Alas, Mr. Kilmer is correct. The first step in recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Americans are not well-educated, and they have (by and large) no cultural foundation.
another reason for home schooling........
How is it that Americans are not well educated? Why we pay $$$ and $$$ and more $$$ for our public school system. Are you saying your can't buy a good public school education in this country? Are you saying real quality isn't necessarily a function of how much one pays? I think that is what you are saying....and I think you are RIGHT!!!
I read. Before I married, most of my money went for books. Now I go to the library (which frequently doesn't have what I want...).
On the other hand, I seldom go to the movies... And I walk out on them if they bore me.
Yeah, Americans have no foundation. Except for that Freedom thing. Oh, and the silly free-capitalistic society that has raised the quality of life and financial means of most countries on the planet.
But we're just a bunch of rubes like you and Val say, I guess.
I have to respectfully disagree with you. While I think that many American children have been dumbed down due to the sorry state of our public schools, we are still a country that has prospered based upon our ingenuity. We have some of the greatest minds in the world here and I for one am sick and tired of being compared to the Europeons (spelled correctly). While many American's loathe the thought of sitting through an aria in Aida we are cultured in other ways. This country was founded by people escaping persecution....not the kings and queens of high society. Our culture is in our heritage......the deep south's plantations, the old west's gold mines, the great mines and ports of the north. While you may think that's uncultural, I think it speaks volumes about the work ethic and determination of our people as opposed to the laziness and self centeredness of the European elite.
Americans are too busy working themselves to death to support welfare leeches, criminals, and three fourths of the Third World.
The very notion that one is desirous of taking in the thoughts of others is that one's own thoughts are not of sufficient merit.
Americans not well educated? My God, the Universities are teeming with vermin who spend their days pontificating upon pseudo-intellectual claptrap that would be inexpressible without the words "race", "class" or "gender".
Read books? I'd love to know what lines Mr. Kilmer's walls. Oh, I'm sure the height of intellectual achievement is a selection from the Oprah book club. These members of the pretentia -- foreign or domestic -- pontificate upon their own wisdom by spouting individual facts or names, and yet will never be able to grasp the concept of a quadratic equation.
America? America embraces those around the 100 IQ mark. Europe simply disdains and dismisses them. The culture ignores the riff-raff. Asia informs them of their worth at the time of college entrance exams.
America's culture? Culture is the waste product of a healthy society. It simply emerges from behind society as society moves on. It is. It simply is. Those who want to shape culture, who desire culture to be something other than what it is, are usually artists -- or more often, wannabes -- who want their own predilections -- or more often, perversions -- to be embraced by everyone else, whether anyone else wants it or not.
When you complain about McDonalds or action movies, remember that Americans know that food is to be eaten and art is meant to entertain. They'll save their intellectual energy for their work, thank you very much.
Americans don't worry about their culture -- they have better things to do.