Europe is not the example I would use to tear down myths of American exceptionalism because Europe has its own myth of European exceptionalism. Europe has a cultural context that radically diverged from the Americas: the whole 19th century was a series of bloody, pointless conflicts that made populations extremely suspicious of power and the ability to compel labor / service. In fact, I find Europe a poor comparison because the cultural values around work ethic
are so different. A better analogue is South America: culturally we share a lot more values (especially around consumerism and the value of work, though South America tends to value
workers) with our southern neighbors than our friends across the pond.
No, it’s when you visit the cities most Americans think of as “third world shitholes”: places like Mexico City, Bangkok, Manila, Lagos, Bogota... and you realize they have much more modern infrastructure with more accessible healthcare, better food, and more opportunity for social advancement. When you see how the quality of life is better — or at at least equivalent — in a “shithole country”, it really disabuses you of any previously-held notions that America is heads-and-shoulders above the rest of the world. We largely just trade individual happiness for a low unemployment rate and a high per-capita income (which is only high if you ignore how much more we spend on healthcare).
I’m a big fan of Factfulness by Hans Rosling. One of the most insightful things in the book is that our understanding of the situation on the ground in a far off culture is that any information we have about that place will perpetually be 10 years behind reality. This has more to do with cultural / language differences than anything; before western researchers even realize advancement is happening to know to measure it, the change has already achieved critical mass. And the pace of advancement has only gotten faster, meaning our perceptions of these places are even further behind the reality.
But if you don’t travel, you don’t see any of that. You just see what the news shows you; and that news is influenced by the sentiments of an audience comprised of people who largely don’t travel. So misunderstandings persist.