Jimu News Reporter Hu Li
Intern Wen Jiaru
First entered the shelves of the United States, and may be confused by the situation: canned food marked with "ounces" and water marked with "liters". According to CNN on June 12, the unit of measurement for the same product is different in the United States. Why is the United States, as the leader of developed countries, unwilling to use metric ?
US supermarket shelf . Source: CNN
Political and historical factors lead to the use of English
US media once said: "The use of english in the United States is a political story that has been dominant since the colonial era."
The cultural story about the metric and customary units of Americans must start with French Revolution in 1789.
During the French Revolution, the existing measurement systems gradually became unfriendly to the expansion of trade, and thus replaced them with decimal systems based on kilograms and meters. On April 7, 1795, the French parliament decided to promulgate the metric system. This system of weights and measures was adopted by more and more countries and became an international system of weights and measures.
When France and Britain fought in the 1790s, the United States had to choose one side to support it, so the British system expressed the attitude of the United States. The United States has maintained its adoption of the British system for hundreds of years.
The United States is one of the only three countries left in the world that use the imperial system
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, there are only three countries on the earth that do not use international metric units: Myanmar , Liberia and the United States.
The English length unit used in the United States is feet, the weight main unit is pounds, the volume main unit is gallons, and the temperature unit is is degrees Fahrenheit.
Centuries ago, which measurement system was used depends on which country was colonized by the country.
Harry Krasinsky, associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto, said: "Because Britain had colonized North America, the weights and measures of Canada and the United States are in the UK."
Canadian supermarket shelves. Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Once the United States accepts this setting of weights and measures and society operates under the rules of the imperial system, people will not be willing to change it any more.
Krasinski said: "People don't like to change things that are used to because the transition costs are high. In order to build a specific system, the government needs to make a lot of investment." But one thing is worth noting, in 1970, Canada decided to align with the international system and use the metric system.
"Exceptionism" has become the biggest resistance to promoting metric reform
In the history of measurement unit in the United States, many Americans have been committed to promoting metric reform. For example, as early as 1975, President Ford signed the "Metric Conversion Act" and called the "Preferred Weights and Measures System for U.S. trade and commerce."
But according to a 1977 poll, 60% of people opposed the metric system in the United States. Under such public pressure, President Reagan canceled the funding source of Ford's metric committee a few years later.
In 2016, former Governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafe, pointed out in his speech for president that the reform of the metric system is a "bold embrace of internationalism, let us join the rest of the world." But Cha Fei's idea was ridiculed, leaving his campaign without any progress.
Americans’ attitude towards units of measurement is very complicated: 32% of Americans want to adopt the metric system, but more people want the United States’ unit of measurement to "maintain the status quo." Behind these complex attitudes, it reflects the deeper psychology of the United States: exceptionalism.
American historian Morel Hilder and others wrote in the introduction to the book "Cultural and Diplomacy": "The starting point of American diplomatic affairs is the belief that the United States enjoys a special mission in external world relations that no other country can enjoy." This positioning and understanding of its own unique identity and the resulting strong sense of religious mission and moral superiority constitute the core of American exceptionalism.
The coexistence of metric and imperial systems, as well as the difficulties in promoting the reform of metric conversion, all reflect the deep separation caused by the United States as a multi-party country, its society due to inconsistent ideas and frequent party struggles.
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