Speaking as an American who has spent time in Mexico, Spain and Ireland, and has traveled to southeast Asia: yes, Americans do sometimes have an arrogant view of the world.
On the other hand, knowing about other countries doesn't come as naturally here. If you live in Europe, you can take an overnight train ride to any one of a dozen countries, with whom you share a currency and often a closely-related language. An extreme example is Andorra, nested between Spain and France, where even before the Euro, they were too small to bother having their own currency, and natives basically can't get by without speaking French, Spain and Catalan, at a minimum.
Contrast that with someone who lives in Iowa. You can drive for days in any direction and not leave the US. You live in a huge country with lots of geographical and cultural variety. Your country is wealthy enough that you'd never go abroad for your job or education unless you were explicitly trying to see the world. Learning another language is wonderful and enriching, but there's no real economic reason to. And there's no doubt in your mind that your country is safe from foreign powers.
I'm not saying "let's all be ignorant of other people," but for many Americans, awareness of other countries is like a gold star of educational achievement, not an everyday necessity. I was eager to expand my horizons, but for many people that's just not on their priority list.
And besides, some people are just not curious about anything.
I think a lot of the beef with "typical Americans" is with your last type. If you get off the coasts you can find a whole bunch of Americans who are seemingly proud of not knowing anything about the rest of the world.
Not surprising when you consider that most people came here to get away from something, (poverty, repression, etc.) For no small number of Americans, the rest of the world is a proxy for "that place my ancestors left because it sucked ".
The US was isolationist before it got dragged into the world wars, and has become interventionist not because it's interested in conquest, but because the past century has taught it to fear what happens when it's not.
Well, in my experience at least, the people I'm griping about are pretty far from "off the boat". They see themselves as natives, and their ancestors left europe 150 years ago because it was a totally different place then. Not much to do with their current viewpoint on, say, Brazil or China.
The idea I was trying to express is about 3rd, 4th, etc. generation immigrants. By that time, the information the trickles down in your family lore boils down to "it sucked, we left, good riddance". I think the combination of "we left, we kept getting dragged back to fight wars, and we ended up on top" (grossly over-simplified), leads to a unique and odd "background vibe" to the culture, which seems more pronounced in long-term 'natives'. I think people who are more recent are more cognizant of the subtleties that exist.
My father's side of the family came to America about 100 years ago from Sweden. They settled in North Dakota, one of the dreaded "flyover states". My great-grandfather apparently didn't tell his children anything about the home country, nor did he teach them Swedish. He wanted them to focus on being Americans, rather than trying to be Swedish. These days, we eat lutefisk on Christmas Eve and that's about it.
You know how people fight over things that happened hundreds of years ago? Its like that. When people who have been here for 100+ years hear about "family history" it often involves stories of say the potato famine in Ireland. While intellectually they understand Ireland is no longer like that (indeed they may even have visited it to get in touch with there roots). Emotionally they have a lasting impression of a America being the promised land. Their ancestors fled elsewhere to come here, thus here must be the best.
The main and important exception to this is of course African American's.
> If you get off the coasts you can find a whole bunch of Americans
No, actually you won't. Most of America's population lives within two hundred miles of it's coastlines. This group of proudly ignorant people is therefore much smaller than they're stereotypically thought of being.
Having driven from Richmond, Virginia, to Anchorage, Alaska, twice, I can first-hand confirm that there is a LOT of empty land in the heart of North America.
It is because of these trips that I no longer worry about global overpopulation and just look at people quizzically when they start talking about the topic.
I grew up in North Dakota and haven't found anyone who was "proud" of not knowing about the rest of the world. In a lot of circles it is a point of pride to know a whole lot about where your ancestors came from. I find the generalization particularly insulting and mostly untrue.
On the other hand, knowing about other countries doesn't come as naturally here. If you live in Europe, you can take an overnight train ride to any one of a dozen countries, with whom you share a currency and often a closely-related language. An extreme example is Andorra, nested between Spain and France, where even before the Euro, they were too small to bother having their own currency, and natives basically can't get by without speaking French, Spain and Catalan, at a minimum.
Contrast that with someone who lives in Iowa. You can drive for days in any direction and not leave the US. You live in a huge country with lots of geographical and cultural variety. Your country is wealthy enough that you'd never go abroad for your job or education unless you were explicitly trying to see the world. Learning another language is wonderful and enriching, but there's no real economic reason to. And there's no doubt in your mind that your country is safe from foreign powers.
I'm not saying "let's all be ignorant of other people," but for many Americans, awareness of other countries is like a gold star of educational achievement, not an everyday necessity. I was eager to expand my horizons, but for many people that's just not on their priority list.
And besides, some people are just not curious about anything.