Whew, this thread took some twists and turns since the last time I looked!
I think it's pretty difficult to generalise about 300,000,000 people who live in a country 35x the size of the UK. The variety of people and living situationswhether large cities, countryside, desert, rolling plains, or arctic tundraensure a diversity of thought, opinion, and behaviour.
I don't really mind when someone says that they haven't liked the Americans that they've met, but I don't think it's at all fair to talk about 'typical Americans', as I'm pretty certain there isn't one.
Yeah, a number of Americans may be a bit insular, but I've found many similar people here in the UK, as well as Australia and New Zealand. In defence of those Americans (and the Kiwis and Aussies), however, it is far more difficult for them to travel abroad than it is for those of us here in the UK.
We can pop onto a quick easyJet flight or a Eurostar train and we're in Europe for the weekend for peanuts (and presumably more 'worldly' for doing so). This type of travel just isn't possible for most Americans; they can fly for six hours and still not have left the country!
Hey, I've met folk here that have thought that the Republic of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, so I know that the USA doesn't have a monopoly on ignorance.