Even ants have culture… so: ✅️ agree.
Who cares? Lots of people like to say lots of pointless things that aren’t useful.
The alternative title would be “person does not understand what the word ‘culture’ means and says something dumb”.
yeah. everythings a culture. even dickish nationalist type have a culture. there is nerd culture and gay culture. of course there is still going to be trumphole culture. its not immune.
The US isn’t a nation in the ethnic or cultural sense. It’s a federation of 50 semiautonomous states. There are also over 500 federally recognized native American nations in the US. The US isn’t one nation of people with one, single homogeneous culture.
Thank you, this is a great way to put it. Go to new Orleans and tell me they don’t have a culture on Bourbon street, or walking around the older districts, those beignets. New York with thin pizza, thick accents, history. The Midwest and their fascination with jello and casseroles and endless fried food while thinking having a state fair in the hottest days of summer are normal. Or in the Pacific northwest where wearing flannel and drinking coffee are local requirements.
We have very specific cultures, so many unique ones. Everywhere does. Every region around the world does. When you zoom out all you see is what is the same, and it looks boring and bland. That’s true about everywhere.
What a disappointing way to summarize the Midwest
They didn’t put much effort into it, did they?
I like to think of the Midwest as a more homely place. Here in KC I walk down the street and people nod or smile and say hello or wish you a good morning/afternoon/evening. If you ask someone on the street for directions, they’ll be genuinely helpful. We have the best barbecue (a food which is smoked and grilled, not fried, thank you.) and some of the best jazz clubs you’ll ever experience.
I took a trip down to Oklahama City for a Thunder game a few years ago and the whole section I sat in treated me like a welcomed neighbor. Their roller derby league welcomed me to come practice with them.
But most of all, I kinda just like how there isn’t a general hostility between people here like there is on the coasts. People are kinda just friendly.
Yeah, a lot of the Midwest is really cool. It’s just kind of overwhelmed by the cornfields. I also feel like jello hasn’t been a big thing since the 90s at least.
There are quite a bit more than 550 cognizable cultural subdivisions to the United States. Just as there are more than one distinct extant culture native to the parts of the island of Great Britain formally decreed as “England”.
But there’s also a single and indelible national identity unique to and endemic within the United States. With a distinct history that’s at least 39 years older than the comparable “German” identity. (Assuming we date to the founding of the German confederation in 1815 and not the much more recent 1990 reunification – gemany’s current borders are younger than the NES!)
Most nations are comprised of multiple parts which slowly congeal to a.recognizable strain over years. No place on earth with a UN embassy has a “single homogenous culture”. The USA exports so much of ours that it’s easy to miss what makes us unique.
But there’s also a single and indelible national identity unique to and endemic within the United States.
And what’s that?
“American” is how they usually describe themselves. You might be familiar with them from movies like “star wars” or “captain america”, or their countless export of songs, reporting, jingoism, and comic books.
It can be easy to be confused since they still call their language “English” and there is a bevy of actors and other creatives from Canada, Australia, and the UK, but there are actually people who aren’t from those places or any other place.
The problem with the “American” national identity that you claim is so indelible is it’s not coherent or consistent. Ask several different “Americans” what it means to be American and you’re likely to get several, significantly different, possibly even mutually exclusive answers. They may all identify as American but they have different conceptions of what that means.
I want to make something clear: I was born and raised in the US and I’ve lived here my entire life. I always identified as American, and I thought I knew what that meant, but I don’t anymore. I travel all over the country and everywhere I go I encounter people who feel more and more foreign to me all the time. We don’t understand or relate to each other very well. It’s even gotten to the point where there’s a good amount of hostility and animosity between us. I think all of that is pretty antithetical to a shared national identity, regardless of what movies and songs come out of a handful of big corporations in LA.
You’re conflating morals, culture, and national identity in a way that is actually kinda uniquely American.
Pick any national identity of any other UN member, do a small bit of digging, and you’ll find a spectrum of morals and culture among its citizens. Often with a population-proportionate level of hostility comparable to what the USA has, unless actively suppressed by some tyrannical mechanism.
One of the things that hides the issue is that the British meaning of “nation” is often used to label what Americans call an “ethnicity” or “race”, that hides a bunch of the intra-national animus by pretending that Jewish and Arab Israelies or Hindu and Muslim Indians are not similar differences to rural and urban Texans…
You’re conflating morals, culture, and national identity in a way that is actually kinda uniquely American.
So, your claim is that in every country other than the US, morals and culture are completely irrelevant to national identity?
No? That isnt what I said at all and I don’t know how you can get this by what I wrote.
I meant what I said. Let me rearrange that quote if it helps you understand.
In a way that is uniquely American, you are conflating morals, culture, and national identity
Or to rephrase it entirely:
“Don’t conflate morals .culture, and national identity. It’s foolish to do so, although this folly is a characteristic that is plausible unique to America.”
Any time this debate comes up, nobody making a point for any side ever gives their definition of the word “culture.” I imagine it is one of those words where if you put three people in a room and asked them to define it, you would get five definitions of the word.
Blues
The U.S.A has “a” culture the same way Europe has “a” culture or Southeast Asia has “a” culture.
Counterpoint: We made “truck nuts” our whole identity for a while.
No, “we” did not collectively do that. I, for one, never knew anyone who had that, and I was in a fraternity in Texas in the late 90s.
Confession: I didn’t watch the video. (willing to do so if there’s a great point, lurking)
The U.S.A has “a” culture the same way Europe has “a” culture or Southeast Asia has “a” culture.
That’s… a really BAD conflation right there, going all the way back to complete ignorance upon the founding of the USA (which is not flattering), but to compare it to Europe and S.E. Asia… WTF??
I think the implication they are making is that the US is a huge geographic region containing many different cultures… like Europe and SE Asia
yes, that was exactly my point.
Hmm… I daresay you’ve got a point, mssr.
Now what?
2nd video I’ve seen on here today about European girls asking questions on USA culture. Along with the question what do you think?
Feels a bit like a bait. Could be wrong.
OP seems to have a history of posting
dumb shitcontroversial content, then only interact with their own posts, because somebody will always react to people postingdumb shitcontroversial content. It’s called trolling.They also posted “Do you agree with this Moldovan girl describing her experiences living in Canada that there’s still a big difference between Europeans and Americans regarding their willingness to compliment others?” and other crap.
I don’t like this format, and I don’t like people posting it.
But maybe they themselves fell for some bait cause I don’t see how they created those videos. Doesn’t look like shilling either. OP’s just the ideal contamination vector.
American culture is consumerism. Anything else has survived importation.
I guess I consider culture something that people live not consume. Jazz is just another consumer product. I’m thinking things like traditions everyone participates in together. Listening to Miles Davis on your Spotify playlist alone in your car doesn’t count as culture to me, but going to weekly trivia would.
Art is a huge party of culture, it’s insane to pretend otherwise.
But it sounds like you’ve got beef with jazz specifically so take your pick from the hundred genres created here and the point remains
You have a real reading comprhension problem.
And you have an awareness problem if you think there aren’t jazz scenes in the US lol
Yes, such as in New Orleans?
You just call fucking Jazz a consumer product? ffs
Yeah, how many jazz musicians do you know? Compare that to Appalachian Bluegrass traditions where lots of people played and had regular dances. For sure there are places where jazz is an active part of the culture, like New Orleans, but for everyone else, it’s mostly consumed in isolation or background noise at brunch.
Never been to New Orleans, huh?
Bob Cranshaw, one of the most amazing bass players to ever exist. I really don’t like your interpretation of musical genres and their reasoning for existing. Admittedly I dont listen to Jazz that much but it is foundational to modern music the way I interpret music history. Music may be made to make money, yeah, but this is something that has been with us longer than civilization, written language, maybe even fire.
Yes. I’m not saying jazz isn’t amazing music or that music isn’t important for the soul, but when something shifts from active production in society to passive incidental consumption (brunch) or active solo consumption (passionate jazz fans), I don’t consider it culture anymore.
Before the phonograph, everyone played music in their homes, and people were performing publicly all over the place. It’s not just a criticism of America to say that the acceleration of the loss with the advent of MP3s, streaming, and DAWS is absolutely killing what makes music culture that brings people together and not just a product for consumption.
Yes, the US does not have its own culture.
It has 50 cultures.
I don’t know, I feel like California alone has like five distinct cultures so probably significantly more.
They do. Unfortunately it’s the mouthy monolith that are the most seen and heard and therefore associated with American Culture. They overshadow so much good stuff.
At least
