When The U.S. Pretends It’s The Center Of The Universe
U.S.-centric discourse, content, and attitudes make the U.S. the default or standard, and everyone else the Other — secondary, inferior.
There’s a troublingly pervasive idea that the U.S. is the center of the universe, though it isn’t always expressed as explicitly — or even euphemistically — as that. Instead it’s simply assumed, proffered as truth without a single backward glance or knowing nod to its own megalomania.
As someone who has never been to the U.S. — I was born in Australia and have been living in Latin America for 10 years — I come across U.S.-centrism frequently: in various online spaces, in the attitudes of people I talk to, and of course as a citizen on earth. The U.S.’s attitude in the world comes across as bossy at best, disturbingly violent at worst.
One needn’t look further than the American media landscape to bear witness to our ubiquitous self-obsession and perpetuation. Nearly 3 billion people around the world consume Hollywood movies, and the U.S. hosts 43% of the top 1 million websites; these are the spaces where power is wielded, values are manufactured, and the “leaders” we listen to are created.
