A matter of definition: what makes me stupid?

Based on the Youtube video that can be found on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcrazy%2Espray%2Ese%2Fshowframed%2Easpx%3Fid%3D4ef658b5%2D77b5%2D48c9%2D9567%2D8e330f42af62%26url%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fv%2FfJuNgBklo>



Although this video needs to be taken in very skeptically, it undeniably provides ground for substantial discussion. Unfortunately, it remains virtually anonymous.

The argument this collection of street interviews is essentially making is the disseminated ignorance of Americans nationwide, not only about the rest of the world but about their own history and country as well.

Posting a video on Youtube, especially one compiled of simple short interviews as this one, makes the target audience essentially anyone with an Internet access. Yet, it should be said that the humor employed demands a particular audience and context. The context is the world post September 11, post Invasion of Iraq, and the United States post- George W Bush . The War in Iraq contributed to an increasingly unpopular and critical view of America worldwide. Further, the president, notorious for his unitelligent remarks, inevitably personified an image for America: that of being utterly oblivious to the world around them and, worse even, of being so deliberately, and too bluntly to be forgiven. As to the audience, if the author wishes to persuade anyone, this someone will have to overlook many fallacies of argument, and thus this video is targeted for people who already share this image of Americans, and who thus need not to be convinced but simply humored.

One of the basic assumptions the author makes throughout the video is that whoever is watching it knows the answer to all the questions the interviewer is asking. That is necessary because otherwise, the viewer will cease to find it funny and feel insulted and possibly embarrassed for belonging to the same category of supposedly ignorant people the movie is making fun of.

The video is substantially composed of humour that appeals to Superiority: we find the interviews funny and laugh at those people because it is good for our self esteem: we deem them ignorant and stupid, and perhaps without noticing, suddenly feel a little smarter.

The argument in the video holds innumerous fallacies and is by no means successful in its persuasion. The sample the interviewer chose to represent America is what most comes out to me. It is not too hard to notice the prominent Southern accent of the majority of the people. Picking a random sample in New York or Philadelphia, say, will vary drastically from a sample chosen in a small southern town, where people are notoriously conservative and where the culture is traditionally "turned inwards". If the sample is manipulated rather than picked arbitrarily, the entire argument loses its ground.

Another fallacy to consider is the fact that many of the questions asked don't necessarily reflect ignorance, let alone irgnorance particular to the United States. Not knowing who Kofi Annan or Tony Blair are is much more common than one might be conforted to think. Insinuating Americans are dumb because they didn't answer "United States" when demanded about a country that began with the letter U is also fallacious. The reasoning doesn't follow! The very way the question was phrased compelled people to think about faraway countries, so that their mind wasn't "set" to consider their homeland in the first place. That certainly does not make them dumb or ignorant. It is ultimately a matter of defining those terms.

On the other hand, not knowing what a Mosque is, or what is the religion in Israel, or even more shockingly, being oblivious to whether America even fought in the Vietnam War is a bit more unforgivable. The latter, for a most trivial reason: it is a fact pertaining to their own history, and one that did not happen so long ago. But nonetheless, we know not if those people even went to High School- and if that was not the case than we cannot compare what they know to what we know - there is no fair basis for the comparison. As to what a mosque is, and to the religion in Israel, not to know them translates, to me, in a degree of alienation too high to be excusable. After all, the media has been unceasingly spotlighting the Middle East for the last few years.