a little bit of culture

This is my weekly art post for my blog! I fell in love with this picture. I think it shows my progress.

I was talking to my psychotherapist yesterday and I mentioned how annoyed I get when people can't identify Spain on a world map, or other instances of geographical ignorance. This year I've met people who couldn't identify North America, let alone Europe. Is it appalling? She told me that everyone values different subjects as being important, and I agree that geography is perhaps not totally essential to life.

For instance, not many American kids I've met know that the UK is made up of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In fact, UK is used interchangeably with England most of the time. And I guess it's expecting too much for people to know that people who live in the UK usually only refer to the English as being British.

I'm not trying to be condescending because I took it upon myself to learn all the countries in Europe, (of course I would, having lived there,) but I think it matters that kids know where countries are because their geography affects their culture. To say that Italy would be no different if it were inland is preposterous. And it doesn't all have to be Europe, either. I am just a Europhile.

To a lot of people I've met, culture matters more than geography and I think that's true. There are a lot of different cultures in South America. Even though they're close together, people get offended if you mix them up. And there is a great deal of cultural differences between these countries. Here in America, if you're white it doesn't matter where your ancestors were from. Croatia, Estonia, Belgium, Hungary, Spain, it's all the same, even though the cultures and are totally different. The "white" culture idea is distributed thoroughly as "one way of life all European Americans identify with."

I'm kind of offended. Oh well.