From: jmcmahon@cwis.unomaha.edu (Jim McMahon)
Subject: Re: How many US navy men does it take to change a light bulb ?
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 15:39:00 GMT

s305072@parasol.cs.uq.oz.au (Mark Anderson) writes:

>  I would like to admit that my arguments were generalised , and the only
>  research i can say i have done is spending a little over 3 months in the
>  US .  Those three months weren't spent in a package tour but driving through
>  the states and being emmersed in their culture and society which in my 
>  opinion the only true way to experience another culture . Now from spending
>  this time in the US i learnt that the people kept ignorant by their society
>  , i mean they may be able to name there 50 states or name the presidents back
>  to washington but on the whole they follow their leaders blindly as only the
>  ignorant can . Unlike here in Australia were virtually everyone wouldn't 
>  trust a politician as far as they could throw them . 

Firstly,  spending 3 months in a country does not make *anyone* an expert on
the culture.  I lived four years in Europe (2 in England, 2 in West Germany),
and cannot claim to understand their culture completely.  I do agree, however,
that I learned more about it by living there than I would have on a tour.

Secondly,  the author is way of base in claiming that the American people just
blindly follow their leaders and *trust* politicians.  Hell, in this regard it
seems that Americans and Aussies have something in common!  I know that most
Americans consider all politicians to be crooks, which is of course a general-
ization.  Not all of them are, in my own opinion, but the generalization is
certainly there.

>  Now the thing that hurts
>  me as an Australian is seeing our country bombarded by American culture , we
>  can't turn on the telivision without catching an american show . That jail is
>  the spelling taught in school not gaol .  

It is (perhaps) sad that cultures do interact and evolve, oftentimes one 
nearly swallowing the other.  In America, the native American culture has
all but been wiped out by western civilation from Europe.  Has the same
happened in Australia to the aborigines ?  In general, it seems to me that
this sort of thing happens less in this century than in the past -- at least
now people are concerned about it.  I don't know that it is necessarily any-
ones *fault* that this happens.  Languages and cultures evolve, but I am no
expert on any of this.

>  My ultimate fear is that we become
>  like the Americans were we as a people become interested only in internal 
>  affairs , and get caught up in all the hyp and believe what our government 
>  tells us because a country like that is ripe for a dictator .

As a U.S. citizen, speaking only for myself, I would hate to see Australians
become mirror images of us too.  Personally, I like diversity.  Having done
some travelling, there are specific things I like about different cultures,
and specific things I don't.  Of course, I am a product of my own culture,
and it is therefore very difficult to be objective about *everything*.  I
do try not to be ethnocentric.  

Lastly,  I do not believe that the U.S. (since American includes all of North
and South America) is ripe for dictatorship.  Take a look at our Constitution.
It may not be the best, but we do like it.  Sure, they are right-wing facists
in the U.S., but there are also bleeding heart liberals.  They kind of balance
each other out.  Most of us are just ordinary people, more concerned with our
jobs and getting food on the table than with solving the world's problems. If
this makes us isolationists, then the author may have a point.

>DISCLAIMER:
>  With this mailing i do not mean to sound like a paranoid lunitic or to
>  start a flame session with T.J.Davis only to express my views with spelling
>	  and grammatic errors included for free :->

> Hands 

I hope that you don't mind that I posted on this group in this thread.  I have
been following some Australian newsgroups recently because I will be moving to
your country in February, and am interested in learning about your culture. I
am just one guy, so I have no master plan to take over your country.  All of
the people I've talked with on the net from Australia have been extremely nice
and I look forward to meeting them.  

--
Jim McMahon 
jmcmahon@cwis.unomaha.edu or 
strathost.stratcom.af.mil
Being ordinary and nothing special is a full-time job.