American Culture: Threat to The World?

I've been asking myself a question lately regarding American culture. It seems today that we as Americans have this tendency to have an elitist attitude towards our culture. That is to say, we see our culture as vastly superior to that of other cultures. The world is slowly becoming Americanized, American pop-culture is spreading to other countries, the English language is the second-mostly widely spoken language (Mandarin is first), and the various ideals of American society are being instituted around the world. It appears that we're reaching out to these other countries and smothering them with our cultural beliefs

Now, I'm sure there are people out there who will disagree with me. However, I've spoken with several of my friends who were born outside the USA (one of the many advantages at going to a school with a rather larger international population). They all agree that American culture is slowly infiltrating into other cultures and taking over (This may only reflect the opinion of a few people, I acknowledge this is not many people). While I'm not saying American culture is inherently bad, I do believe we need to examine American culture as a potential threat to the cultural heritage of other peoples. The world is still a vast and diverse place, filled with many ideas and varied beliefs. Yet, so many Americans are ignorant to this diversity. They exclude themselves from experiencing these varied lifestyles and in doing so ignore some of our roots.

Quite a bit of knowledge and belief has come out of these countries with whom we regard today as "inferior" to us. The best example I can think of is the enormous amount of prejudice that seems to exist today towards Middle Eastern countries. The Middle East was a storehouse of knowledge, preserving much of the ancient literature of the Greeks and other cultures when the fanatical Christians were wiping it out in the name of God. If it weren't for the Arabs we may not have known who Aristotle was or be where we are at today in terms of sophistication.

The point I'm trying to make is, Americans need to stop viewing their world as the only one that matters. The elitist attitude of "America is the best" needs to stop in order for us to move forward. As long as we remain arrogant about who we are and ignorant to the beliefs and cultures of other people, we'll never have many friends in the world.