"Eric Takabayashi" <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote in message

> > > _The New
> > > Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know_
> >
> > Pret-a-penser one size fits all.
>
> No validity to it?

I finds that boring when everybody reads the same books, and really painful
when everybody reads the same digests of the same books. Like when there
were only a few TV channels, and all the town had seen the same shows,
films, series and news.

>Modern Americans can do without even an acquaintance with
> simple references to literary works five centuries or two thousand years
old,
> if not actual knowledge itself?

Yes. Reference without knowledge is talking out of your ass. No problem that
a person is completely ignorant about litterature, but is an expert in music
and botanic or computers and cooking.
The people that can say 2 words about any subject, but don't have anything
they can talk about during hours must have a very sad life.

>Is it not foreigners who claim Americans do not
> know or respect enough of the world outside themselves, or are ignorant of
the
> lessons of history?
>
> > In Japanese, that's called nihonjinron. I've been seen the 2004 editions
had
> > just arrived in bookstores.
>
> Of what? Imidas and the like? Or do you mean trendy works like _Baka no
Kabe_?

I don't know the authors or titles...Simply those pocket books that list all
the events and fashion trends retained as "important" the last year and
explain what decent people should think about it. About Ayu Hamasaki that is
a self-made genius nobody should ignore, the North-Korean hostages that are
the most important international issue...etc, Just what you hear everywhere
from the mouth of people that can't recognize an Ayu from other TV fish and
are not very sure Seoul is in South or North Korea.

CC