Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

Saw a premise for a fairly good debate (my laptop is broken btw, sorry for the even more infrequent posting) in Beta's thread about culture. Do you believe that America has an original culture? Why or why not? Why is your culture better than another's? Have at ^-^

That is....a good question.

Maybe we have the culture of talking about how much culture we have? I haven't seen much. Then again I live here, so everything I do seems normal, and even when I have been to other countries they seem to be the same, a bit lighter on the weight scale, and a bit nicer. Other than that I see nothing different, excluding the Asian countries I've been to, and African, Europe is pretty great though.

So I guess what I am saying is, America= No real culture I guess? 

Yes, this is a very touchy subject. Even though USA doesn't have a long history like other countries. I still think that Americans do have a certain culture to them. They started a lot of music genres in the past modern age. Along with movie/T.V. culture since the beginning. Americans often have a certain attitude that they carry that are different from Europeans or other western cultures. Which is why there is also a stereotype that comes with Americans. Positive or not, it can still be considered "Very American."

As far as one culture is better from another, I'm not biased. There are positives to be taken from really every country.

I know we have a original culture but lets see if I can effectively turn that feeling into words. 

We have the Wild West ; we invented the modern zombie and though that's now in every ones culture now, it originally came from us; we have the most powerful military in the world, so Americans tend to feel kind of invincible and that we are the "de facto" leaders of the world; we have still have a relatively fresh history of slavery/racism, so its always on are minds and translates into a sort of racial tension; Democracy and Freedom have always been very present in Americas history so I guess we feel entitled to them; WW1-2 and the Cold War made us feel somewhat like the policeman of the world in a way; We invented and developed several forms of music (I don't really know were I was going to go with this, but music is cultural :D ) ; Theres such large distances involved without nation, that unique cultural styles develop in each area of the nation (mid-west, west, East, South, North), which is not so obvious in my opinion, in smaller nations were variations may occur but are generally small (Britain is a pretty big exception to this as it was created from the mashing up of several peoples and cultures); several other reason why our culture is original, really all  stemming from how are nation was affected by historical events and movements, and how it dealt with them. 

I don't think Americas culture is necessarily better then other countries, but I do like how prideful and somewhat arrogant Americans are about being American. 

Yes, I think we do. In America, there was a reason why immigrants came at such a pace that they needed to restrict them. Why? Because we actually had a truly free country. You could be bhudist, Mormon, Catholic, whatever other Christian sects there are, Jewish, Muslim, etc. You weren't prosecuted for it, so many immigrants ran to America to avoid prosecution. People came from all over the world in the search for gold, and reward for hard work. Because of this, there a many different people from many different backgrounds, thus making us an original culture, by being so unoriginal, but original enough to allow others to come ^_^

Posted this in the other thread, but it pretty much describes what I want to say, so here-

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HDlnFKywddY

EDIT: Opinion removed, due to stoner logic.

Hahaha now that, I wish I could see.

As an American citizen born and raised, that had parents born from another country and grandparents who immigrated here and had to assimilate, I find it silly and almost insulting for anyone to say the USA does not have a culture of its own. Just because it is hard to define what it is that makes American culture unique does not justify a declaration of its non-existence. I feel that American culture has been shaped by a different history, region, policy, geography, population, technology, art, media, etc. than other countries. I think the problem stems from this idea that a culture has to be completely uniform, when in the US's case, this is not necessarily true.

(Hope you can get your laptop fixed soon)

Yes, I believe it has an original culture.

Because, as per definition of culture:

It would be impossible for America NOT to have a culture, considering it's massive wealth and impact on recent history. That's not to say that I like it's culture, or think that it's as much of a culture as the older countries, but it most certainly has an original culture.

As for why my culture would be better than America's, well, i'm not sure that it is.
Albania is a relatively old country and while it has faded into obscurity, it actually used to be quite powerful (and influential) at it's time, and it certainly does have some aspects that I like, but it's too close minded for my taste (Not going to bother explaining a country's entire culture right now).

America's is, in my honest opinion, a rather stupid culture. I have no need to argue this with anyone, so don't bother trying to, but I really just don't like the way the country is evolving, and it's culture seems ridiculous.

Greek culture (I briefly lived there) is rather rich and expansive, they also founded democracy, and had awesome philosophers like protagoras, had the coolest mythology of all time, pretty sure it's obvious why it's culture is better than america's culture (Though it's economy is absolutely fucked).

And last, but not least, canadian culture.

Well, a good deal of canadian culture is french. Bleh.

It's not that I hate france in particular, I actually respect the country (And especially it's powerful history - power to you napoleon), but I really fucking hate these Quebec assholes who are trying to repress all attempts to learn the english language, and to split from the rest of Canada. And having them try to shove their fucking culture down my throat has kindof made me hate every single aspect of it, so my bias is immediate and obvious, I would consider Quebec and current american culture to be equal in shittiness. The rest of Canada, I can't speak for.

(Big post XD)

Honestly Drak, what do you know of America's culture?  I don't think that you can compare Quebec's to America, and I don't need a source to say that ;P

You mean beside the fact that He's been operating on a largely American site and American culture is everywhere? :P. Actually, it's probably better to get it from an impartial opinion rather than from someone who lives here.

I was more commenting on why he thought American culture is as bad as Quebec's, which he hates. Not disagreeing or agreeing necessarily, just want him to post what is so bad about America's 'culture'. ^_^

Haha power to both Napoleons. Whenever The French tried to set up a republic, someone named Napoleon comes along and forms a French Empire XD

I was in the middle of my computer class when I posted this, so I'll post my opinion here.

I believe that although America is a melting pot of cultures (mind you I'm not claiming that nations such as Canada can't be melting pots, practically no country has just one nationality's culture any more), it has to neccesarily have its own culture. This culture is, how Drakillian puts it, a culmination of its intellectual works as well as how typical Americans think, feel, and identify themselves. However, like nearly all nations, this culture varies from place to place within the US so you wouldn't have a full picture from any one place (no matter how many people from other areas are in that place). It doesn't help that even certain states in those regions have their own culture, like how Alabama will have a different "southern" way of life than texas, which will have a different way than Louisiana, which has a different way than Tennessee, and so on and so forth.

So in order to actually grasp American culture, you'd have to travel from place to place. According to my twin (When a big has two littles in the same pledge class) who's from Saudi Arabia: "I came to America so I wouldn't have to travel the world, but then I had to travel the United States". 

So, in short, America's one united culture is a collection of multiple cultures. This is the same for many other countries due to our generation's globalization. However, you can find a few trends shared by all Americans. For example, they're far more independantly minded (referring to how we view the government) when compared to European nations. Even the liberals over here are comparatively conservative when held side by side with those from other nations.

Americans are more about themselves as individuals than any other country in the world. Granted, that's a pretty common Western theme, it's just Americans tend to rank the highest (in general, not in relation to their government).

I'm with Bo and Killa on this. 

That and I don't want to bother to write a big post. ^.^

I have to say, I agree more with this post than any of the other replies in the thread.