On Geographic Relativity

I seem to remember in high school being shown a series of maps drawn by residents of different regions. Each artist (I can't really call them topographers) drew their own community grossly out of proportion to the rest of the country/world. Millions of people have no concept of space and time beyond their own realm of influence. It always boils down to the "Oh, you're from (insert city/state/country/continent), do you know (insert randomly chosen name from phone book), he lives in (insert name of city/state/country/continent on same planet as previous)?" These questions, while offered in the hope of building common ground, serve to illustrate the relative ignorance of some people. Questions about people within the same city, assuming the city does not have a population of greater then 2 million, shows minimal ignorance. Asking a Norwegian if they know your "friend" from North Korea (they are on the same land mass after all) shows a great deal of ingnorance about geographic relations between countries. Does this ignorance show signs of some underlying racism? The idea that the place I call home is so much larger or better than anywhere else may be the root cause of international conflict. When we start with little common ground, and then increase the rift by belittling (however unintentionally) those we are trying to get along with, we soon degrade to the lowest common denominator.

So what is the lesson learned that I'm trying to pass along to any who will listen, I don't know, tell me what you think.