For those that have not traveled extensively outside the borders of our country, the only link we have to the outside world is the media. Media can be books, newspapers, television, and even internet today. Each medium must be studied carefully before taking the information as the "gospel truth". Who is the author, where did they come from, and have they themselves traveled outside the borders or are they on the writings of others? Dr. Paul Harrison, Margaret Atwood, and Postman would have you believe that their way of looking at the world is the only way. Before we can examine a certain view on the United States of America, we must first define a basic belief of the world. Each of the three authors has a slightly different view of how America is tearing itself apart and in turn doing the same for the rest of the world.

In the chapter The Westernization of the World by Paul Harrison, he points out the religious aspects of Pauline Christianity of Europe was the beginning of creating sameness throughout the world. Instead of settling in to the new worlds and assimilating into the culture as the Dutch or Spanish, the Europeans squashed the difference of each people, naming the Bible as the reason, and forced a complete new way of life for the "newly enlightened" tribes. Basically, the missionaries would enter a new land and in turn, blanket the children with a new education, give the adults books on their way of life, and start a new government in their likeness. The color of the people's skin is the only difference remaining and some began to be ashamed of how he/she looked. In turn, they began to want to emulate the Europeans and force was no longer needed. Harrison believes that racism, arrogance, military superiority, social climbing and money, not religion is the real reason for this behavior towards the new worlds (third worlds). He states the results have become a world of where traditions and differences are a thing of the past. The question now before us starts to reason, if others want to be like the American/Europeans template called the European road, are they to blame?

Margret Atwood, a fellow Pantheist also has a negative view of the United States. She looks down on the country and her nose from Canada. She spends time concentrating on our most recent combined past of post world war II when she was a child. Americans before that time were viewed as clumsy, lazy and ignorant of the land. America's money was welcome at that time in Canada and since there was great need having over extended themselves in the war, many were happy to have it. Then things changed for both the country and the writer. She explains that her schooling, her recreation, and her entertainment began to be American. Her education was pretty much the same as American received at the time. Political, military and social leaders were all from England. Atwood does not blame the Americans outright for they way she was taught, but blamed the lack of Canadian money and the abundance of American. Her vision is not of being conquered by force or by religion, but by money. Her claims that the reason Canadians were able to blend into new societies better, was simply that no one from her country could afford to bring the whole country with them, unlike the Americans who take all of themselves where ever they go. So is America the giant to blame for their influence on Canada?

Postman identifies entertainment to be the downfall of America. By providing movies instead of books, a vacuum that haunted holocaust Germany is forming. By making life so easy with new technologies for themselves, Americans have again begun to be lazy. Television is what is ruining the country because it is a command center for all. Since each American every night tunes in to the exact same ideas, they in turn do not have to think and very few disagreements emerge. Debate is the bane that forms new ideas and also new books. So books are not being read and in a hideous circle, books are not being written. Society is collapsing on itself and taking the rest of the world with it. Postman also points out in irony that the very Bible that began all these issues is the same that tells us television should not exist. As television begins to influence the rest of the world with satellites, everyone begins to wear blue jeans from the same place, where their hair a certain way and all becomes one. If television and movies are destroying America, is it America place to stop the spread of this new mind numbing pandemic?

The answers are simple: no, no and no. Yes Europe is responsible for pushing their way of life onto other cultures, but it is not now America's responsibility to police the world now. America is being to over extend itself as Canada did in the '40s. And yes a vacuum is forming that needs to be filled with something besides TV. But it is up to each individual to decide for themselves, research their own culture and history in innovated ways themselves, and then choose the lifestyle they each want to live. In history, there have always been Mavericks that decide that the way things are going now is not right; I am going to do things differently. If America takes on the responsibility for the rest of the world, it will collapse into itself. The writers that wrote the articles descried above are showing others a several different path, it is up to each person to turn off the television, open a book by a non English writer, and book a plane ticket to somewhere else.

Works Cited

Verburg, Carol. Ourselves among Others. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2000.