When do you run this? Or do you?

Wow...not knowing whether Canadian colleges play according to Canadian or American rules is an example of American geocentrism?

Some people will go to any lengths to proclaim their superiority to their fellow countrymen. I didn't realize, bw, that you were one of them.

 

Actually, yeah. That pretty much fits the definition of American geocentrism. Doesn't have anything to do with any kind of cultural superiority. It just means your understanding of football (or whatever) revolves around American ideas and American rules/standards.

Why would Canadian college football teams not play by Canadian football rules?

I imagine that most people in this country wouldn't know the answer. It's still a result of American geocentric thinking, though.

Doesn't mean it's wrong or right. But it is what it is.

 

It seems to me that even knowing Canadians play a different brand of football is evidence that Americans aren't quite as geocentric as their detractors make them out to be.

Anyway, whether you think Americans are geocentric or not, how many other countries' citizens would fall all over themselves to condemn their own culture the way you just did?

There's always a vocal minority in this country -- usually, but not always, on the left -- that can't wait to proclaim the inferiority of their fellow Americans. And, incidentally, their own superiority.

Gets kind of old.

EDIT: I'm not necessarily talking about you hear. I'm just sick of listening to people establish their credentials as right-thinking citizens of the world by tearing down other people.

 

If I'm condemning anything at all, it's our collective ignorance. Not our culture.

There are a lot of factors involved here. The overwhelming influence of American culture on the rest of the world is the first thing. Our location on the globe, with two oceans separating us from every other country save Canada and Mexico/Central America is another.

It makes for a natural isolationism. We don't need to have to know about other countries or other cultures, because we don't have to be exposed to them. They're all so far away.

You can accuse me of superiority all you want. But I think it gets pretty damn old when otherwise-educated people barely even have a passing knowledge that there is a rest of the world out there.

The football thing is little, means nothing. I'm not trying to jump all over CapeCodder here. I'm just saying, there is a larger problem at work here, and this is a small reflection of that.

 

Any evidence that "otherwise-educated" Americans are any more oblivious of, say, geopolitics than the average Italian, Japanese, Egyptian or Mexican?

 

Damn, that's some fine jargon right there.
I'm not getting into the discussion of "geocentrism," largely because I thought Copernicus settled the question a few years back.

 

Yeah, but Copernicus was Danish, and it's a well-known fact Danes don't know shit about Canadian football.

 

Because of our worst cultural trait--self-hatred.

To (ironically) paraphrase SNL--If it ain't American, it's crap, is the thinking when it comes to sport in this country among far too many fans and, even worse, SEs.

Case in point...the Canadian university basketball championship was played during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. The amount of coverage the NCAAs get is vastly greater than what the CIS tournament gets. When challenged on this most people fall back on the "well, no one cares about the CIS in Canada" argument. Here's the thing...the TV ratings of the non-promoted, hard-to-find-on-the-dial CIS tournament games are slightly better than what the NCAA gets. Yet, the over promoted, can't-possibly-miss-it-on-the-dial NCAA tournament gets top non-hockey billing in almost every Canadian market. The CIS final gets a 5-inch brief and a throwaway line at the end of the broadcast: "...By the way, we play basketball here too. Carelton beat Brandon to win its fifth straight Canadian university championship yesterday..."

Anyway, I'm ranting...yes, Canadian university football teams play Canadian rules. Some Canadian high schools or community youth teams play either full American rules or a hybrid American-Canadian game (four downs, but all other rules are Canadian). And yes, I likely know vastly more about George Washington than most of you know about John A. MacDonald. I don't think that makes you bad people, but I don't think you should be proud of it either.

 

I laughed out loud at this. Thank you.

 

No offense, but is there any way to make a case that John A. McDonald was at all in Washington's class as a historically significant figure?

I know more about Mao Zedong than I do about John A. McDonald, and it's not because I'm a Chinese supremacist.

 

I talk the talk.

 

Both men were nation founders, but I wouldn't make the argument that MacDonald was on the same level as Washington, no.

But, for instance, there were five beaches taken on D-Day. The U.S. took two, the English two. How many Americans can tell you what country took the other one?