Europe as "The World"

Strange, but it seems like when Europeans write about world opinion, especially world consensus, they seem to give Europe the weight of "The World".

I seem to notice this the most in comparisions with the United States. When someone either in America or Europe decries the continued use of the Death Penalty in The States, it's always on the grounds that "The Rest of the world doesn't do it anymore." when they really mean, "Europe and some other countries don't do it anymore."

I've pointed out to absolutely shocked Europeans that Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan all still retain the death penalty, and that, at least in Japan, the prisoners don't know their date of execution until maybe 2 hours before it happens.

Europeans also seem to assume that the U.S. is the Odd duck out on fire-arm ownership, whereas there are still a lot of countries that allow fire-arms to be owned.

I've also noticed this on environmental issues, amonst others.

I'm not meaning to start a "European arrogance thread" but it does seem that sometimes, Europeans are just as guilty of the same continental myopia that the Americans are often accused of.

Is this simply because there are so many different countries there?  Is it because most of the developed world countries are there?

It varies drastically based on where you met these people.

people from rich familes in good countries are more likely to be well educated
more than people in poor families who barely can get decent education for their children

exactly the same situation as in america

"Is it because most of the developed world countries are there?"

spot on honeybunny

>>3
But Europe is no more "The World" than the U.S. is!  Roughly the same population (depending on how far east you count) and a bit less of the landmass.  Just because they have more countries and more languages doesn't make them the rest of the world.  The fact that they are developed doesn't eitehr.

I think >>3 is aware of that >>4.

well, to reply a bit more seriously to what you said in the first post, i think it's mainly because europe and the US have always(atleast in recent times) been comparing themselves to eachother, the US helped europe in WWII and helped europe come back on it's feet, etc. etc. So in general i think there is the misconceptiuous trend amongst europeans to think of the main participants of WWII as "the world".

About the death penalties, i don't think most people have bothered to look into it, and simply assume that "of course civilized democrazies don't have death penalty, it's barbaric" but in truth most european countries had death penalty of one sort or another up untill the 80's and 90's, even though it was only for treason. I don't have a list of places where and at what times "normal" death penalty was removed, but i'm pretty sure it's not that long ago, lol if i could remembr my treaties i'd know when they signed the no-death-penalty treaty, but i'm sure it can be looked up.

anyways, the reason why "the rest of the world" is generally the developed countries, is because it's those that have any influence, sure zwanba in africa has death penalty and who knows what, but they don't really matter because they have no influence on, well, anything really. So there is a certain amount of arrogance, wittingly or unwittingly, from alot of the developed countries, so they think the undeveloped countries are generally not part of the world, because they aren't part of the world that have a direct influence.

i don't know, it's a slippery topic, and i'm sure there are several explanations you could argue for or against, the world is members of the UN, the world is countries who signed this or that and upholds these and those human rights rules *shrugs*

I don't think it's arrogance, I think it's simply a bias in information. Why should Europe care what Zambia does? Zambia has no effect on the lives of Europeans. So they never hear about it.

That applies for everybody. People in Zambia are more interested in their neighbours than in Europe.

Wryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

>>1
It's about influence. The US has more influence on Europe than somewhere equally developped but more distant like Japan. Likewise the Japanese rarely compare themselves to europe. It isn't just about distance or trade either, it's about influence. Britain still interacts culturally with it's commonwealth and as a result most British have India at the top of their head when they think about the world, whilst for the Japanese it would be lower down the list even though compared to Britain, Japan trades more with India.

>>7
I get the impression that people in Zambia are pretty interested in the West...so

>>10
I doubt it.

Of course they're aware of the West, and how stinking rich it is. However, it is bordered by countries that are either starving to death, in a permanent state of asymmetric warfare, dying of HIV, a dictatorship, or all of the above.

I dunno about you, but if I was them, I'd be a whole lot more interested in what my neighbours were up to.

ZA WARUDO

>>11
They are far away, therefore they are not human. What part don't your understand?