Optional

Yes? And? Jat's assertion was that american culture is 'simple', 'all too easy to understand', basically nothing but 'rampant consumerism'. This is simply untrue. America's culture is complex enough that it's really stretching the definition to even talk about america's 'culure' as if there IS such a thing as a single american 'culture'. Our society is, in actuality, more complex than most for the simple reason that our population was built on massive immigration. This gives different areas of the country entirely different cultural 'flavors', different enough that there are actually cultural translation problems between different areas of this one country.

There IS a kind of consensus 'culture', or McCulture in my opinion, based on the most visible aspects of daily american life, that being our ubiquitous chains, such as Wal-Mart or Burgur King or the like, and on the simplified vision that is shown on television. THAT is fairly simple and easy to understand... But it is not really what the country IS.

Any single definition of American 'culture' has to be able to at once describe the insomniac business of New York, the freewheeling recreational political corruption of Florida, the free and easy and commercialized vice of Las Vegas and the free and easy and less comercialized vice of New Orleans, the laid back relaxation of Southern California, the frantic liberalism of Washington State and the strict conservatism of South Carolina, all the various competing varieties of the best damn barbecue in the world (that would be georgia pork barbecue, fuck off kansas and texas), the quiet desperation of dying lead-belt towns, the quiet reserve of New England, the LOUD brashness of the down home tent revival meeting, the areas of every large city where all the signs are suddenly speaking spanish at you, the different areas of every large city where all the signs are suddenly speaking Chinese at you, and so on and so on and so on and so on.

Now, before I hear the inevitable 'but here these other countries are just as complex', I KNOW THAT, ok, I am not IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM comparing America to anything but America here. All I'm saying is what I said in the beginning: if you really and truly think American culture is 'simple', then you don't understand American culture.

Ah... No, I didn't mean to say that. I only meant that cultural heterogeneity is distinctively american in the same way that good beer is distinctively german. We are certainly not the ONLY country in the world to be able to claim cultural heterogeneity, it's just that it is one of the things of note about us.

-me

Gurdur

Kinda a bad comparison.

The reason why cultural heterogenity is so much of "note" about the USA is that it gets trumpeted so louldly and widely, not because of any semi-objective scale of homo-/heterogenity throughout the world.

Just to give an example:
The USA has only one official language, fer crissakes; I've visited a nation with 20 official languages, as well as another 200 unofficial ones.
And lived in nations with 3 official languages, and another 250 not offcially recognised.

Yes, I've visited the USA; but the thing that strikes me is the homogenous idealization of the USA that is often practised by its inhabitants, not any supposed heterogenity.
The homogenous self-picture so many Americans have is, for me, in stark contrast to the widely disparate views about their own nations that many other nationalities have.

Optional

Well, yeah, that's fair. But from what I can tell, the american 'ideal' (aka the 'american dream') is something that has never actually existed, anywhere. I don't know, nor have I EVER known, ANYBODY that could be said to be 'living the american dream'.

As far as the one official language deal, the REASON for that is because if we DIDN'T have one official language, we would very quickly become one of those 200 language countries you mentioned. If you were to look at the actual first language of everybody in america, and then maybe go back a generation or two and find THEIR first languages, you'd probably find a fair proportion of all the world's languages there. I know for me, at least, my great-great-grandfather was a native Welsh speaker.

Now again, I'll agree that yeah, there are certainly countries out there with a great deal more heterogenity than the USofA. Doesn't diminish what DOES exist here, though.

-me

vixstile

It's my view that there is no such thing as "American Culture", but many "American Cultures"

But I can really give a crap about "cultures". I'm a rabid individualist!

Luiseach

I agree that American culture is complex. Where I don't agree is where it was asserted that it is difficult to comprehend a culture because it is complex.

As for 'rampant consumerism'...hmmm, well, this could be fairly attributed to more nations than the United States.

Agreed. The term 'culture' is, itself, a loaded one that can obscure the full plurality of cultural expressions possible.

Canada, as a point of comparison, is also a nation built of immigrants. It can claim multiculturalism as one of its defining characteristics.

The United Kingdom, again as a point for comparison, has a longer history than either Canada or the U.S. in terms of immigrant activity.

Although it is not a country in itself, but rather a group of nations moving towards unification, The European Union, made up as it is of many different nations, cultures, sub-cultures, politics, languages, traditions etc., is by far one of the most complex emergent united entities in the world. I wonder how the E.U. fits in here, for comparison with the United States? Or does it fit in at all?

At the same time, however, I don't think I agree at this point in the conversation that the U.S.A. is more complex than other nations. Immigration has always occurred, in the States and elsewhere, and therefore cannot be claimed as a definitively American trait.

What is American about American culture, then, in your view...in a nutshell? Consumerism and immigration, complexity and heterogeneity...none of these characteristics are the sole property of the United States, and so cannot be seen as uniquely 'American.'

Ah, I see you have provided some images of America, namely,

All of that is more along the lines of what America is. Concrete facts, imagery, perceptions, opinions....from one person of course. All of that is what America is to one person...and that is the point, I mean...one of the central American ideals is the individual person.

For me, America has always emphasised the importance of rugged individualism. That's how I see America. Like I suggested before in this thread, it's what made my parents leave the U.K.. They are part of that immigrant move towards self-actualisation, as am I, and individualism was what motivated them (namely, to escape the limitations on personal freedoms in the U.K.)...my father standing in the rain in Glasgow, seeing that big, shiny car - a symbol of American hope, idealism, consumerism, glamour, audacity, assertiveness, technicolour...The 'HERE I AM'-ness of it...and then he and my mother wanting to live in the reality that this car came from, and what it stood for. They didn't emigrate to buy a car, they left to work towards the life of individual autonomy that the car represented. Call it idealistic, but that's what is so good about American culture...for me, at any rate.

America's idealism about individual freedom is more distinctively 'American' than many other characteristics, I think.

Gurdur

Yup; all I wanted to do was point out the homogenity of the Official Dream. Yup. Look, I'm not talking about what should be here; I'm simply taking what is.
I'm actually mostly staying out of this whole conversation; despite Vorkosigan's claim that volunteer work has never been higher than now in the States (a claim, IIRC, contradicted by the actual evidence; volunteerism has been dropping steadily in the States since the 1950's); despite Jat's simplistic sloganizing; despite a lot of things .....
.... this kind of conversation most often turns into a zero-sum game, i.e. it's played so someone is forced to lose.

I mean, it's perfectly factual and OK to point out the USA and "Europe" have their good points; but quite a few people in this thread just can't let it go at that, and feel emotionally forced to denigrate the supposed "competition".

So I'm sticking to sub-conversations with people like yourself and Luiseach, and I'll be buggered if I waste my time in pissing contests or trying to correct agitprop sloganizing with the rest of the thread.

beyelzu

actually it was about civilization.


the question was what do you think of western civilization?


anyway iirc

beyelzu

wasnt that at least partially the effect of the red menace though?


us vs them and all that.


I do agree with you though, it did seem more united even 10 yrs ago, but then I am only 26 so what the fuck do I know?

beyelzu

well, dropped since the 60's to the 90's and has increased since then
from http://www.volunteerpower.com/articles/new.htm

Gurdur

And Putnam was in fact the researcher on whom I based my statement. Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, gives tons of primary research studies, as well as other references, in a very detailed study, backing up all the statements.
According to just whom ????

Your cited article doesn't provide a single reference for its claims of increasing volunteerism. Not a single one.

An unsupported assertion gains no weight from being on a web page.