Why do the majority of people in cultures like Australia have such a poor standard of general knowledge today?

Question

I am told I have a high degree of general knowledge. No difference to the rest of my family. We are all baby boomers. My children appear to be similar relative to their ages, 20 to 31yrs old.
Why then do I see such a large gap in many of society today. Just take a look at the questions in this forum from around the world.
Is it because we have become a culture of specialists and focus on such a small portion of life that we don't have time to learn.
Maybe we only have a very narrow window through main stream media for our general knowledge, or is it as a culture we are just not interested in gaining knowledge that is outside of what we are fed...

Answer 1

I can say what I have noticed and hope I don't offend anyone.

Basically, the people who don't have a good general knowledge mostly are not very concerned about others. They don't care about others since either they think there culture/ life style is perfect and they don't need to know or they just dont care. Also, the lifestyle in these countries, specially for young people like me, is very busy and robot like. It is almost systematically allowing people to be ignorant about the world and hence we can be controlled easily.

Some time its absurd how people make statements about other cultures and countries which have no context. Others don't really care if their are conflicts or atrocities around the world as long as they are sleeping in a warm bed at night.

My personal conviction is that when a civilization is too concerned with itself and its perfection, and not very concerned about improvement and about the world in general they mostly slip down on the civilization scale.

Answer 2

I think the % of inquisitive ppl has been steady in the past and will remain so in the future. The only difference now is that ppl are much more outspoken, you can hear their thoughts in forums such this one.

Also, these days you can't call ppl stupid, its politically incorrect and in some countries they have a constitutional right (might be the last one to go) to broadcast their stupidity far and wide.

There are a lot of ppl with a lot of intelligent things to say in this world if you know where to go, but as i think you have noticed for yourself, they will always be fewer of those.

With the use of the Internet those who are inquisitive will be able to cultivate intelligent opinions and have discourse on issues with unprecedented ease. Don't despair.

eD.

Answer 3

Most developed countries in the world are ethnocentric. I believe, frankly, it is because they can afford to be. It's like living in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood. As long as the bad neighborhood's problems (3rd world) don't spill over into our neighborhoods(1st world), we don't care what happens there. On the other side, the bad neighborhood wants to be like the good neighborhood, and watches it all the time; this admiration of is balanced by a deep resentment. After all from an individual's standpoint, why was he born into a poor country, and why were you born into a rich one, and on top of that why are you proud of it? In this way poorer countries, are more aware, and more knowledgeable, because they want to become rich countries. Also many depend on the generosity of rich countries through military, political, and humanitarian aid, so an awareness of the rich and countries their affects on the recipient helps in that respect. On another note I also think it has to do with cultural influence. Ethnocentricity and cultural influence seem to have an inverse correlation. So America and anglophone countries appear have the most influence (music, hollywood, etc.) on global culture and ironically are the most ignorant to what happens in the globe relative to other nations.