text: why are americans so narrowminded?   we are ethnocentric and geocentric...and both those words are probably getting looked up online right now. most of us have never traveled outside the us. most of us only speak one language and are equally offended and embarassed at our ignorance. most of us vote for american idol faster than for an election. we like top ten lists because anything that is more critical and complex is too hard to understand. we like fat gross food. we read simple newspapers like usa today rather than anything more substantive. we complain about $3 gas when the uk pays $6.40...simply because we don't know what the hell is going on in the rest of the world.  many of us reading this answer probably aren't even sure if the uk means england, scotland, ireland, all of the above or none of the above. we vote for our president based on sound bites. we want easy, plain vanilla answers. sex scares us in real life but we like it in movies and ads. we lack any historical perspective of both our own country and the rest of the world. when we encounter foreigners we speak louder so that they understand us. we shy away from anything other than hamburgers, steak, and hotdogs. we wonder why the rest of the world cannot be more like us.