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I think it’s more a complaint about the people not being cultured in general than it is a complaint about the country not having a culture (also, a bunch of the things mentioned aren’t culture but whatever).
How would you define “culture”?
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cultured
If all you know is cultural items from your own country I don’t think you can be considered to be cultured.
I think I’d agree with that, but that’s in reference to a person. A culture by definition must have its own cultural artifacts that aren’t simply taken from another culture. There’s also no requirement for those artifacts to be “high art”. Nearly everything listed in the OP is culture. So to clarify, I ask what you mean when you say “a bunch of the things mentioned aren’t culture”.
Oh for that part of my message what I meant was things like coastlines, cactus, fireflies and foggy days, that’s not culture, what you do with it can be cultural, but otherwise they’re just natural features.
I think the implication is that the things you do with those natural features form a culture. Fireflies aren’t culture, but catching them is. And besides, there are plenty more examples of culture in the post. But you are correct.
I also think they there’s a lot of things that they associate with US culture in the USA that’s just stuff brought from other countries that were appropriated, so in that sense the US culture isn’t as rich as some people think (but that’s normal for such a young country with such a high number of fairly recent migrants from all over the world). Like trick or treating (to use an example from the OP) that comes from Scotland and Ireland and the first North American record of it was in Canada.
What’s funny is that it’s a pretty good demonstration of the lack of culture that (we can assume) American person has!
I reject the idea that something that originated in one society cannot become another society’s culture. It morphs and changes, and is reinforced by the society until it becomes a part of their culture, too. Surely you would not say that tomato-based foods aren’t part of Italian culture just because they came from the new world?
This is honestly a pretty ignorant take on america and its culture. A lot of our culture comes directly from the places people immigrated from, mixed with the culture that already existed. After a few generations it amalgamates into the broader culture. Its constantly evolving (whether people want it to or not). Its quite the opposite of only knowing culture fron our own country. In fact, a statement like that makes no sense when you factor in how peoole got here in the first place
Ok but if it’s integrated to your culture and seen as local culture but it actually comes from elsewhere and people don’t realize that US culture is just everyone else’s culture, it just shows that US people aren’t cultured since they just assume that everything is US culture when it’s in fact foreign.
There’s a reason why the “American calling black people African American while traveling abroad” cliche exist.
A living collection of microorganisms, duh!
I love u baseball
Let’s not go overboard.
Hell yeah
Fuck yeah mmmmmerica!!
America! Fuck yeah! Coming again to save the mother fuckin day yeah!
USA culture will be forgotten when the present empire falls. How much Prussian/ German culture do you consume? Prussia was considered a high watermark for culture, but nobody seems to care about it anymore. And y’know? Good. Because countries who are violent, imperial, oppressive? Their culture deserves to be forgotten.
I think the problem is more that many Americans are very focused on their own culture to the exclusion of every other culture and in a sense love these things more because they are theirs and they grew up with them than out of an honest appreciation after comparing it with alternatives.
I think the problem is more that many Americans are very focused on their own culture to the exclusion of every other culture
Of course, this position directly contradicts the other dominant criticism in this thread, that Americans don’t have any culture of their own and just take from others.
Americans are a remix culture, and take in influences from elsewhere (especially through 200+ years of immigration) and make it our own.
I am not talking about taking culture and integrating it into your own, I am talking about appreciating it without taking it.
A LOT of things in that list aren’t originally American, or even commonly American. And quite a few others aren’t “culture”.
My favorite is probably “Victorian houses”. Where did Victoria live again?
One of the most dominant “culture” in the US, is they can’t take any bit of criticism.
Confirmed time and again with threads like this.
The “Victorian House” is just the commonly accepted name for the archetectural style. I’m not an architectural expert, but the average person in the US would hear that and imagine a 3 story house with porches and elabroate decorations. The US certainly has a distinctive building and decorative style from that era that is different than any Victorian homes in the UK.
American definitely has a culture. And most of it is shit. Keep that idiocy away.
The post: Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that there are at least some positives to be found in in the US?
The comments: No
We provide some of the best and some of the worst this world has to offer. But, that’s also true of a lot of, if not all, countries.
Motherfucker ain’t even mention bubble gum.
American exceptionalism always made me cringe, but it makes me cringe more the older I get. I hate how presidential candidates feel like they have to call the US the most powerful, the greatest, and so on.
Do the guy also love US terrorism and foreign interference? Because that’s what people probably take most offence with. There is not a single additional nation on this planet that has couped to many democratically elected governments and replaced them with corrupt authoritarians that are more than willing to oppress and torture their people and cause civil wars and sell out their nation’s interest to US interests in exchange for power. The US is sole world leader in evil and hase been for over a hundred years, only briefly eclipsed by individuals like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Kissinger.
Because as someone who is “deeply critical” of US his government and military, he really seems like jeans and jack o’lanterns have any weight when people call the globally most hated nation on earth a barbaric terrorist shithole.
And let’s not even start counting warcrimes or threats of acts of war towards their “allies”.
Fun fact: ask people to name three governments the US has couped. See what happens. Just three.
What do you suggest we Americans do? I can vouch for the fact that spending my entire life feeling ashamed of my country has not helped to make it better, despite doing my best to be an outspoken critic of American policy… so I’m hoping you can provide a suggestion for a viable path to redemption.
Protest. Create awareness. Because, you now, unlike the Chinese or Russians, Americans have the freedom to do so without getting vanished in re-education camps and gulags.
If protests worked in the US we wouldn’t have had a second war with Iraq.
Americans have the freedom to do so without getting vanished in re-education camps and gulags.
Unless you were protesting against the murder of George Floyd, then you could indeed be picked up by unmarked vans with unmarked heavily armed guys inside.
“i did my best to be an outspoken critic” is gonna play great with the survivors of Gaza
What would you have me do?
Most globally hated? Get fucked.
Fair enough, China and Russia managed to compete with the US in the last couple of years. Enjoy.
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