Also, there's no typical American. Its a country of 3.8 million square miles, as big as then entire continent of Australia. It has a 5000 mile border with Canada, 2000 mile with Mexico, 12000 miles of coastline. Half a million legal immigrants and half that many estimated illegal folk. Enclaves of culture for just about every region of the planet.

Entirely agreed. Shows the inherent bias in my thinking of culutres and customs as nationally-based when, in a place as diverse as America, there’s far more variation in perspective and manner. (Thank goodness for it)

Again, why can't Americans have a perspective on life in Europe or China? (And vice versa as well frankly.)

Is our perspective any more misguided or arrogant than the perspective of a European, or a Chinese person? Because if it is, then we can all stop complaining about Europe and China right? Because our perspectives are all just misguided arrogance.

Now I'm not saying that our perspective on foreign nations is necessarily "right" and "factual". I'm only saying that our perspective is certainly no more "wrong" than any other perspective. Perspectives are not objective realities, but they do become subjective realities for the people who hold them. (Read, "all of us".)

So here's the thing, whether or not those subjective realities are "misguided" or "arrogant" is not really a function of where the holder of the subjective reality grew up, it's a function of a lot of other factors unrelated to national origin. Everyone will have a perspective any given issue. Everyone may even have different perspectives on different issues, but whether or not one perspective is more valuable than another is usually not a function of things like citizenship. The relative value of different perspectives usually turns more on factors such as power and influence; sometimes on other factors like intelligence, and thoughtfulness. Outside of maybe power, rarely do these factors respect national borders.

In my book anyone is allowed to have any number of perspectives on any number of things and I consider those perspectives valid as human perspectives. Where I consider these perspectives ‘misguided’ or ‘arrogant’ is when the purveyor of these perspectives state their perspectives as fact like the op did in this sub thread. I think having a constructive conversation around a set of varying perspectives is to entertain your own perspective as a possibility (as you might others) without necessarily believing it. This way your perspective is just as valid as everyone else’s and is only held as an opinion after. Why try to advertise ones perspective as anything but a limited cache of experience prone to invalidation based on new information? Please, share the perspectives, have them, nurture them and then tear them down when more accurate information arrives; but don’t disingenuously push them as fact by stating them as unappealable facts.

I guess I just don't get too hung up about what people believe. For instance, if Southerners want to believe the Civil War was about state's rights and preventing Northerners from coming south to turn the family farms into factories, they should be free to have that perspective. (From my perspective it's asinine, but I mean whatever. I'm sure they believe my perspective on slavery to be asinine.) Point is, they aren't obligated to discuss their perspective, or entertain other perspectives if they don't wish to do so. That's what the freedom of thought is about, none of us are obliged to listen to any other of us as a matter of course.

If you want to discuss your perspectives on life with other people that's fine. (Actually I think it's admirable even.) There just shouldn't be the expectation that anyone else has to sit down and discuss their perspectives on life with you.

Other than that though, I think we're in agreement. Different people can have different perspectives that become subjective realities, but are usually not even close to being objective realities. People have the freedom to discuss, or ignore, other perspectives at their sole discretion. Thereby fulfilling the promise, and conveying to us the benefits, of freedom of thought.