I had the opportunity to attend this week’s Table Talk on Monday. There, we talked about the varying views of the world that Americans have regarding a variety of places in the world.

Generally, I consider myself to be somewhat educated on what is going on in the world around me. I come from a diverse family, with my mother coming from to this country from England and my father coming here from India. This fuels me to want to understand more about where my family came from and what aspects of the individual cultures of America, India, and England have been integrated into my life and values. However, when asked about my views about the situation between China and Hong Kong, the culture in Japan, and what I know about Scotland, I realized that I didn’t have strong views on events occurring outside of my worldview. Although I knew bits and pieces about what was going on in these countries, I thought about how much the average American would know about world events occurring in countries that our government has such strong opinions about. In an environment where our leaders either have extreme views about certain topics or no opinion at all, it’s hard to have an global perspective and to understand what is happening outside this country.