stereotype of the "boorish," "ignorant," or even "ugly" American can be found nearly anywhere. Why? Perhaps our own misinformation is contributing to the problem. When asked to guess what percentage of Mexicans they thought were literate in their native language, the average of their responses was right around 56 percent (the actual figure: 91.4 percent). When asked to guess what percentage of Mexicans had smoked marijuana, the responses averaged to roughly 65 percent (the actual number: about 3 percent).

Clearly misinformation is dangerous to our perceptions, stereotypes, and even values. We develop our morality from the environment before us. What guides our actions? They are largely determined by the information that we have gathered in the past. When we are thirsty, we survey our knowledge of the surrounding environment to determine where the closest water may be. We notice the puddle on the floor, but past experience and knowledge reminds us that this is not our best option. We recall the location of the water fountain, however, and the problem is resolved. This highly simplified example is still too detailed, of course. We make many of our judgments without consciously passing these gates. How many Americans have a skewed view of Mexicans, given the clear biases seen above?

Where can we place the blame? Certainly the nation's education system must be scrutinized. However, the American attitude towards the rest of the world is really at the root of the problem. At Bowdoin and elsewhere, we see that conservatives and liberals alike suffer from a broad lack of foundation for their beliefs. Rarely do we step back, look in the mirror, and explain just why we believe what we believe. Try it. Really, try it, but don't take a campaign slogan as a sufficient answer. It takes real political courage to think more carefully than that. Dig deeper, examine the facts before you, consider the political options, and then abridge your passions and your rational thought into an ideology. Facts lead to values and values lead to political ideology.

Still, the problem remains, and it takes commitment to seek unbiased, bipartisan political facts. Liberty is a serious responsibility in a democracy, and our nation is better to the extent that citizens take time to develop consistent, thoughtful moral positions. It takes serious time and energy to maintain an awareness of the world around us, whether it is Brunswick, Maine, or the global community. Still, working towards such a goal is the greatest patriotism available to the citizenry.

So, get involved! Read the newspapers, like the one you're holding, but don't stop there. Join the new Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) chapter here on campus. It's a nonpartisan club committed to raising the global awareness of Americans, especially on foreign policy affairs. By stressing unbiased dialogue, AID offers an open forum for all students and community members to discuss substantive issues, and to work together to promote a more positive image of America throughout the world. On Friday, February 25 at 7:00 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium, AID is bringing Congressman Tom Allen and Hoover Institution Fellow Charles Hill to Bowdoin to discuss how the U.S. can work with the international community to respond to global security threats. For more information on the group and how to get involved, email bmcevoy@bowdoin.edu or mmartin@bowdoin.edu.

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