My disagreement with "The Most Honest Three Minutes in Television History" (USA) video
A Facebook video titled, "The Most Honest Three Minutes in Television History" (about USA), https://www.facebook.com/NextNextNow/videos/787369534732372/, has over 36 million views even though it seems to have been put up only on May 2nd 2016. This video seems to be from an HBO TV show of 2012. The video is also available on youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGa57az2VqY.
The Facebook video was also shared by a Facebook friend here: https://www.facebook.com/sathyanarayana.raju.9/posts/793477930788693, I made the following comments (slightly edited):
Well, it is an HBO show clip. So it is not a scholar/knowledgeable guy giving a real extempore speech.
Here's a dissenting view, http://joemiller.us/2012/07/why-the-most-honest-3-minutes-on-tv-ever-is-a-lie-video/. I don't think the above video is a good assessment. The stats quoted in the video above may be right but I think it is selective with the selection intended to shock TV audiences, and don't think they tell the full story. Undoubtedly USA has its share of problems today as compared to the numero uno status it enjoyed after World War II, and surely cannot be called the greatest country in the world in anything and everything. But USA is still on top in many statistics.
1) Topmost in science research, http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=0&category=0®ion=all&year=2014&order=it&min=0&min_type=it
2) Topmost country in universities, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/05/17/top-10-countries-for-university-education/united-states/
3) Economy wise some stats put it at 2nd to China but some put it as 1st depending on type of measure; In any case USA is a nearly 18 trillion dollar economy which is what makes it a real powerhouse in the world even today.
I think the above HBO clip actually is misleading and unsuitable for college/university audiences where people have to deal with real knowledge. Further, I doubt whether any serious USA university would have the moderator Professor act as if he agrees with the implied part of the question that America is the greatest country in the world (in everything). I would expect a knowledgeable Professor to modify the question to something like what are the greatest qualities of USA in comparison to other countries or something like that.
I mean, some of the USA university professors are towering intellectuals and have massive amount of knowledge stored in their brains! Really! I have great respect for the USA academic system in terms of the quality of knowledgeable intellectuals in various fields that it produces.
Sorry about the long comment. But I could not help myself as I have had the privilege of reading/hearing too many good USA professors, and so could not let this go without a critique.
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There is no doubt that USA faces some big challenges today, and that some other materially advanced nations have better performance indices in some areas (e.g. healthcare, high school education ...). In particular, the USA political environment has become noxious and vicious, with the ability to humiliate and insult an opponent, and the ability to obfuscate truth and exploit media to project untruths as truth seeming to be more important to win the popular vote, than advancing well defined plans to solve the problems that USA is facing now.
I guess I am pretty put off by the video since it is supposed to be in a US academic setting. If it were part of a spoof by a show like Saturday Night Live, I would be OK with it as then everybody knows it is a spoof. But I think, given the 36 million views that this Facebook video has (and God knows how many million views elsewhere), that people think the actor in the show is "telling it like it is"!
The actor says, "... and with a straight face you are going to tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom?" Forgive my strong words, but I think that is a pathetic and completely unfair depiction of USA academia, to the extent I know about it [I have not been in USA academia but have interacted quite a lot with many USA academics.] The actor's antics reminds me of some antics that one sees in the current USA election season.
Any decent USA professor who is moderating such a discussion would have jumped in, and cut this guy short, calling him out for the falsehood that he is stating that USA teachers teach that USA is the only country in the world that has freedom! I don't know whether USA academic campuses tolerate the obscene word the actor uses, in public functions. Perhaps some campuses do though I find it hard to imagine a Harvard or MIT or Princeton or Yale Professor-moderator doing nothing when a panellist uses an obscene word like that.
The 22nd in science rank that the actor talks about relates to high-school education (15-year olds). But the actor conveniently skips saying that, giving the impression that the USA is 22nd in science overall in the world today! USA is top dog (1st) in science today and not 22nd, even though many other countries are getting closer to USA in science than they were some decades ago.
And then he says USA is 173rd in infant mortality!!! From http://nypost.com/2012/06/24/break-the-news/:
Sorkin thinks he’s being particularly brilliant, a long list of misleading and downright absurd assertions about America’s alleged flaws, of which the most spurious is that we rank “178th in infant mortality.” Out of 220 countries on Earth? Really?
As far as I can tell, Sorkin took this lie from one of several raggedy unsourced leftist websites. Or he visited the CIA Factbook, which put the US at No. 173 in infant mortality, and got the number wrong by five.
But wait: The CIA survey is in reverse order. So No. 1, Afghanistan, is the worst country for infant mortality. The best, Monaco, is No. 220. That puts the US at No. 47 (while other surveys put us slightly higher, in the 20s).
--- end short extract from nypost.com ---
Ravi: Surely, America is not the greatest country in the world in anything and everything. Further, America of these 2010s, in comparison to other countries at this time, is in a lot worse ranking-shape than America of 1960s & 1970s in comparison to other countries at that time, where its predominance seems to have been extraordinary (as the world powers before World War II, Britain, France, Russia etc. may still have been in recovery from the devastation of World War II).
So any blanket statement that America is the greatest country in the world (American exceptionalism) is rather foolish [From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism, "Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many neoconservative and other American conservative writers have promoted its use in that sense. To them, the U.S. is like the biblical "City upon a Hill"—a phrase evoked by British colonists to North America as early as 1630—and exempt from historical forces that have affected other countries. The theme of superiority is a common target for attacks from critics."]
Calling out such a statement as false is correct. But the manner in which the statement was called out as false by the actor had gross inaccuracies and wild exaggeration. And what really bugged me was that it was as if the actor is lecturing the professors of that USA university/college. I could not take that. Sorry!
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[I thank nypost.com and Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
The Facebook video was also shared by a Facebook friend here: https://www.facebook.com/sathyanarayana.raju.9/posts/793477930788693, I made the following comments (slightly edited):
Well, it is an HBO show clip. So it is not a scholar/knowledgeable guy giving a real extempore speech.
Here's a dissenting view, http://joemiller.us/2012/07/why-the-most-honest-3-minutes-on-tv-ever-is-a-lie-video/. I don't think the above video is a good assessment. The stats quoted in the video above may be right but I think it is selective with the selection intended to shock TV audiences, and don't think they tell the full story. Undoubtedly USA has its share of problems today as compared to the numero uno status it enjoyed after World War II, and surely cannot be called the greatest country in the world in anything and everything. But USA is still on top in many statistics.
1) Topmost in science research, http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=0&category=0®ion=all&year=2014&order=it&min=0&min_type=it
2) Topmost country in universities, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/05/17/top-10-countries-for-university-education/united-states/
3) Economy wise some stats put it at 2nd to China but some put it as 1st depending on type of measure; In any case USA is a nearly 18 trillion dollar economy which is what makes it a real powerhouse in the world even today.
I think the above HBO clip actually is misleading and unsuitable for college/university audiences where people have to deal with real knowledge. Further, I doubt whether any serious USA university would have the moderator Professor act as if he agrees with the implied part of the question that America is the greatest country in the world (in everything). I would expect a knowledgeable Professor to modify the question to something like what are the greatest qualities of USA in comparison to other countries or something like that.
I mean, some of the USA university professors are towering intellectuals and have massive amount of knowledge stored in their brains! Really! I have great respect for the USA academic system in terms of the quality of knowledgeable intellectuals in various fields that it produces.
Sorry about the long comment. But I could not help myself as I have had the privilege of reading/hearing too many good USA professors, and so could not let this go without a critique.
----------------------------
There is no doubt that USA faces some big challenges today, and that some other materially advanced nations have better performance indices in some areas (e.g. healthcare, high school education ...). In particular, the USA political environment has become noxious and vicious, with the ability to humiliate and insult an opponent, and the ability to obfuscate truth and exploit media to project untruths as truth seeming to be more important to win the popular vote, than advancing well defined plans to solve the problems that USA is facing now.
I guess I am pretty put off by the video since it is supposed to be in a US academic setting. If it were part of a spoof by a show like Saturday Night Live, I would be OK with it as then everybody knows it is a spoof. But I think, given the 36 million views that this Facebook video has (and God knows how many million views elsewhere), that people think the actor in the show is "telling it like it is"!
The actor says, "... and with a straight face you are going to tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom?" Forgive my strong words, but I think that is a pathetic and completely unfair depiction of USA academia, to the extent I know about it [I have not been in USA academia but have interacted quite a lot with many USA academics.] The actor's antics reminds me of some antics that one sees in the current USA election season.
Any decent USA professor who is moderating such a discussion would have jumped in, and cut this guy short, calling him out for the falsehood that he is stating that USA teachers teach that USA is the only country in the world that has freedom! I don't know whether USA academic campuses tolerate the obscene word the actor uses, in public functions. Perhaps some campuses do though I find it hard to imagine a Harvard or MIT or Princeton or Yale Professor-moderator doing nothing when a panellist uses an obscene word like that.
The 22nd in science rank that the actor talks about relates to high-school education (15-year olds). But the actor conveniently skips saying that, giving the impression that the USA is 22nd in science overall in the world today! USA is top dog (1st) in science today and not 22nd, even though many other countries are getting closer to USA in science than they were some decades ago.
And then he says USA is 173rd in infant mortality!!! From http://nypost.com/2012/06/24/break-the-news/:
Sorkin thinks he’s being particularly brilliant, a long list of misleading and downright absurd assertions about America’s alleged flaws, of which the most spurious is that we rank “178th in infant mortality.” Out of 220 countries on Earth? Really?
As far as I can tell, Sorkin took this lie from one of several raggedy unsourced leftist websites. Or he visited the CIA Factbook, which put the US at No. 173 in infant mortality, and got the number wrong by five.
But wait: The CIA survey is in reverse order. So No. 1, Afghanistan, is the worst country for infant mortality. The best, Monaco, is No. 220. That puts the US at No. 47 (while other surveys put us slightly higher, in the 20s).
--- end short extract from nypost.com ---
Ravi: Surely, America is not the greatest country in the world in anything and everything. Further, America of these 2010s, in comparison to other countries at this time, is in a lot worse ranking-shape than America of 1960s & 1970s in comparison to other countries at that time, where its predominance seems to have been extraordinary (as the world powers before World War II, Britain, France, Russia etc. may still have been in recovery from the devastation of World War II).
So any blanket statement that America is the greatest country in the world (American exceptionalism) is rather foolish [From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism, "Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many neoconservative and other American conservative writers have promoted its use in that sense. To them, the U.S. is like the biblical "City upon a Hill"—a phrase evoked by British colonists to North America as early as 1630—and exempt from historical forces that have affected other countries. The theme of superiority is a common target for attacks from critics."]
Calling out such a statement as false is correct. But the manner in which the statement was called out as false by the actor had gross inaccuracies and wild exaggeration. And what really bugged me was that it was as if the actor is lecturing the professors of that USA university/college. I could not take that. Sorry!
------------
[I thank nypost.com and Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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