Foo - Please define american culture

When asked specifically what american culture is i have a hard time explaining it. It can vary from state to state, region to region, but what would you describe as american culture?

When asked specifically what american culture is i have a hard time explaining it. It can vary from state to state, region to region, but what would you describe as american culture?


A mosaic consisting of a dash of everyone else's culture, add a couple guns, a few religious nuts, and some big cars. Then throw in an amazing ability to make it all work somehow, because when it comes down to it, that's what made us great.

Arrogant Manifest Destiny.

Dynamic and ever changing, with regional flavors influenced by multiple waves of immigration. ;)

Diners. Yum. But that's not much of a definition. So how about "the creative and/or commercial result of tension between independence and collectivism." Even better would be to read U.S.A. by John Dos Passos.

Arrogant Manifest Destiny.

Everyone says Americans are arrogant. I think thats incorrect, i really think ignorant is a better word.

I know it exists.Anyone ever encouraged you to visit the National Art Gallery and appreciate the landscapes of American painters./ Just like commerical aspects of Christmas has ruined Christmas for some; I am sure the same forces overshadow our American culture. When one thinks of culture. We have so many examples we could list. A huge list which I fear is too often forgotten. A few. John Philip Sousa, Woodie Guthrie,Carl Sandburg, Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Jackson Pollack, Thomas Cole, Andy Warhol, Whistler, Aaron Copeland, Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan,Jimi Hendrix. F Scott Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, H. L. Mencken, Louie Armstrong, Noah Webster, W H Auden. Muddie Waters, BB King. Miles Davis . George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein...List making and or name dropping may not be cool. / Yet, Americans don't do it enough. / Without the likes of Noah Webster , world education would be far less inventive. Before America education was hardly thought of as a universal right.
Those most guilty of cutting American culture short: It is us./ We are a very innovative people , if only our media would tell us of our history. Considering the waste that is American radio and how our history is forgotten. Its enough to make one furious. If only we had a media thinking our past is worth telling, then we might remember our accomplishments./ And finally, how can we expect to recall our history when even our high schools pay it such short shrift.

Only in the quiet, secluded areas with a fairly consistent population will there be a set culture. The USA is a big mix of cultures, which will become somewhat more blended over time. A significant portion of the population still does not use the internet, or only uses it to check e-mail.

"My country tis of me". -- Megadeth.

I know it exists.Anyone ever encouraged you to visit the National Art Gallery and appreciate the landscapes of American painters./ Just like commerical aspects of Christmas has ruined Christmas for some; I am sure the same forces overshadow our American culture. When one thinks of culture. We have so many examples we could list. A huge list which I fear is too often forgotten. A few. John Philip Sousa, Woodie Guthrie,Carl Sandburg, Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Jackson Pollack, Thomas Cole, Andy Warhol, Whistler, Aaron Copeland, Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan,Jimi Hendrix. F Scott Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, H. L. Mencken, Louie Armstrong, Noah Webster, W H Auden. Muddie Waters, BB King. Miles Davis . George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein...List making and or name dropping may not be cool. / Yet, Americans don't do it enough. / Without the likes of Noah Webster , world education would be far less inventive. Before America education was hardly thought of as a universal right.
Those most guilty of cutting American culture short: It is us./ We are a very innovative people , if only our media would tell us of our history. Considering the waste that is American radio and how our history is forgotten. Its enough to make one furious. If only we had a media thinking our past is worth telling, then we might remember our accomplishments./ And finally, how can we expect to recall our history when even our high schools pay it such short shrift.

Nice post, makes one think. I need some more time to think about what american culture really is to me before i answer.

Fat.

"I think it would be a good idea."

Nice post, makes one think. I need some more time to think about what american culture really is to me before i answer.

Those names did not just pop into mind, I had to take a quick look at our bookshelves to name names. But American name dropping might be something that would restore a little national pride. How could I overlook Ansel Adams. there is a figure that should make us boast about the beauty of America./ How about the next Fourth of July. A cultural event I'd wish someone would host. A concert of Aaron Copeland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man," to be hosted in the rooftop courtyard of Ansel Adams museum in San Francisco. That need be a national event with fireworks and all.

Real, true American culture is what we and the rest of the world consider Pop culture.

We can rattle off a bunch of amazing places and incredible influences that have shaped our country, but when it comes down to it, our culture is based on what is popular. I wish I could say it wasn't, but it is.

Real, true American culture is what we and the rest of the world consider Pop culture.

I guess that makes me counter-culture.

It'd help to define "America", as well. The pair of continents? North America? South America? Central America? Or maybe a region within one of those, like Brazil, Canada, or the United States?

The Americas as a whole don't have one, unifying culture.

http://rachelhenwood.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mcdonalds-kid.jpg

Just kidding. I'm not that pessimistic. Well, mostly not.
You used to be able to define American culture. It used to be that immigrants were coming to America to be "American." It had a tangible quality that they could describe. Now, it seems many are coming here to change America. My mother is Asian and my father is American (caucasian) which gives me a mostly Asian look and whenever someone asks me my nationality, I tell them I'm American. They usually then ask, "no, where are you from?" I say America.
I don't know how to define America today. America used to have an identity. It's become a very global world we live in rather than national.
I do know that there is still value in American music, fashion and many other countries choose to send their children here for education.

Real, true American culture is what we and the rest of the world consider Pop culture.

We can rattle off a bunch of amazing places and incredible influences that have shaped our country, but when it comes down to it, our culture is based on what is popular. I wish I could say it wasn't, but it is.

I have always thought pop music to be worth listening to. The reason, it must resignate with us or it would not be popular. And music is poetry, don't let anyone tell you it isn't. The music of Coldplay is a message of today's culture. For something innovative. listen to Coldplay's Politik or Clocks. Or Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah or Dance Me to the End of Love or Eva Caddidy's vocals. Modern culture is not all crap.

I guess that makes me counter-culture.

I am definitely with you. I am opposite just about everything our culture considers cool or hot. I am become modern caveman.



Why? Why a Colt, RexG? Couldn't you travel further with a full size horse?

Topical.

I have noticed one strange thing. A lot of Americans describe themselves as Irish, African, Italian, German etc. That is until they talk to someone that really is from Ireland, Africa, Italy, Germany and find out that those folks may acknowledge that there is an ancestry but for the most part we're all really Americans.

american culture

Oxymoron.

Oxymoron.

See cyclezealot's first post.


I know it exists.Anyone ever encouraged you to visit the National Art Gallery and appreciate the landscapes of American painters./ Just like commerical aspects of Christmas has ruined Christmas for some; I am sure the same forces overshadow our American culture. When one thinks of culture. We have so many examples we could list. A huge list which I fear is too often forgotten. A few. John Philip Sousa, Woodie Guthrie,Carl Sandburg, Frost, Sinclair Lewis, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Jackson Pollack, Thomas Cole, Andy Warhol, Whistler, Aaron Copeland, Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan,Jimi Hendrix. F Scott Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, H. L. Mencken, Louie Armstrong, Noah Webster, W H Auden. Muddie Waters, BB King. Miles Davis . George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein...List making and or name dropping may not be cool. / Yet, Americans don't do it enough. / Without the likes of Noah Webster , world education would be far less inventive. Before America education was hardly thought of as a universal right.
Those most guilty of cutting American culture short: It is us./ We are a very innovative people , if only our media would tell us of our history. Considering the waste that is American radio and how our history is forgotten. Its enough to make one furious. If only we had a media thinking our past is worth telling, then we might remember our accomplishments./ And finally, how can we expect to recall our history when even our high schools pay it such short shrift.

It'd help to define "America", as well. The pair of continents? North America? South America? Central America? Or maybe a region within one of those, like Brazil, Canada, or the United States?

The Americas as a whole don't have one, unifying culture.

I'm not sure I agree with this. We do have a common history of European conquest of indigenous populations and mass migration, both forced and voluntary. For the last two hundred years we've been struggling to create more egalitarian societies* out of that tragic, beautiful, conflicted history. Throughout the Americas, I think our culture is mostly the expression of the hybridities that have been born by that history. It looks, sounds, tastes a little different depending where you are, but jazz, samba, and rumba have a lot more in common than it might look like at first.


*well many have been struggling against that egalitarian push, but the fight has been real.

A mosaic consisting of a dash of everyone else's culture, add a couple guns, a few religious nuts, and some big cars. Then throw in an amazing ability to make it all work somehow, because when it comes down to it, that's what made us great.

Crash that is about as good a discription as I think any one could come up with:thumb: agree 100%


Everyone says Americans are arrogant. I think thats incorrect, i really think ignorant is a better word.


Arrogant Manifest Destiny.

:notamused: If it is so ****ing bad here there are flights leaving the U.S. everyday:notamused:
Roy

Crash that is about as good a discription as I think any one could come up with:thumb: agree 100%





:notamused: If it is so ****ing bad here there are flights leaving the U.S. everyday:notamused:
Roy

"I love the place that I live, but I hate the people in charge."

Everyone says Americans are arrogant. I think thats incorrect, i really think ignorant is a better word.

I don't understand how this self-loathing has become so en vogue with some of my fellow Americans. It was reflected in the Messiah's speech yesterday -- trashtalking America to win favor with foreigners. Where in your life did you grow to self hate?

America reaches out to protect and defends its neighbors, takes a lead in ethical endeavors, is always willingly at the forefront of aid to the victims of almost ever natural disaster around the world (despite no affirmative obligation to do so), and is basically a beacon of hope to oppressed people everywhere. It's sad that Americans are plagued with guilt over the good fortune and prosperity we have achieved thru our exercise of freedom and self determination.

People who think like this are tools of those who seek to undermine our wonderful country. :(


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Back to the original topic -- I am no scholar in the area of melting pot vs. salad bowl, but American culture is partly characterized by intact elements of its constituent people (salad bowl) --- mmmmm....we all like Mexican food and Italian food both, and enjoy having access to both, for example. Other elements have a more organic origin, like the distinctly American traditions of baseball and BoyScouts. Then you have the melting pot elements, a product of constituent elements. Of course, part of our culture (constantly under attack) is individualism -- the freedom to soar as high as your wings (your ingenuity and labor) will take you. Ideally, American culture will continue to be marked by relatively constrained governmental intrusion on the ability of a person or group of persons to exercis that ingenuity and hard work, to self determine. Certainly, the notion that a person can be anything they want to be is distinctly American. The extent that other cultures in modern times share a similar view of self determiniation and individuality is perhaps a reflection of the cultural diffusion to (our influence upon) other regions of the globe.

Everyone says Americans are arrogant. I think thats incorrect, i really think ignorant is a better word.

Arrogance begets ignorance; when you think you've got it all, know it all or can do it all, you don't try for the next step up.

Modern American culture is the hedonistic child of freewheeling excellence and achievement, raised on manifest destiny and fed on the genius of nonconformists who refused to accept life as it was. Modern American culture is the extravagant heir of blood, sweat and tears from many of the best and brightest the last 250 years have ever seen.

Modern American culture is irreverent, volatile, and borderline decadent; when you grow up with the surety that you live in "the greatest country in the world", there is no excess too excess, no line in the sand uncrossed, and no propriety too precious to unburden.

American culture is the playground bully who doesn't know it, means no real harm, and worries over a stubbed toe while the broken nose gushes behind him.

Oh man, I don't know about that. I've been treated with so much rascism and disrespect ever since I got to Florida that I have strong mixed up feelings about this. I've been told "go back to your country!". Even tho, this IS my country... I was born in US soil, my dad too, my granpha too... SO I have to say that a big part of the American Culture is to dislike those who are not paper white, have no blonde hair, and no blue eyes.

Ruben, that was your first mistake -- you went to FLORIDA! FL isn't really part of the USA, it's the festering hemorrhoid dangling off the sphincter of the nation.

My maternal ancestors landed on the shore over a century ago; my paternal side, supposedly on the Mayflower. I could personally care less, it doesn't put so much as a crust of bread in my cupboard. I'm not paper white, blond and blue-eyed by any means -- you can see the red man coming out just in my skin tone! Dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a face as uneven, even "crooked" as you'll see this side of a sideshow. It's a little bit that, but mostly because I don't comport myself like an aspiring New England swell that keeps me from 'the heights I could achieve'.

Bone 'em all, I couldn't care less; I'm going to enjoy as much of my life as I can, from the rides every day to the smiles, hugs, and laughter of my children, to the hobbies I pursue. I work with my hands, and while I "could have been" a rich and successful businessman, I preferred from day 1 to pursue passion rather than pay. If I wake up every day and I like who I am, that's enough. If I wake up from silk sheets, in a million-dollar house, and gaze into a bathroom mirror big enough to use as a dining room table, and I don't like who I see, then I have not made the best use of my life.

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Back to the original topic -- I am no scholar in the area of melting pot vs. salad bowl, but American culture is partly characterized by intact elements of its constituent people (salad bowl) --- mmmmm....we all like Mexican food and Italian food both, and enjoy having access to both, for example. Other elements have a more organic origin, like the distinctly American traditions of baseball and BoyScouts. Then you have the melting pot elements, a product of constituent elements. Of course, part of our culture (constantly under attack) is individualism -- the freedom to soar as high as your wings (your ingenuity and labor) will take you. Ideally, American culture will continue to be marked by relatively constrained governmental intrusion on the ability of a person or group of persons to exercis that ingenuity and hard work, to self determine. Certainly, the notion that a person can be anything they want to be is distinctly American. The extent that other cultures in modern times share a similar view of self determiniation and individuality is perhaps a reflection of the cultural diffusion to (our influence upon) other regions of the globe.

Neither Boy Scouts nor Baseball are distinctly American.

[QUOTE=ATAC49er;7137220]Ruben, that was your first mistake -- you went to FLORIDA! FL isn't really part of the USA, it's the festering hemorrhoid dangling off the sphincter of the nation.

Awesome. I see a potential future sig here. :)

Ruben, that was your first mistake -- you went to FLORIDA! FL isn't really part of the USA, it's the festering hemorrhoid dangling off the sphincter of the nation.

Thank you. It is indeed very good to know that not the whole nation is like this. After 2 years in FL I now feel like I'm an inmigrant, even tho I'm 3rd generation citizen. People can be very mean around here.

I think this is an appropriate commentary on American Culture.

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk77/UnsafeAlpine/screenshot-1-1.jpg

Oh man. Blood is shooting out of my eyes! Don't you guys know what culture even is? It is everything that humans do, think, and use. Therefore...everything that has been touched by the hand of man is a part of culture. If that thing or idea is from an American, it is part of American culture.

But the thing that really sets us apart from much of the world (with a few exceptions) is how much we revel in our differences because we all embrace our freedom to be...us. We collectively would like to be left alone, and must act collectively on occasion to be left alone.

I am an unhyphenated-American!

See cyclezealot's first post.

Forward me the Cliff's Notes version and I'll consider reading it.

America... oh so patriotic in your ways.
Religion has too much influence over American culture and society.

I'm talking about the "god bless America" at the end of the speech. I haven't heard of another 1st world country where the speech ends in "god bless (insert country)"

Anything can be bought for the right price. Quantity over quality. It seems like people are more interested in the fictional lives of their beloved television characters than that are in their own.

We may tell ourselves we are the mutts of the world. Don't believe it we have built some of the world finest universities. Was it not Jefferson who called America the last best hope on Earth and did we not embody that sentiment in the US Constitution with the phrase perfect a more perfect union.
We are doubly lucky in that we can live overseas and enjoy another culture for some years of our lives. Its not the John Philip Sousa songs that makes you wonder if you are on the wrong side of the ocean. / Its this one from our Shaker music history that causes this American who lives overseas to woner..... Which I say reflects the urge by American pilgrims to perfect a more perfect union. The role of modern day Americans is not to forget that call.


[edit] The lyrics
"Simple Gifts" was written by Elder Joseph while he was at the Shaker community in Alfred, Maine in 1848. These are the lyrics to his one-verse song:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.


Several Shaker manuscripts indicate that this is a "Dancing Song" or a "Quick Dance." That is apparent with such lines of the song as "turn, turn will be our delight" and "turning, turning we come round right". These are dance instructions. (It should also be noted that the tune traditionally paired with these lyrics (see below) is also used in many hymnals for the song "Lord of the Dance".)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Gifts

Everyone says Americans are arrogant. I think thats incorrect, i really think ignorant is a better word.

I think many of our ancestors might think such sentiments a betrayl.... You don't like those present leaders who betray our core values. / There are Americans who reflect other core values./ I hope they are our core values, as shown by our Bill of Rights and support of Human Rights by many in American history. We will not go into the huge list of American hero figures who fought to make the world a better , smarter more humane place in a more humane world . But there are many.
.........To name a few. This time I will try and edit more carefully of those who inspired the world to be more humane. ....... Eleanor Roosevelt, August Spies , Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglas, Mother Jones, Helen Keller, Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Soujourner Truth. Dorothy Day....et al.
Its just a matter of which Americans you choose to remember. I suggest you don't let them down. Do we choose to forget how many Americans have sacrificied so much for us. Don't forget those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.

Forward me the Cliff's Notes version and I'll consider reading it.

I agree and understand your criticism... Still, culture abhors Cliff notes. I doubt Andrew Carnegie would choose to spend his fortune lining American libraries with a complete set of cliff notes for American kids to use as a means to cheat in American Literature classes./ Why did I get carried away in my partial list. Americans should be acquainted with these names and I suspect many choose not to.

When asked specifically what american culture is i have a hard time explaining it. It can vary from state to state, region to region, but what would you describe as american culture?

Now or then?

Then: a mix of people from various backgrounds who struggled with the terrain, survival, horrid conditions, each other, defining a nation, the issue of rights and responsibilities, taxation without representation, slavery, unity vs. diversity, innovation, wars and hard times, etc.

Now: a bunch of fat, lazy people who can't see beyond the next week, consumers, TV addicts, racists who don't even realize it, religious fanatics who have no respect or true understanding for the founding fathers' intent of religious freedom, people who think they have the right to do anything just because they can, "gimme" welfare recipients who have no clue that they are living a life of luxury compared to folks in other countries. ...Basically, a bunch of spoiled brats.

We've been at a cross-roads for a while on this. I think we will have to suffer before re-establishing some sustaining values.

American Culture,Hummmm

Larry the Cable Guy
Rush Limbaugh
Cadlliac Esclades
Truck Nutz
4300 Sq Ft homes for two people
"Cops" in Ft Worth
Bugs Bunny and The Road Runner
5 Guys in a Bluegrass Band singing "Viva Viagra"
Biker Bars
Darrell Waltrip
Its no wonder the rest of the world thinks we're Nuts!

A mosaic consisting of a dash of everyone else's culture, add a couple guns, a few religious nuts, and some big cars. Then throw in an amazing ability to make it all work somehow, because when it comes down to it, that's what made us great.



dood.. that's like, 'quotable' and stuff.


What a sublimely poignant description. It's eloquent, concise, complete... I'm really speechless for words. :thumb:




**edit, actually I misread part of it... I thought it read ''clash'' - not 'dash' .. (you should change it 'clash' - it would make it much better and and true to reality. really, it would).

American culture is way different than that of an other country. Go to most any country on this planet and see people that share an ancestory of sorts. Either all are Latins or Slavic, etc. Each country has it's own traditions too. American culture or Americanism as I like to call it goes beyond culture since the country is composed of different peoples. It has to do the the following and grasping of a vision. An idea of liberty, and to pursuit your dreams as is your God-given rights. This is why people entering public office, soldiers, officers and naturalized citizens (such as myself) swear an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. People can be killed and countries destroyed but an idea is oh-so-very hard to defeat.:)
Ernest

Gun ranges with single's nights?

"I love the place that I live, but I hate the people in charge."

First question ? did you vote ? If you did, then ***** away about our leadership if you can call it that !!! if not I don't want to here it:)

I find it ironic that some one living in Colorado springs is complaining about manifest destiny

As far as calling the U.S. ignorant:notamused: In my experiance if you take an average 100 Americans and give them a task that has to be done 85 to 90 will put there heads together and figure out how to get it done and do it the other 10 to 15 will be equally divided, between those who set on their ass and complain that the way it is getting done is Ignorant. but don't have any ideas on how to do it. And those who sit on their ass and then claim they did everything and had all the ideas

There is a reason I'm not in charge of this country:lol:I f I were in charge, people making statements like that would find a black suburban waiting at mommies when they got home(I read old posts) to take them to ther free 6 month vacation to some where like Iran or cuba or some of the other "good" spots in the world to live
Roy

I think what describes US culture is a belief that it's okay to invade other countries if politicians tell you it's for your safety and well being, with the masses being too stupid to know any better. In countries where education prevales, this just doesn't happen so much. Also, as has been said, the US is all about other cultures divided up by region.

Some associate the US with being a nation of gun nuts, and I think that might be about right. We here are nuts about guns, and we have more gun rights than most places, but people in the US not as generally good with guns like folks are in Switzerland and Norway. Unlike those 2 countries in the present day, the US hasn't been a nation of riflemen for about 80 years.

I f I were in charge, people making statements like that would find a black suburban waiting at mommies when they got home(I read old posts) to take them to ther free 6 month vacation to some where like Iran or cuba or some of the other "good" spots in the world to liveSooo... Not a fan of the first amendment, I take it?

First question ? did you vote ? If you did, then ***** away about our leadership if you can call it that !!! if not I don't want to here it:)

I find it ironic that some one living in Colorado springs is complaining about manifest destiny

I know, it is kind of ironic living in the benefit of that 1856, kill all the natives, expansion into the West.

I say "Arrogant Manifest Destiny" in that it seems we, and our esteemed leaders (I'm 54 and faaar right of what passes for Republicans these days) have little regard, or conscience about raiding the world for the resources and labor needed to keep us in our "American Way of Life", which I can only describe as a child-like desire to live a grand life, cheaply, and at the expense of others in the world, and without any consequences for those actions.

I'm all for it, and I wish it could be, but many of those consequences are starting to manifest now, and the multitude will blame the wrong causes for their distress, and fall for the siren song of socialism, which is offered as a cure, and which I have an enduring hatred of, and for.

I'm actually fighting for the self-reliant, get-er-done, American Culture of old, and against the anti-freemarket Soviet, enslave-everyone-on-earth-for-us-elitists, New Cultural Model, that your (and I say "your" because I don't, and won't vote) leaders want to provide for us.

I'm proud of so many of these posters for standing for what's right, it's the American Way.

Jeez, here probably goes another good thread off to P&R.