Why so little interest?

puremagic

soulsinging wrote:

calling college football a social activity is blasphemous!

it is a religion

Not reading my reply correctly is blasphemy. ='s the height of social activities.

No one is interested in too much of anything but football and basketball and the whole social atmosphere surrounding them.

josevolution

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

Most Americans have yet to do LSD yet.
That is the problem.

Plain and simple.

or shroooms .....

kenny olav

bootlegger10 wrote:

This is a serious answer.

College students are trained through television and society that college is about personal exploration (which means alcohol, drugs, and sex). For most it is not about bettering themselves, it is just about having a good time. College campuses are sometimes referred to as "bubbles", meaning that for four years you don't have to worry about a full-time job, household chores, family, you can just go to class, party, and have a good time. Where does politics come into that agenda? Politicals is a depressing, black hole.

Americans like to worship alcohol. I am serious. They worship it. Every monday is a discussion about what they drank the weekend before. Every Thursday and Friday is a discussion about what they drank on Wednesday and Thursday night. Most teachers make jokes about alcohol so that they can be friends with the teacher. It is disgusting.

To be fair, there are some that go way overboard on the whole politics/social causes scene. It is just another way of distracting you from your own life.

i think you put in pretty concisely. although, i love beer, and i can talk up a storm about it (the good beer). but i'd rather be talking politics over a few beers, than reality television or sports or whatever else most people talk about. whenever i turn on MTV or whatever else might be an example of modern teenage/young adult culture and honestly it gets worse and worse every month or so and i swear this country (america) is raising the most insane and narcissistic generation ever.

at the same time, its natural for people to seek a good time. i don't think it's natural for people to do that at the expense of others. there is something in the cultural programming that is making people what they are.

it's a little outdated, but Brave New World speculated about a lot of this.

romybian

genie wrote:

I'm not from US.

but my answer to you will be simple, some people just want to have fun. They don't get the same pleasure of having a knowledge about other countries like you do. Doesn't mean they're stupid or ignorant or don't want to learn. They might not know where Argentina is, but they will certainly tell you all about drugs and different kinds of drugs and how to grow them, because drugs ( or whatever it may be ) is more interesting to them.

It's sad. :(

JordyWordy

i have american cousins, and regarding the whole idea of not being aware of anything foreign, i totally agree with you. theyre from chicago and are aged 20's - 30's, but until this year most of them had never left the US. theres a lot of diversity in your country already they tell me.

they were shocked when they arrived into europe and crossed borders every few hundred miles and languages changed, along with food, cultures, etc. (which is fine, it is very diff to the US)

they were very unaware of world politics. three of them had refused to go to London (this was June 2007) because its "TOO DANGEROUS A PLACE - WITH ALL THE TERRORISM"....i couldnt believe it. even when i said id been to London a few times recently and she should reconsider she refused to even consider it.

the rest of it i could understand, if i lived in Chicago and could holiday in Rockies, or Florida, or head to NY or Boston, cool. but London being ravaged by terrorism (based on one attack??). When i asked if she would go to NY ever they told me yeah, they go all the time....(consistent logic!)

Sooooo...
London is too dangerous to travel to. Its Not "secure".
They had no problem going to Madrid even though far more people died in the Madrid bombings (although they didnt really seem to know much about that attack)

JordyWordy

as for why so little interest...based on why they told me they know nothing about the outside world - The Media, Americanisation of any issue that may be considered a world issue (turning focus on how US involved), and general vastness of US so why bother looking outside it?

soulsinging

bootlegger10 wrote:

This is a serious answer.

College students are trained through television and society that college is about personal exploration (which means alcohol, drugs, and sex). For most it is not about bettering themselves, it is just about having a good time. College campuses are sometimes referred to as "bubbles", meaning that for four years you don't have to worry about a full-time job, household chores, family, you can just go to class, party, and have a good time. Where does politics come into that agenda? Politicals is a depressing, black hole.

Americans like to worship alcohol. I am serious. They worship it. Every monday is a discussion about what they drank the weekend before. Every Thursday and Friday is a discussion about what they drank on Wednesday and Thursday night. Most teachers make jokes about alcohol so that they can be friends with the teacher. It is disgusting.

To be fair, there are some that go way overboard on the whole politics/social causes scene. It is just another way of distracting you from your own life.

i don't know if it's disgusting, but it is largely true. college is kind of the experimentation period. you get to go wild and enjoy the fun of adulthood without any of the responsibility. it's tempting. no rules or parents, and no bills. so you have sex, party, whatever. you do it while you can with relatively minimal consequences. i wish i could go back

the problem is it is also one time when you have the chance to learn so much and expand your horizons. growing up, your world is pretty narrow and small. then once you settle into the job/family routine, it is similarly limited. so you miss that window to truly explore these kinds of issues.

genie

JordyWordy wrote:

they were very unaware of world politics. three of them had refused to go to London (this was June 2007) because its "TOO DANGEROUS A PLACE - WITH ALL THE TERRORISM"....i couldnt believe it. even when i said id been to London a few times recently and she should reconsider she refused to even consider it.

the rest of it i could understand, if i lived in Chicago and could holiday in Rockies, or Florida, or head to NY or Boston, cool. but London being ravaged by terrorism (based on one attack??). When i asked if she would go to NY ever they told me yeah, they go all the time....(consistent logic!)

Sooooo...
London is too dangerous to travel to. Its Not "secure".
They had no problem going to Madrid even though far more people died in the Madrid bombings (although they didnt really seem to know much about that attack)

to be honest no European country is safe,if they somehow offended the terrorists.

Add to your list Russia, those idiots still have the need to poke their noses into our affairs with Chechneya ( of whatever it's spelled like in English )

genie

soulsinging wrote:

you get to go wild and enjoy the fun of adulthood without any of the responsibility. it's tempting. no rules or parents, and no bills. so you have sex, party, whatever. you do it while you can with relatively minimal consequences.

oh man, i've finally found the sort of present i want for Christmas this time. :(

JordyWordy

genie wrote:

to be honest no European country is safe,if they somehow offended the terrorists.

Add to your list Russia, those idiots still have the need to poke their noses into our affairs with Chechneya ( of whatever it's spelled like in English )

exactly, everywheres as safe as everywhere else! which is why distinguishing London as being far more dangerous than the rest of europe is crazy in my eyes. just personal opinion.

as for "our affairs with Chechnya"...what country are you referring to?

Also travelling to a touristy city is not exactly comparable with a politically unstable place

onelongsong

romybian wrote:

I'm amazed.
In the past 4 months, I've realized how little college students care and know about what is going on and what has happened in this country....
Most of them end up saying something like "I'm shocked that you that are not from here know something about it" Like it's not important for them or the rest of the world.
I don't know much, precisely cause I'm only here for a rather short period of time, but it's pretty much impossible not to be interested in what goes on, I understand some people don't find politics interesting at all, but at least some curiosity about what's going to happen or why things are the way they are now...
I've only got 1 really interesting conversation with an american about elections, war, society and what not, but the rest of them, I've only had with other international students.
I know this is just one small college in one small town in one of the many states, but still.... It's just shocking. It's not like they're teens, I'm talking about seniors in college.
Also, there's a lot of people that know NOTHING about the rest of the world, so far I've heard that Argentina is in Africa or Europe more than 9 times!
And that India is in Europe and Romania in Asia!
I don't want to be the foreign asswhole criticizing (I really don't know how to spell that word) the country, mine has A LOT of stuff to criticize.

EDIT: Forgot the question... lol
I just wanted to see some american views of why do you think they're so not into it.

i take it you haven't been involved with american police yet. there seems to be a contest to get the most number of felons. when i was active in the 2000 election; i was shocked by the number of kids with felony convictions. i say kids but i should say young adults. the number of blacks with felony convictions is staggering.
since felons can't vote; why should they take an interest? why should they care about education when they won't get a job because of background checks?
if your town has a ride-a-long program (where you can ride a long with the police); you should try it for a night. keep track of how many stops they make and how many of those stops have felony convictions. the american people haven't figured it out yet; but we're eliminating the voters.

keep in mind; that although bill clinton was pardoned; lieing to a grand jury is a felony. sexual misconduct with an employee is not only a felony; but it also makes him a sex offender.

onelongsong

Scubascott wrote:

What kind of work do you do?!?

I'm talking about postdoctoral research fellows. After seeing the hours they put in over there and the constant, never ending pressure to publish papers I think I might just stay here in lazy Australia We might not get any funding for scientific research (thank you Howard goverment) but at least you get time to live life a bit.

I liked the work ethic in Israel too. Very laid back. Life should be about more than working.

you're right scott. i gave up my childhood so i could enjoy life while i was still young. my friends that partied when they were young and in school are all working now; well, the ones that aren't dead; and most of them have felonies on their records. they became employed prior to the background check craze and most places now only go back 10 years. but they still can't vote.