• Optional@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    doesn’t mean folks from other nations aren’t educated about yours.

    That’s what some folks from other nations presume. How does this “education” happen? Is it standardized, in textbook form, and presented in class? Or is it the whiff of familiarity that comes with seeing the same words smeared on random internet posts?

    Not to dismiss the point, frequently made, that American politics has outsized influence; but to clarify that understanding what our electoral college is and what gerrymandering is are just the most basic building blocks of understanding one aspect of American politics.

    More to the point, politics in America is, perhaps more than some other nations, suffused into daily life in almost every public interaction in some way, shape, or form. And presuming to have an understanding of that while never participating in that public life - and furthermore judging such aspects based on one’s non-involvement with the assuredness of a wise veteran participant - is bullshit.

    • wpb@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      More to the point, politics in America is, perhaps more than some other nations, suffused into daily life in almost every public interaction in some way, shape, or form. And presuming to have an understanding of that while never participating in that public life - and furthermore judging such aspects based on one’s non-involvement with the assuredness of a wise veteran participant - is bullshit.

      I don’t accept this epistemology at all. The idea that the only way to meaningfully know about a thing is to live the thing itself is complete nonsense. “Oh you think light behaves simultaneously as a wave and as a particle? Well have you ever been a particle?” Such a joke

        • wpb@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          Are you familiar with the term “thought terminating cliché”?

            • wpb@lemmy.world
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              11 days ago

              Yeah sure whatever, let’s pretend your question wasn’t rhetorical. What you’re doing here is called weaponised standpoint epistemology. Starting from a very valid base, namely “some aspects of things you can’t know without having experienced them” you extend to “you can’t know anything unless you were there”, which is not valid. You don’t want to talk about how Americans are flushing their democracy down the toilet and doing nothing to prevent it? Fine. But I’m not going to pretend that this is anything other than you putting your head in the sand.

              • Optional@lemmy.world
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                11 days ago

                You sure know a lot about what I’m not talking about.

                Which, in a manner of speaking, was my point.

                Good job, everyone! Lunch break!