Stephen Fry attacks sneering anti-Americanism.
on 11/03/2008 at 12:05 PM
What a wonderful breath of fresh air, nice to hear SOMEONE in the world hasn’t gone completely mad. I also love the shot of him in front of Mount Rushmore from the story. I often wonder what Winston Churchill would think of his country today?
On a side note: I love his comedy, from Black Adder to Fry and Laurie. Great stuff.
When they mock America for its supposed lack of knowledge, irony or sophistication, they are revealing nothing but the pathetic inadequacy and inferiority complex of the British.
Well, I think that the type of Brits he’s referring to should remember just how big the USA is.
I grew up in Trotwood, which is a little town NW of Dayton. I ended up going to college at Brigham Young University. A distance of over 1800 miles.
Returning to BYU for my sophomore year, being the thrifty (ie: poor. But I shouldn’t use Latin abbreviations like ‘ie’ for fear of being seen as elitist.) student that I was, I went Greyhound. Seated next to me for the two day trip was a Brit. (I wish I could remember his name.) We spent the time playing chess on my pocket set and talking about America. He was continually amazed at the sheer size of the US, especially as we rolled across the Plains states. Remember, an American can literally go thousands of miles in one direction or the other and never leave the country or the language. Name any European country, much less a collection of islands, that can say the same.
I’m sure that to the average Nevada resident I’m as uninformed on local issues as I am on local issues in, for example, Belgium.
If it seems that we are uninformed, unsophisticated, etc, to the average Brit, it just means that we have a lot more to keep track of here at home than the average Brit.
I have another Brit story from my Navy days. It is hilarious, but NSFW.
Yes. I have often found that ppl visiting the states show amazement at the size of the place. They really don’t understand unless they make the trips and better yet drive themselves.
I’ve heard that criticism of us being too lazy to learn about things here. Yadda,yadda.
You’ve heard it all I know.
And you’re right. We do have a lot to keep track of. You struggle and try to make a living, support your family if you have one, and it’s pretty darn hard if not impossible to know what’s going on in Europe unless it’s newsworthy. To them, we’re “unsophisticated.”
11/03/2008 at 12:57 PM
