Jacqueline GaNun

What a small subset of non-Americans think of the U.S., and why we need to be more curious about the world

By Jacqueline GaNun
Oct. 16, 2025

Read this post on Substack here.

PARIS — When I asked my French high school students what they thought of Americans, I told them they could be honest. They took me up on that offer.

“Most Americans are kind of dumb,” they told me matter-of-factly. A few mentioned large portion sizes or guns, but the most common answer I received was that Americans do not know much about anything that goes on outside of our own country.

I find this way of thinking — that all 340 million people in a giant country can be painted with the same brush — shortsighted and unfair,¹ but I also know this criticism is not entirely unwarranted. I was honest with my students and told them yes, I have met some Americans who are not at all interested in learning about the world around them. An example: Just the other day, during a free French class, a woman said Mount Everest was in America. The instructor paused and asked if she was from the U.S., and when she said “yes,” everybody laughed in a rather patronizing way. I was intensely embarrassed by this, probably more than she was.

To a certain extent, I think the intense focus on our own country is understandable. Because the U.S. has been a major power in the world for so long, Americans are used to both looking inward and to having other people look at us. The U.S. is almost synonymous with global politics in a way that few other countries are, because what the U.S. does materially affects people all over the globe, so more people follow our elections, understand how our government works, and know about major news events. We also export so much music, movies, TV shows, books, and social media content, all of which cultivate a general knowledge of U.S. culture. On top of that, many in the U.S. argue we should be looking inward to work on our own problems, of which we have more than a few. The idea of American exceptionalism, woven through education and political rhetoric, also tends to focus our attention solely on us.

All of this culminates in a citizenry that is admittedly less than perfectly informed. Part of this problem is, as so many things are, institutional — there are vast educational disparities in the U.S. based on zip code and income that I would be remiss not to mention. Still, I have known people who grew up in the best of school systems who could not have a cogent conversation about current events even if they were under threat of death. (Recently, someone in my master’s program didn’t know what a prime minister was.)

I would like for more Americans to look to other nations, cultures, and ways of life without superiority but with curiosity, and I’d also love if we could do this within our own country. I argue we can focus on what needs to be solved at home while cultivating a general knowledge and interest in the world and people around us. Without this interest, ignorance and bigotry thrive.

I do know plenty of Americans who possess this curiosity in spades, and I emphatically told my new students about the countless people I know who are kind, caring, intelligent, curious, and constantly work to make their communities better. I stressed how large and diverse the country is regionally, politically, and ethnically, and tried to remind them of the dangers of arbitrarily assigning characteristics to people based on nationality. Who knows if they were paying attention to me on my soapbox, but all I can do is hope I don’t prove the stereotype of “dumb American” correct this year.

I hope this piece is a bit of a reality check on how the U.S. is currently viewed by (an admittedly small but perhaps representative) subset of Europeans, especially ones who have historically been our allies. I suppose I’m also wondering: If much of the current European image of the U.S. is gun violence, stupidity, and aggressive foreign politics — why does that matter, and how do we change it?

Ultimately, I want to encourage people to take the time to learn about other places. Being genuinely curious about the world and people around you makes life so much more fun. It also makes us less intolerant and more open-minded, which are qualities we sorely need at this moment. And this applies to those looking in on the U.S. as well — don’t accept the easy and unfair stereotypes about a nation of 340 million people and almost 10 million square kilometers (around 3.8 million square miles).²

That said — my fellow Americans, if you’re traveling abroad, please try not to be stupid. You’re giving the rest of us a bad name.

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Some of the Q&A I did with ten classes last week.

The questions my students asked me generally fell into four buckets: logistical, comparative, fun, and political.

The logistical:

• How long have you been in France? (one month as of writing)
• Have you traveled here before? (yes, briefly, in 2022)
• Why did you choose France? (always had an interest in the language and culture; exactly where that started I honestly cannot say)
• Do you speak French? (I’m learning it; have been taking classes for years but am not fluent)
• Do you like it so far? (yes!)

The comparative:

• Do you like France or America better? (considering I’ve only lived here for a month, I must say the U.S.)
• Is French food or American food better? (same as above)
• Do you like French people more than American people? (same as above)
• What are stereotypes Americans think about French people? (proud, rude, smelly, fashionable; many people I’ve met have been nice and the Métro smells no worse than the New York City subway in summer)

The fun:

• Do you watch “The Summer I Turned Pretty”? (only the last three episodes, but loved the books in middle school)
• Are you Team Conrad or Jeremiah? (Conrad)
• Do you play any sports? (I run, swim when I can)
• Who’s your favorite basketball/American football/football (soccer) player? (no earthly idea)
• Did you go to prom? (yes)
• Did you go to football games in high school? Was it as fun as it looks on TV? (yes, no)
• Were you a cheerleader? (yes, for one year — the girl who asked was so excited to hear this)
• Do you have a boyfriend? (declined to answer)
• Do you want a French boyfriend? (declined to answer)

The political:

• What do you think of Donald Trump?
• What do you think of ICE?
• Do you own a gun?
• Does anybody in your family own a gun?
• Have you experienced a mass shooting?

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

¹ Everybody uses heuristics (mental shortcuts) to make a messy world make more sense. Many Americans have their own unfair stereotypes of the French (or insert any nation/ethnic group here).

This type of thinking also tends to be rewarded and pushed online; in his 2022 book “The Chaos Machine,” Max Fisher writes that researchers warned in 2018 that Facebook’s “algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness … Facebook’s systems were designed in a way that delivered users ‘more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.’”

² France has a population of 68.5 million, about five times smaller than the U.S. Its area of about 630,000 square kilometers (about 213,000 square miles) is almost 16 times smaller than the U.S. For even more American context, France would cover roughly the area of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, most of Kentucky, and some of South Carolina.