Did America invent Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy and then exported it to the rest of the world?
I've actually heard this many times, mostly from the young people I deal with. Why do Americans think they invented everything that matters? Or, did they?
Thanks ... We do ok ... Being way down here we had to be inventive ... There a tradition in the country that there's nothing that can be fixed by using baling wire lol
I think the reason for your observation lies in the narrative empires always seem to tell their children. It basically goes, 'We are good/best, everyone else isn't.'
There are so many holes in the simplistic US version of history it becomes laughable and seeing as history is 'my subject' it irritates me no end. Yet this is not so far removed from the levels of understanding presented by any number of British people during the period of Empire and a good few years post Empire and the reason is the same.
You don't teach your children that their fathers have killed, lied, stolen, corruptly manipulated or behaved abominably and although I do not subscribe to it as an absolute, there are versions of history that are certainly written by the winners. Indeed, these versions are often the ones used in schools across the west. You'll find selected omissions or adjustments being taught in French schools too, and Japanese schools, and British schools.
Sadly, from the perspective of 'viewing the world as it really is', Empires and their need or desire to cover their actions with myth do a good job of making a population stupid and lazy and fat in their thinking.
Very good point MW. Which makes me think about the sources of history. If we take documents and scripts from centuries ago, as accurate indicators of the truth back then, what kind of history will future generations be saddled with when they have today's publications and tv news casts as guide. Imagine if, after a general cataclysm, the next humans unearth a copy of a Bill O Reillys show?
All we ever have is the best information we can find, but I think you'd be surprised at how much of what people leave behind survives them for a huge number of years. A lot of the stuff we hardly notice will still be around in a thousand years or several times that, so I prefer to think of our 'remnants' being sort of a huge collection of Antikythera mechanisms. :)
Benedict Arnold 