Outside Ourselves.

Something I find extremely important to have knowledge about and an interest in is cultural education. Currently, many societies, nations and ethnicities are extremely ignorant about cultures other than their own. I am not just pointing fingers at Americans by any means, because cultural ignorance is a disease that plagues the entire world. It is not just a matter of Americans assuming that people from South America live in tree houses in the jungle or that people from Africa live in huts or that all Asians are Chinese and everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist. The press and the news never cover the rampant hatred that streams from other nations and cultures external to the United States. Israel is constantly under threat from Iran because of the religious and cultural differences, as well and economic disparity. The nation of Sudan has been torn apart and turned into a war zone in the region of Darfur, where the fighting is between the Muslims and the Black Africans, over issues of religion and other cultural factors. Cultural education is not just something that is lacking within the minds of the people of the United States, in fact, I find our country to be quite a tolerant one. We mostly accept people who sexually identify as homosexual, whereas in other nations they would be a taboo, or even worse, criminals needing to be executed. We take time to be politically correct and avoid offending various cultural groups. However, avoiding committing an offense and actually becoming enlightened on a culture different than our own are two different things. We should learn about other cultures so we can avoid ignorance, and so we can understand the workings of the world in its entirety. You cannot have the United States without Britain, and you cannot have South America without Brazil, etc. All parts of countries and cultures are important; they contribute to a much greater whole. If people accept ignorance as their main method of dealing with the differences we face in society, then feuds and hatred will always continue, because misunderstanding something causes fear, and fear spawns the hatred that fuels genocides and cultural clashes.