"turtoni" <turt... at (no spam) fastmail.net> wrote in message

news:6cf00455-e05a-41f1-9ba7-0a76f05e25a4 at (no spam) y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...





"It can be argued that this ability to easily absorb parts of other
cultures and other languages is its greatest strength and helps
American culture and language spread. Americans in general do not
worry about protecting their "indigenous culture" but instead eagerly
create and adopt new things and then change or modify to make them
their own."

HTHelps.

Our romantic hubris implores us to defend our childhood memories and
the status quo.

Americans typically do not even have any real conception of the
centuries of culture built up in other lands who truly have a right to
lament the glory days.

You could even argue that American shits on culture. Bullshit walks;
Money talks.

Consumerism all the way baby.

The French is dead. Long DEAD the French.

:-/

The closest N. Americans get to culture is eating yogurt. America is good at
absorbing other cultures--the melting pot--because it completely lacks a
culture of its own. As you note, consumerism is as close as N.A's get to
culture, and it seems to me that c'ism has effectively wiped away individual
curiosity (how many Americans read?), memory, and meaningful grass-root
political activity. The "French is dead" seems an ironic statement from one
zero in yogurtville; it's the pot calling the kettle black. No offense
intended.

re: Is there an authentic American culture, or what?

I dunno what I mean by authentic, though it's at least a 50 cent term.

The culture here is not easy to finitely analyze nor de-construct, so
let me try something obvious.

There is a mainstream culture, and there are  divergent cultures
(subcultures).

Culture in the USA may be as banal, simple & literal to describe as a
tv that gets 500-800 channels.

Each of us seems partial to certain channels, and often, habitually so
expends time.

Thus, our culture can be described as  degrees of wastelands.

AMERICAN IDOL is an example of tv initiated-determined mainstream
culture.

Our convergent mainstream culture may be thought of  as the original 3
or 4 networks, since most/many people still seem to spend much of
their day with these glass teat & comforting traditions.

My thesis:  tv culure is the USA major way or reality.

Of course not for EVERYbody, who'd by-the-way be overwhelmingly
insulted because my embarrassing perception is somewhat true or true
enough.