Nationalism/Internationalism

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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Nationalism/Internationalism

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

A topic came up in another thread about how little Americans know about other countries, and points have been made that Australians don't necessarily know as much as they think they do about America. Previously some misconceptions and confusions have been brought to light about other countries as well. I thought it would be beneficial to have a thread exploring the basics of various nations. Without knowing the basics, we can't do real philosophical discussion on these things. Without knowledge, all we can make are wild speculations.

The first (as it is one of the most basic) point I'll throw in is geography. Please add other general information about culture, etc. (Dan, over at CA you once posted a quiz on Aussie slang - I'll see if I can find that).

I'll confess that I didn't even know that Australia had states until a year ago. It isn't something that comes up in America, and I knew that the USA is often referred to as "the States" so I had no reason to suspect that other countries had states as well. Cities, towns, districts, provinces maybe - sure... but states?

This quiz is on Australia's states, and at the bottom of the page there are links to other quizzes on geography around the world. I'm not 'fessing up my score...
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DHodges
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Re: Nationalism/Internationalism

Post by DHodges »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I'll confess that I didn't even know that Australia had states until a year ago.
How about Mexico? Do you know that it is the United Mexican States? I know more about Canada, perhaps from living in the North East of the US and probably also because they speak English.

How much are Australians taught about Indonesia?
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Re: Nationalism/Internationalism

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

DHodges wrote:How about Mexico? Do you know that it is the United Mexican States?
Nope - you're the first to bring that to my attention - and I even had an online closer acquaintance from Mexico.

Found it - Dan's link to Aussie sayings.

and adding:
southern US slang
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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

In the ANAGA thread, DHodges wrote:
Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Ditto. All I ever learned about Australia in school was that it was a British penal colony back when Britain ruled the world, but Britain was so spread out that it was not able to keep up with all its territories so it lost control of everything but Britain itself. They kind of made it sound like y'all were just a bunch of criminals anyway, so they gave up on you because you were too much trouble. They kind of made it sound like a third world nation, so I was kind of surprised when I learned Australia had electricity.
Don't think I was ever told even that much about Australia in school. I might have been able to tell you it was a big island somewhere, and that it had something to do with boomarangs and kangaroos, but that would probably be based on that cartoon involving cats fighting kangaroos, not actual school class time.

I would bet that most Americans would be surprised to learn that Australia is larger than Texas. (It's eleven times as large.)

History as it is taught in the US also pretty much ignores Africa, South America and Asia - at least it did thirty years ago. Europe consists of Britain, France Italy and Germany.

Still, to put this in context, while most Americans are aware that there are fifty states, they might be able to name six or seven, and wouldn't be able to tell you what the US relationship is to Guam, the Virgin Islands, or Puerto Rico.
I would bet that most Americans would be surprised to learn that Australia is larger than Texas. (It's eleven times as large.)
Well, most Europeans don't understand that the US is so big that you can not visit all of the US in 3 - 5 days.

And a friend of mine was traveling back from the UK in August, and the guy sitting next to him was bringing his family to vacation in Florida. My friend was shocked, and correctly surmised that the guy had no idea how hot it gets here then. In trying to explain, my friend likened it to stories of India, and the Brit said "There's no way it could get that bloody hot!" (why not? same latitude on the map...)
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BMcGilly07
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Post by BMcGilly07 »

I got 18 out of 24 on Australia, but that quiz helped me along. You get three tries to click the correct region, and if you're wrong it still divulges the name of that territory. Admittedly, other than knowing Queensland (from the Crocodile Hunter) and Tasmania (from same) I wouldn't have a clue which is which. I don't even know what those individual areas are called.
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Katy
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Post by Katy »

In the other thread, it was mentioned that people would be surprised to learn Australia is larger than Texas. That didn't surprise me, but what did surprise me was that the US (minus Alaska and Hawaii) is just about the same size as Australia. Their smallest state is the size of Virginia, while the largest is basically from the rocky mountains west to the pacific ocean size-wise.

(btw, I got a perfect score on the Australia quiz)

Anyway, Eliz. mentioned that history here started in Mesopotamia and ended in 1500 - which is kind of surprising to me since mine started in 1500 and ended in 1945. Still, let me give you the abbreviated world history for teens here:

1. Europe took over the world. Europeans are powerful, but bad. It was bad to take over the world. Good thing America never did that!
2. Then a bunch of kings started marrying their cousins and zOMG DRAMA! Americans have democracy so we could change leaders without all the drama. Democracy is good.
3. Some guy got killed in some country no one has ever heard of. This made Germany bad. The rest of the world had to beat up Germany. We won. (ps those stinkin Russians gave up early and had a revolution or something...)
4. Germany started killing Jews. Killing Jews is bad, but no one would have been able to stop Germany if it wasn't for the US. The US saved the Jews. Also, democracy is good. Fascism is bad.
5. Then we nuked Hiroshima, and some other city. Japan gave up. But we don't want to talk about this much because it might not be good. America is good.
6. ZOMG COMMIES! Commies are bad. Democracy is good.

Of course if you look at history at all, you see that that is 100% bullshit, but that's essentially what is taught.
-Katy
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Katy wrote:Anyway, Eliz. mentioned that history here started in Mesopotamia and ended in 1500
Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:World history classes start off teaching about Mesopotamia, and rarely get in depth past the 11th century.
1500 would be the 15th century, 1501 would be the 16th century. 11th century would be the 1000's.

What part of the country did you get history in? 3 schools I went to in Florida went over the Peloponesian War in depth, with the major focus of all history classes on the wars and on military tactics. Actually, that's almost all I remember they taught in history was war and the effect war had on people. I didn't learn about aqueducts or other parts of daily life until I was out of school and watching The History Channel. They taught about the pyramids, differentiated between indentured servants, serfs, and slaves, the start of agriculture and the domestication of animals... but mostly it was about war. Of the centuries they skimmed over, they hit the Black Plague, the progression of materials for ship building, WWI and WWII, and that's probably it. I didn't hear about the Little Ice Age until the Al Gore film.
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Katy
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Post by Katy »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote: 1500 would be the 15th century, 1501 would be the 16th century. 11th century would be the 1000's.
Indeed. I was thinking 1500 because that's the start date for the required history class here... I was actually more surprised by the date you gave.
What part of the country did you get history in?
Atlanta - I went to a private school there.

I was being a bit snarky before, but not really.

I also remember a several week long lesson on why revolutions always fail (everyone is disatisfied so they fight together but when they win they splinter then there's chaos until someone says 'geeze at least under that guy the sewage wasn' backed up (or whatever)' and the old government gets control)

Something about the fact that that's the first memory of highschool history to come to mind is telling - how hard it must have gotten pounded into my head that revolution will never work!
-Katy
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Katy wrote: how hard it must have gotten pounded into my head that revolution will never work!
Yeah, that American Revolution was a real bust, wasn't it? Umm, when did we get back under the control of Great Britain? I think I missed that part... :p
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Katy
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Post by Katy »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
Katy wrote: how hard it must have gotten pounded into my head that revolution will never work!
Yeah, that American Revolution was a real bust, wasn't it? Umm, when did we get back under the control of Great Britain? I think I missed that part... :p
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Yeah, the Russian revolution worked, too. And so did a lot of others. But if you asked me to name a highschool history lesson I remember anything about it would be the pattern of failed revolutions right around 1789. And there's really no reason that should be the first I came up with. Nor that it should have necessarily been taught that way. But it was.

Maybe the American Revolution worked because WE ARE GOOD! Those other guys though, fighting against governments that eventually won... clearly they were bad. And fighting governments is bad (unless you're us).
-Katy
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Post by sschaula »

Great thread, Elizabeth. I didn't know that stuff about Australia or Mexico.

What history taught me is that the UK sucks.
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Post by sschaula »

A couple other revolutions that worked: French and Australian.
- Scott
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Post by Katy »

sschaula wrote:A couple other revolutions that worked: French and Australian.
Funny - the french is the model of failed revolutions we used. Because they got their way for a while, but then the revolutionaries lost control too.
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Post by sschaula »

I don't know much about it, Katy. We only briefly went over it. I wasn't aware it failed. What did you mean that the revolutionaries lost control?
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Post by Dan Rowden »

sschaula wrote:A couple other revolutions that worked: French and Australian.
We had a revolution? When the hell was that?
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Post by sschaula »

Nevermind, I'm a moron.
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Post by BMcGilly07 »

Dan, I think it was when the Men at Work were overthrown by the Vegemitians, only to lose control to the zoo at Beerwah, although that was about 20 years later. All in all, a bloodless revolution, but to this day the majority of Australia is coated by a thin layer of butter and what is assumed to be a nasty brown lacquer.


As to the revolution Scott is referring to, I think it had to do with the inmates usurping the warden.

*note- edited twice for content.
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Post by Jamesh »

The Eureka Stockade seems to be the closest we came to a revolution.

Eureka Stockade

The Eureka Stockade was a gold miners' revolt in 1854 in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, against the officials supervising the mining of gold in the region of Ballarat. It was prompted by grievances over heavily priced mining items, the expense of a Miner's Licence, and unfair treatment.[citation needed] While the events which sparked the rebellion were specific to the Ballarat goldfields, the underlying grievances had been the subject of public meetings, civil disobedience and deputations across the various Victorian goldfields for almost three years.[citation needed] The miners' demands included the right to vote and purchase land, and the reduction of Licence fees. Agitation for these demands commenced with the Forest Creek Monster Meeting of December 1851 and included the formation of the Anti-Gold Licence Association at Bendigo in 1853.

Although swiftly and violently put down, the Eureka rebellion was a watershed event in Australian politics. The preceding three years of agitation for the miners' demands, combined with mass public support in Melbourne for the captured 'rebels' when they were placed on trial, resulted in the introduction of full white-male suffrage for elections for the lower house in the Victorian parliament.[1] The role of the Eureka Stockade in generating public support for these demands beyond the goldfields resulted in Eureka being controversially identified with the birth of democracy in Australia.[2][3][4]
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Post by sschaula »

Yeah, I was just thinking of around that time...when Australia truly became Australia and not a part of the British Empire.

Don't tell me it's still part of the British Empire. I will feel ultimately stupid then.
- Scott
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Post by Dan Rowden »

I think this one should be left to Leyla. I suspect she'll enjoy it.
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Hey, here's something I didn't know about Tasmania:

last line:
Tasmania is one of the world's major suppliers of licit opiate products; government maintains strict controls over areas of opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw concentrate; major consumer of cocaine and amphetamines
Uh, Kevin - I know you're pretty private about your personal life (and for most people I respect that - but you are trying to lead people to enlightenment, so I expect a bit more openness from you. You're not on welfare, you're a computer programmer - and I have seen some shareware out there with your name on it, but people can't make a living off of shareware... I'm not jumping to any conclusions here, but it looks fishy when someone tries to hide on a pedestal. What are you doing down in Tasmania?
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Post by Katy »

sschaula wrote:I don't know much about it, Katy. We only briefly went over it. I wasn't aware it failed. What did you mean that the revolutionaries lost control?
Essentially (and I'm working off of 10 year old information without relooking it up) Robespierre became the leader, but then became a more-brutal dictator, there was a reign of terror where everyone was tatelling on their neighbors and getting their heads cut off until finally Robespierre had his own head cut off and the royal lineage was reinstated.

The essential problem seems to be that he had managed to convince a lot of different groups (students, laborers, military etc) that "the government is bad" - but they weren't specific about what they were fighting for. So once the government was gone, students wanted one thing while laborers wanted completely different things. Infighting tore the whole thing down.
-Katy
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Post by Jamesh »

To be fair, a more reasonable comparison would be something along the lines of "How much does the average Australian and American know about Romania?" or "Does the typical Australian know more about New Zealand than the typical American knows about Canada?"

The larger a country is the more probability that internal news/issues will fill in the time a person has available for locating knowledge about "aliens". The Chinese of the Russians would be little different to the US. On the other hand, as the US has been acting as world sheriff and has the most ecomonic power, then smaller countries will neccesarily take more notice of the US, than the US will of the smaller country.

We just expect yanks to be know more about us, because we are so similar to them (or at least those who live in large cities are) - we irrationaly expect reciprical knowing.
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Post by Dan Rowden »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Hey, here's something I didn't know about Tasmania:

last line:
Tasmania is one of the world's major suppliers of licit opiate products; government maintains strict controls over areas of opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw concentrate; major consumer of cocaine and amphetamines
This is why Tasmanians have two heads.
Uh, Kevin - I know you're pretty private about your personal life
That's why they call it your "private life".
(and for most people I respect that - but you are trying to lead people to enlightenment, so I expect a bit more openness from you. You're not on welfare, you're a computer programmer - and I have seen some shareware out there with your name on it, but people can't make a living off of shareware... I'm not jumping to any conclusions here, but it looks fishy when someone tries to hide on a pedestal. What are you doing down in Tasmania?
He makes enough money from his software to not need the dole. Plus the opium he steals keeps him going when the software trade dies off. But don't tell anyone.
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Blimey fucking Chaaaarlie!

Oh sweet, intemperate jouissance--have you NO mercy on my soul?

...all you have to do is follow the worms.
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