From your response it seems to me that you didn’t understand what I wrote because you don’t know what culture is. It is so disconcerting to me to encounter this over and over on FR. ”Working hard” is not a culture, it is an ethic and attitude shared by many countries, not a unique trait or object or continuing memory that defines a national identity.
The Europeans mock us for our lack of culture - the way you might look askance at someone who went out in public naked. That person stands out, not because his wardrobe us distinctive, but because he has no wardrobe.
Re Maya Angelou’s comment, she was saying you will discover you are not African, even though you look like them and have common ancestors - because you don’t share their culture. She was saying that they would discover that they were naked.
Culture is certainly hard to define. Here’s one:
“the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.”
We as Americans behave in a certain way. Part of that is our inclination to work hard, strive for success. We have a certain ‘energy’ that we project. And it is part of our culture.
“Re Maya Angelou’s comment, she was saying you will discover you are not African, even though you look like them and have common ancestors - because you don’t share their culture.”
Precisely, because we Americans do in fact have a culture. I suppose it’s easier to define the cultures of others (French, English, etc.) since we see what’s so different about them from us. And certainly we are a melting pot of sorts with lots of influences from other cultures. But after a generation or maybe two, emigres do become American.
That’s my story & I’m sticking to it! ;-)
My shocking introduction to the fact that America has a culture, was spending a summer in Tokyo while in college.
The Japanese then (this was the ‘80s) mercilessly copied American culture, absolutely everywhere. Besides a McDonalds every quarter mile, there were Japanese copycat hamburger joints all over too, and photos of American women on store windows...(I’m told one cannot find an Asian baby-doll anywhere in the far-east’s toy stores...all are blue-eyed caucasions...), random English expressions on Tee-shirts, (called “Engrish”)(ex: “Let’s go beach, fun, fun!”).
At that time too, the USA was very much afraid of the industrial and financial might of Japan (they’d bought Rockefeller center in NYC, and everyone thought they’d rule us soon...then they had their banking crises, from which they still haven’t recovered), and yet...still everything in Japan seemed to want to be or look American.
I used to hang out at a coffee shop...that constantly played one day’s recording of an LA radio station....the same recording every day, to make Japanese feel like they were in America (wooo!) (You’d come in at 3 pm and hear the same LA freeway traffic report, day after day...)
I can recall talking with Japanese college students about my rifle at home too...and they were really SHOCKED that I had shot a (GASP!) gun. I think most had never seen a gun up close, let alone shot one. They just couldn’t imagine the freedom to own and shoot guns.
Only then did I realize we did have a very vital burgeoning culture, young yes, but very powerful none-the-less. The Europeans are greatly effected by it too (as is everyone in the developed world) they are just begrudging about it...and have their own high-culture which competes. (I’m sure thisis true in Japan too, but popular culture—almost to a default, around the world...is American).
I didn’t realize how people saw this, until talking to a conservative Christian German friend—who was telling me how so many Germans when they think of America, they only think of Hollywood, and our entertainment world, and all the corruptions found there...and therefore look down on America. This is in contrast to how many conservative Christian Americans look down on Germany and Europe (why they swim topless there!) even while the USA is the cesspool of the world in terms of popular entertainment...
So yes, America has a young, vital, hard-working...very non-traditional culture...which isn’t always good or wholesome—but is still a very powerful force all over the world.