” . . . between exposure to much less information, less information about systems, zero awareness of commercial, legal, and political systems, they are handicapped”

CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS

I have always considered americans ignorant, but that ignorance is cultural, not systemic. We are taught ‘how the world works’ from birth. Law, commerce, the environment, weather, and scientific method are systems we understand – and we look at the world as systems. Partway through my third year here, I have begun to see that it is not just a matter of language and culture, but people in this part of the world are just exposed to much less information than we are. So between exposure to much less information, less information about systems, zero awareness of commercial, legal, and political systems, they are handicapped compared to us. They are skilled in ‘small’ systems (the family and friends) but they are not schooled in american-scale systems: big complex things that work because people do what they promise. The vision the average (ignorant) american high school kid understands, (even in the lower classes) is almost inconceivable here to the average person. I know very well educated people here, and very smart people, but they think in the “Radius of Their Cultural Trust” like all of us do. And that means that they think ‘small’. They have small ambitions. Small companies. Small circles of trust. And they have small wallets because of it.

Maybe today i’m sensitive but it really bothers me.