Native English speakers and their apparent reticence to learn foreign languages.

I hope no one finds this offensive; I just want to get some insight into why so many native English speakers never study another language seriously. I know the same happens with the Japanese and Chinese. At first I thought the reason for that group for not learning English properly was due to huge linguistic differences but after chatting up with some Filipinos/Finns you realize quite swiftly their level is amazing -with the caveat that in the Philippines English is an official language-. Anyway such stark differences between Finnish and English -according to the foreign service institute, Finnish and Mandarin are equally hard- lead me to think the problem for the two Asian giants I named has to do more with ideology/poor educational systems than anything else. I think it's up to politics; on the other hand, using a purely practical approach, one could think people whose native language is English feel no need to learn really easy languages like Spanish, since English has become quite a long time ago the lingua franca of the world. Anyway I can't help but think that mastering a foreign language is such a worthwhile goal that regardless of the practical use you can give to it many more people should do it for the pure pleasure of knowing two different worlds.