Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (508)	4/21/2003 11:56:06 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 20773

I can only respond based on my personal experience in several countries. Europeans have a crosscultural awareness from enforced language requirements in school and geographic proximity. They can't help but deal with lots of people who are "different" all the time. The EU and the euro reinforce that idea now, bring eastern Europe into the fold. And it allows a multinational labor pool in every EU country. In South Africa and Mauritius (Indian Ocean) the multicutural societies also forced a certain amount of "Other" acceptance or at least tolerance. Again, most people there are multilingual. Many Africa countries are also multitribal. In the US, people don't have a formal requirement to learn other languages at a functional level or deal with people who are different beyond a very surface level. There is little reason or opportunity to work in other countries. Some people do a year of college abroad but it's a tiny, tiny slice of the overall population. Many countries face similar barriers for one reason or another. It bugs me most, however, that the US has no culture of saying "other peoples, languages, cultures, viewpoints, etc. deserve to be heard and respected even if we disagree". Our patriotism is too often a zero-sum game where American wonderfulness prevails at the expense of the Others who are different, inferior and wrong. Look at the hubris of those who says if the Arab world can't organize democracy on their own, we will do it for them. There is an old joke about rich people who play Monopoly with real buildings. In this case, the new crusaders plan to remake entire civilizations and cultures in our own image, for their own good. That should make us stop and think.