What is the Definition of American Culture?

rebelbase ^ | 5/21/03 | rebelbase

[Rebelbase]

Does anyone have brief definition of American Culture? As a nation we are such a conglomeration of ethnicity and various cultures that its difficult to pin down an exact definition.

Does our culture change with the increasing influx of immigrants? Is American culture dying and being replaced by foreign culture?

[Rebelbase]

Got into a disagreement with someone who took the position that since we are a nation of immigrants, there is no one true "American Culture".

Your thoughts?

[SunStar]

Judeo-Christian founded, no official language (English is most-widely used, however we are well on our way to becoming Spanish-speaking). U.S. government is based loosely on U.S. Constitution (down the tube we go). What culture, you ask? I'll get back to you if we ever secure it from the invaders and cultural "progressives".

[dirtboy]

I don't think there is a singular American culture - instead, there are many subcultures, such as Northeastern, Southern and Bezerkley. And within those subcultures there are economic and ethnic differences - a middle-class Northeasterner is different than a poor white Northeasterner, and so forth.

IMO the changes to this country are not from immigration, but from a huge ongoing political battle to define the nation's value system. That in turn impacts immigration and its impact on the country by creating a system where immigrants are not strongly encouraged to assimilate.

[Gamecock]

Long neck Buds, Krispy Kremes, and Beach music.

[skeeter]

There is a distinct American culture. To discern it all one has to do is travel abroad. You find out very quickly that as an American you are much different than anyone else, in both thought processes and behaviors.

As far as immigration changing our culture, all I know is it sure has changed it where I live.

[jpl]

Coca-Cola, Big Macs, and bad sitcoms.

[rudypoot]

Whiskey sexy

[CMAC51]

The unique element of the US culture comes from the fact that we are a nation of immigrants. The United States of America is a country where if you wish you can become an American. Try moving to France and becoming a Frenchman. it doesn't work that way. Almost all other countries are the same. If you aren't native, you aren't really "true blue".

In the United States, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, etc, if you wish you can become a "true blue" American. All that hyphenation crap is a personal choice and a symptom of how our culture is under attack.

The fact that we adopt from everyones heritage, from October Fest to St. Patrick's Day to Cinco-de-Mayo highlights that culture.

[ThinkingMan]

And Jimmy Buffett!

[Blake#1]

The USofA is a CAPITALIST - REPUBLIC. We have a defind border and language. We are the richest and happiest people on Earth. No other nation can make these statements. Guess why so many, not all, hate or are jealous of our country and citizens.

[Khepera]

Haven't you heard? We don't have any culture!

[Gamecock]

Jimmy Buffett bump

[RonF]

Whenever I get into a discussion of "what's American culture", I always reference this statement:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

All our rights, all our power, all our advantages, all our diversity, all our faults come from this statement. This is still a bunch of radical concepts that are antithetical to and confound 3/4 of the governments on this planet.

[Maelstrom]

I answered this awhile ago...

Traditional American culture is an amalgam of the cultures of the people whom have assimilated into America.

Our culture is constantly evolving as cultural traditions we find to our liking are adopted and our culture is shared in return.

What Traditional American Culture is not is multi-pluralism. Traditionally, we do not abide people who refuse to assimilate, nor their cultural views.

[Rebelbase]

"Traditionally, we do not abide people who refuse to assimilate, nor their cultural views."

The elitist liberals call us bigots for doing that.

[Maelstrom]

Of course...but then they would call us bigots anyway.

[ChadGore]

Born in rebelion, tempered through compassion, and demographically Judeo-Christian at it's foundation.

A nation grown through earning allies, stabilized on the idea of freedom and liberty, flourishing through keeping our word to friend and foe alike.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

American culture?

Whatever it was, it ain't no more. leftists, illegal immigration, TV, and hollyweird have destroyed American culture, and the American character.

They have done so with a well thought out time table and roadmap, incrementally, deliberately, insidiously and most thoroughly. I no longer recognize this America, and have become a stranger in the land of my birth.

What was done to the American Indian was a million times worse than any fate I may claim. But I can have some small inkling and empathy to what they felt as their worlds crumbled and disappeared before their very eyes.

[x]

The United States were formed around an English cultural core. Not everyone was English, of course, but the predominant language and political and cultural institutions came from Britain. The Constitution, now taken as the basis of American nationality, owes much to English models and would have been impossible without them.

With the beginnings of large scale immigration from other countries in the 1840s, American culture took on first a Northern European, then an all-European, then a global character. It's worth noting though, that even in the earlier stages, African-Americans were as important to the culture as Scots or Germans or Irish.

So we have British America down to the mid-19th century, Northern European America until the beginning of the 20th Century, European America through to the 1960s and a global or multicultural America since then. Not that non-European groups weren't here in the 19th century and before, but they were peripheral to the dominant culture, and now they are not. Even when they made major contributions to the culture, these depended on adoption by the main culture.

An important question now is whether the existing culture and political system can survive radical ethnic diversity. Will we all be assimilated to the once prevailing American model? Will it be replaced? Or transformed? Or fragmented into separate cultures or even new countries? Can a "multicultural" country can truly claim to have a distinctive culture of its own? Or does it simply become another province of the global market?

Wars, like the one we've just fought, strengthen loyalty to the nation and social cohesion, but we're not out of the woods yet. Multiculturalism, globalism and "postmodernism" are hostile to the nation state, and whether we'll survive this century as one country is uncertain. Perhaps assimilation and intermarriage will prevent fragmentation into ethnic tribes, but we may still find ourselves troubled by just what "American culture." It may be that modern technological and global culture will eventually come to mean more than our own national culture.

Christopher Clausen's "Faded Mosaic: The Emergence of Post-Cultural America" is an interesting look at these questions. Clausen argues that we no longer have "a culture." Nor do we truly have many cultures. For Clausen, culturelessness is our condition. Mass immigration, pop culture, globalization and radical individualism mean that we no longer have those cultural structures that existed before. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen. Clausen's book is thought-provoking, especially on the question of whether our individualism has meant the weakening of the culture which produced it.

[stylin19a]

so...We are Borg ?