Which Americans are we talking? Because a Yooper, Scots-Irish Appalachian, Cajun Louisianan, and some poor bastard from Baker California have little in common. Hell I’m a Southern Californian Redneck and frankly if I have to interact with my Northern Californian ilk I’m stabbing someone and dumping their corpse in an open mine shaft.
I grew up redneck in a red area and most of the reason I still identify with the label is the realization that Mexicans, the Vietnamese, and pretty much every other culture also has rednecks (those are just the main ones I’ve seen on YouTube shorts). We’re inevitable.
Even small countries like The Netherlands have loads of cultural differences, of course the US has that.
Doesn’t change the fact that we are all Dutch and you are all American’s.
America also has the weird thing that most of the stores and restaurants are chains apparantly. Or at least that is what most of the terminal online American’s want us to believe.
Edit: the basis in things like school systems, suburbs and angelo-saxton company “culture” also don’t help
Heres the thing I don’t think there ever has been a unified American culture, as soon as assholes started to step off this boats there was already inevitable cultural divergences happening, for example the Massachusetts Puritans who were theocratically driven, the Marylanders who were driven by proto-secular ideals, and Valirginians who were economically driven. While the Mid-Atlandit and New England cultures did reconverge over the last century of so, Coastal Southern especially the rural variants is still noticeably divergent from the rest of the east coast.
Also I’m just gonna note that everything you listed is caused by top down economic pressures that are arguably on the verge of collapse. One of the things you have to factor into your analysis of American cultures is that all of them are subject to federal level pressures meaning that even the most communal cultures for example still have to participate in capitalism due to say taxes since that’s basically the only way to earn cash. I suspect once the feds collapse you’ll see a springtime of nations and the possible death of the Pan American amalgam culture, at least within the first 20 years or so.
No of course there isn’t an unified American culture, but there are people hard at work at destroying all forms of culture in the US.
Yes there is top down economic pressure and a lot of fedaral pressure, but it is also just people choosing to do things a certain way. Going out and buying a coffee instead of using their drip coffee machine or buying an espresso machine. Shopping at Amazon, Walmart or whatever instead of supporting local businesses.
Working against people who are trying to create better walkable/bikeable neighbourhouds etc.
Sooner or later the current iteration of the US will fall and it will probably mean that the entire country falls apart. In some ways or another state’s already function more like separate countries than in say the EU.
While that may be true it’s very much in the same way that Roman culture is the basis and founding of Modern Romantic cultures. It’s to degrees and the more derived and hybridized the individual cultures are the more distant they become, not even accounting for cultural drift by time alone.
But I will also note that I don’t think the US has a united culture and what is often seen as a Pan American culture is moreso a side effect of the post World Wars migration, the migrations of the great depression/dust bowl, and the yuppies migrating about creating a rough amalgam culture that often out populates the older more divergent regional cultures. Basically if you think of a cultureless suburbanite that’s the thing I’m talking about. Also I think mass media reinforced the whole thing.
I’m from Jersey, which I call the California of the East coast (just tiny), and despite our size, the differences between north, central, south, northwest, west, Hudson/Essex, shore, are all incredibly well defined. I always get a kick out of folks from outside the US lumping all of us together. Like, I can’t even lump myself in with people 50 miles in literally any direction.
Little in common, besides all of them speaking English natively (including the Cajun) and sharing the same high level culture. And don’t tell me it isn’t the same because it 100% is.
While language influences culture and culture influences language they are not the same by any means. Plus within the last hundred years the US has become increasingly mono-lingual in favor of English, according to my great great aunt for example when she was a little girl her father would still speak to himself in a German dialect because German was his first language since he was from a German town. A lot of these minority languages have either naturally due to trade or whatnot or via force from the feds been on the decline or are now extinct some of which predated the founding of the US. A similar thing happened with a lot of regional dialects.
Also define so called high culture? Because frankly given how much of Europe once shared a Greco-Roman high culture irrespective of their own regional cultures I’m gonna call that a potential irrelevancy.
Are… are Brits the Americans of Europe???
Well America is a British bastard child… The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!
America’s founding was a bunch of British rejects and people deemed “too annoying for Europe”, along with their kidnapped, angry slaves.
Speak too loud? Get on the boat. Too religious? Get on the boat. Sold to us by West African slavers? Get on the boat.
Where do you think Americans learned to be so cultured?
Which Americans are we talking? Because a Yooper, Scots-Irish Appalachian, Cajun Louisianan, and some poor bastard from Baker California have little in common. Hell I’m a Southern Californian Redneck and frankly if I have to interact with my Northern Californian ilk I’m stabbing someone and dumping their corpse in an open mine shaft.
I grew up redneck in a red area and most of the reason I still identify with the label is the realization that Mexicans, the Vietnamese, and pretty much every other culture also has rednecks (those are just the main ones I’ve seen on YouTube shorts). We’re inevitable.
Even small countries like The Netherlands have loads of cultural differences, of course the US has that.
Doesn’t change the fact that we are all Dutch and you are all American’s.
America also has the weird thing that most of the stores and restaurants are chains apparantly. Or at least that is what most of the terminal online American’s want us to believe.
Edit: the basis in things like school systems, suburbs and angelo-saxton company “culture” also don’t help
Heres the thing I don’t think there ever has been a unified American culture, as soon as assholes started to step off this boats there was already inevitable cultural divergences happening, for example the Massachusetts Puritans who were theocratically driven, the Marylanders who were driven by proto-secular ideals, and Valirginians who were economically driven. While the Mid-Atlandit and New England cultures did reconverge over the last century of so, Coastal Southern especially the rural variants is still noticeably divergent from the rest of the east coast.
Also I’m just gonna note that everything you listed is caused by top down economic pressures that are arguably on the verge of collapse. One of the things you have to factor into your analysis of American cultures is that all of them are subject to federal level pressures meaning that even the most communal cultures for example still have to participate in capitalism due to say taxes since that’s basically the only way to earn cash. I suspect once the feds collapse you’ll see a springtime of nations and the possible death of the Pan American amalgam culture, at least within the first 20 years or so.
No of course there isn’t an unified American culture, but there are people hard at work at destroying all forms of culture in the US.
Yes there is top down economic pressure and a lot of fedaral pressure, but it is also just people choosing to do things a certain way. Going out and buying a coffee instead of using their drip coffee machine or buying an espresso machine. Shopping at Amazon, Walmart or whatever instead of supporting local businesses.
Working against people who are trying to create better walkable/bikeable neighbourhouds etc.
Sooner or later the current iteration of the US will fall and it will probably mean that the entire country falls apart. In some ways or another state’s already function more like separate countries than in say the EU.
All of them I think? The Anglo Saxon culture still dominates and founded the basis of American culture itself.
america is also composed of spanish irish italian black dutch native American german asian culture to name a few
While that may be true it’s very much in the same way that Roman culture is the basis and founding of Modern Romantic cultures. It’s to degrees and the more derived and hybridized the individual cultures are the more distant they become, not even accounting for cultural drift by time alone.
But I will also note that I don’t think the US has a united culture and what is often seen as a Pan American culture is moreso a side effect of the post World Wars migration, the migrations of the great depression/dust bowl, and the yuppies migrating about creating a rough amalgam culture that often out populates the older more divergent regional cultures. Basically if you think of a cultureless suburbanite that’s the thing I’m talking about. Also I think mass media reinforced the whole thing.
The foundational European culture of California is Spanish.
I’m from Jersey, which I call the California of the East coast (just tiny), and despite our size, the differences between north, central, south, northwest, west, Hudson/Essex, shore, are all incredibly well defined. I always get a kick out of folks from outside the US lumping all of us together. Like, I can’t even lump myself in with people 50 miles in literally any direction.
Yes.
Little in common, besides all of them speaking English natively (including the Cajun) and sharing the same high level culture. And don’t tell me it isn’t the same because it 100% is.
While language influences culture and culture influences language they are not the same by any means. Plus within the last hundred years the US has become increasingly mono-lingual in favor of English, according to my great great aunt for example when she was a little girl her father would still speak to himself in a German dialect because German was his first language since he was from a German town. A lot of these minority languages have either naturally due to trade or whatnot or via force from the feds been on the decline or are now extinct some of which predated the founding of the US. A similar thing happened with a lot of regional dialects.
Also define so called high culture? Because frankly given how much of Europe once shared a Greco-Roman high culture irrespective of their own regional cultures I’m gonna call that a potential irrelevancy.
depends on which brit we’re talking
Yes, but at least we’re not the French.
An important point!
I mean, Americans are a large and diverse group of people… But yes.
yes.