It has also been my experience that it’s easier to view America from the outside. Though I find this excruciatingly painful to convey to folks that I know who have never lived any where else.
I've found this holds true for me as well. My entire view of America shift after I spent only a semester abroad in Ireland, and it was all from being able to sit back and view it from a distance.
I've also found that this holds true for smaller levels as well. My hometown is fairly rural and in a high poverty county, yet people don't want any better. Since I moved out, I realized that's because it's all they've ever known; they don't really realize there is a difference than living there, doing the same things as adults they did as high schoolers, etc. It's just a vicious cycle, as that mindset gets passed on to their kids as well, and fosters quite a bit of anti-intellectualism in the mix (which I see as a teacher there now, though I don't live there).
