• @iagev@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism lists out lots of the historical reasons. Essentially: successful propaganda over several centuries. Also helped: winning the last big war, winning the cold war, being the source of most of the entertainment/art in the western world.

    In some ways, several places in the US probably are among the best in the world. And some are probably the worst. It’s a large place in many ways.

  • dinomug
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    142 years ago

    It’s the most lobotomized society in the world. As a Cuban soldier (close to Fidel) once told us:

    It is a country with all kinds of technological development, comparable to other first world nations, but take away the high technology, especially weapons and you will notice that its social and political system is only comparable to those of third world nations.

    The elites apply the most brutal chauvinism on their own population, to justify all kinds of crimes within their borders and in the world.

  • art
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    132 years ago

    I live in the US. Half this country is completely delusional. The other half feels that doing anything to improve the situation is socialism™ or communism™. So we better not improve anything.

  • @Nyaa@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    We are taught that from school and in our families. People like my father think that America is number one, and that all other countries have no freedom and that everyone is trying to escape to the US. It’s just (attempted) to be passed down to the children.

    We learn barely anything about other countries history in school except for the bad. A lot of our history taught, while accurate (hopefully), leaves out a lot to understand other countries and commonly portrays us to be the “good guy”.

  • @Eighei2e@lemmy.ml
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    102 years ago

    There are only a couple hundred countries, and only one can be “the greatest”. You’ll get different answers based on which metric you pick, but clearly the right metric is “quality of US-style BBQ restaurants”. And that’s why the United States is the greatest country in the world.

    • art
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      52 years ago

      I actually heard the South Korea’s got a pretty good one. 🤣

    • GadgeteerZA
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      12 years ago

      Very true, and to judge, one would therefore also need to have a fairly good overview perspective and context of all those countries…

    • @DPUGT2@lemmy.ml
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      -12 years ago

      You’ll get different answers based on which metric you pick, but clearly the right metric is “quality of US-style BBQ restaurants”.

      If only it were true. I suspect that while we’d still win, that would be a narrow victory over the koreans or possibly the south americans. Argentina and Chile both apparently have a really strong bbq culture.

      No, the true contest would be for deep-fried novelty foods. There, it’s just down to us and Scotland, and they’re not even their own country yet.

    • @PP44@lemmy.ml
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      42 years ago

      I 100% agree with you, and I think education, heavily so when you are young, but during your whole life, is a really strong part of your personal construction. I am really horrified by how much patriotism is a strong part of how america raise its citizen…

    • Benjamin
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      52 years ago

      It’s a disgusting mindset but it’s not entirely their fault considering their educational system.

        • Sr Estegosaurio
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          22 years ago

          And I can bet that to some extent is responsible for people thinking that (literally any country aside of the USA) is a “communist™” non free regime.

  • seahorse
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    52 years ago

    Because some people in the US don’t even leave their county, let alone their state, and therefore never experience any culture outside their own.

  • mekhosM
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    42 years ago

    Yep, Winning a competition of 1 participants.

    I get that the states are big and have a lot of their own drama, but I gotta say it comes accros as fairly up-ones-self for adults to be so ignorant of the rest of the world.

    • Sr Estegosaurio
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      12 years ago

      I really love when I heard someone saying that Mexico and Spain are the same, or something around those lines.

      • mekhosM
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        2 years ago

        Fair enough, they do pretty much border each other /s

  • @gun@lemmy.ml
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    42 years ago

    I don’t think there’s too many that do anymore. The sense that I have is that everyone feels a sense of pessimism and decline. Hell, the whole MAGA movement, make America great again, is based on the sentiment that America is not what it used to be, and it won in 2016, against “America is already great,” the slogan of elite liberals. And things have gotten more pessimistic since with COVID, inflation, political violence. There are some people who believe in anything but I can’t say I know anyone who could say America is the best in the world without a tinge of self doubt. Personally, I see myself as a pessimist in the short term, optimist in the long term.

  • Gritty
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    32 years ago

    Years of internet social media has disabused many of that idea, whether orchestrated by an outside entity, or simply via intermingling with other peoples. The backlash is the rampant nationalism that is sure to take over next go around.