“From Top Gear’s most entertaining presenter, this book collects a bunch of short pieces Jeremy Clarkson wrote for the paper.
As an Ugly American, or at least an Average-Looking American, I’ll say that there are definitely a lot of references I didn’t really understand. I don’t blame the book for that. I mean, we’re talking about London cultural references from 2001. Even the U.S. equivalents probably wouldn’t make a ton of sense to people around here. If I compared a politician from 2001 to Limp Bizkit, well, let’s just not even take it any further.
I wonder if Americans really are so bad about learning other cultures. Or, to put it differently, is this one of the few cases where it’s not so much our fault?
Consider:
A Forbes article from 2013 pointed out that the U.S. is the only “Advanced” economy in the world that does not have any mandated paid vacation. Additionally, U.S. law does not enforce any holiday vacation while other “advanced” economies mandate between 5 and 13, these in addition to the required paid holidays.
Apparently there are also 5 countries that pay HIGHER wages for vacation days to help offset expenses incurred while traveling.
Consider Also:
When it comes to sheer size, it’s no small feat just to get across the U.S. In fact, if you lay Texas over Europe, you’ll cover parts of France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, and just a bit of Poland for good measure.
Texas is a big-ass state, but it’s only 8-10% of the entire U.S. landmass, depending on whether you count Alaska and Hawaii.
I’m not trying to use the old argument that other countries are too far away. I don’t know why they built Spain way the hell over there, but what’s a fella to do?
What I am trying to say is that, culturally, your traveling miles go a lot further in Europe than they do in the U.S. You can make your way to a lot of very different spots with their own, much older cultures while actually putting far fewer miles under your belt.
Consider Finally:
The Dollar is about .75 Euros. It’s been this way or worse since I’ve been old enough to travel on my own.
I’m not suggesting that any one of these factors should prevent Americans from exploring the world. When you consider, as is done in some of the book’s last essays, how much easier travel has become with the rise of the jet engine, there’s not much excuse.
…except when one considers that the average American is dealing with all three of these factors, at best.
I feel pretty strongly that most of the people I know, most of whom are Americans AT LEAST as ugly as I am, would be happy to visit places outside the U.S. for extended periods. Given the opportunity, many, many would go.
But I have to say, it limits the desire to learn about a culture when you’ll only read about it in books and see brief glimpses on TV. It’s tough to learn French when you figure you’ll maybe get to Paris for four days sometime in your life. Or, [shudder] Canada.
I feel The System, The Man, The Whatever It Is in America really lends itself to jumping on a plane for a few hours, spending two days a couple states away, somewhere that has beaches if you don’t have those, or somewhere that has nice beaches if you have suck beaches, and then coming back after a long weekend.
Anyway, for better or worse, Top Gear is my primary exposure to European culture at this point in my life. God help us all.
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