A friend of mine who lived in Prague for some years is back in the states now and reported, on facebook, on a particularly American conversation she just had. A colleague of hers thought that Prague was in Russia and that “Russia was closed to regular people.”
American ignorance of geography is nothing new, and I’m not shocked or surprised that somebody there thought Prague was in Russia. Although there are some ignorant people in any country you visit, the U.S. is a bit extreme because it is so huge and a large percentage of its people have never been outside of it. They have never had to ask directions in a foreign language, they have never had to figure out prices in a foreign currency, they have never looked at a menu and had no clue what any of that stuff was. So, the world is a pretty strange place to them.
Also, This is How Americans Learn Geography (note location of Egypt)
It was the “closed to regular people” line that got me. Regular people. The messed up thing is, I know exactly what he meant. There are regular people and then there are the people you read about in the newspapers, politicians, actors, professors who go to conferences, millionaires who can go wherever they like and stay in fancy hotels, spies, supermodels, even journalists. Them. Not us. And it seems like there is a sharp dividing line between the two.
It’s in a category of ideas, along with “machines, especially computers, hate me specifically and conspire to make my life miserable,” “women are actually a totally different species from men,” and “there are little, tiny people who like to steal just one sock,” for which there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence and we sometimes say, jokingly, that they are true although we know, really, that they are not. Or, at any rate, we should.
If you really, honestly, sincerely believe in any of these things – or that Prague is in Russia – well, you can still get through life just fine. You can be a good employee, a good neighbor, a good husband or wife, without really understanding the world.
Maybe you shouldn’t vote, though. Or breed.
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