Do Americans think they are better than others?

This is a question I have had for a

couple years now. I have had the amazing opportunity to be able to travel to many countries in
Europe over the past couple of years. While traveling and experiencing the many different
cultures, I noticed something. Every restaurant, store, or museum we went to, their employees
all spoke English to us so we could understand. This made me think, when foreigners come to
America, do we speak their native language to make sure they understand too? No, most of us
don’t. Just like when American tourists come to visit their countries, when they come to America
they are forced to speak English so we can understand. We don’t convert to speaking their
language. I wanted to know more about this issue. Americans are sometimes known as thinking
they are better than everyone else. Now I believe that you should always have pride in your own
country and love it. But does it get to a point with Americans because we are so big, that it
becomes a problem with how much we think we are better than others and it can turn into being
a little disrespectful towards other countries and cultures.

Sources:
● Hartig, Hannah & Gilberstadt, Hannah. “Younger Americans more likely than older adults
to say there are other countries that are better than the U.S.” Pew Research Center, 30
May, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/08/younger-americans-
more-likely-than-older-adults-to-say-there-are-other-countries-that-are-better-than-the-u-
s/
○ In Hannah Hartig and Hannah Gilberstadt’s article, “Younger Americans more
likely than older adults to say there are other countries that are better than the
U.S.”, they discuss the statistics of different age groups and political parties in
America on whether or not they believe America is better than all the other
countries. They represent these statistics by showing lots of charts to correlate to
them. Hartig and Gilberstadt notice that Americans ages 18-29 are more likely to
say that there are other countries that are better than the U.S. They also point
out the different views Democrats and Republicans have on the subject. They
also mention how each group feels about another country having a military as
powerful as the U.S. In their article they say, “Mirroring age divides in attitudes
about U.S. exceptionalism, younger adults are more likely than older adults to
say it would be acceptable if another country became as militarily powerful as the
U.S.” This shows how different of a perspective younger Americans have than
older Americans. The younger generation thinks that it doesn’t really matter if
 another country became as militarily powerful as the U.S., while the older
generations have a little more of a problem with it.
○ This article did not really choose a specific viewpoint on the topic. They mostly
just gave statistics and facts about what different age groups and political parties
think about how much better the U.S. is than other countries. I can use these
statistics in my project to help show the divide between what everyone thinks. I
can use logos throughout my project with what I gained from this source. The
audience is all Americans. The source is credible to the audience because it
gives facts from surveys given throughout the U.S. While reading this article, I
asked myself why certain political parties and age groups think so differently than
the others.
● Musgrave, Paul. “Americans think they’re No.1. They’re wrong in so many ways.”
America the Mediocre, 15 August, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/15/america-
the-mediocre/
○ Paul Musgrave addresses the many ways the U.S. is behind other countries in
his article, “Americans think they’re No. 1. They’re wrong in so many ways.”
Musgrave goes into detail about how other countries are learning and adopting
new ways of life faster than the U.S. In his article he says, “And the U.S.
reluctance, or inability to learn from other countries is making life worse for its
citizens than it had to be - not just in big ways, such as the disasters of American
healthcare and student debt, but in the little, everyday ones too.” Musgrave
shows us that Americans refuse to learn something from another country. He
then goes on to list the rankings of all of the countries in different categories. In
all the categories he lists, America is pretty behind. Musgrave then goes on to tell
us all the things America is lacking in. For example he found, “bad roads;
maternity and paternity leave; K-12 education; most American’s stubborn
monolingualism;” to be some of the biggest problems foreigners see in our
country. Paul Musgrave says in his article that one of the reasons America
refuses to learn and adapt to a new way is because its “not invented here”. To
finish he says that the only way to improve America, would be to make ir more
like other countries.
○ This source represented the viewpoint of Americans thinking they are better than
others. This source gives us evidence that America is behind, and we are too
stubborn to realize it. I think we can consider pathos and logos in this source.
 The author shared some rankings that the U.S. is pretty low in. The audience is
Americans. I do believe that this source is credible to the audience because the
author has done research and his own surveys to come up with this information. I
agree with the author when he said that we need to learn from other countries. I
think this source will be very helpful while putting together my project because it
gives really good points of view on the subject.

Right now I have only done a little bit of research on my question. I have researched
some different sources that have given me some statistics about the different viewpoints on my
research question. I have also researched a source that talks specifically about why Americans
are wrong for thinking they are better than other countries. While continuing my research, I am
still looking for why it is valid for Americans to think they are better and why they do. I am
interested to learn more about this issue and continue my research.