Debate Define: American Culture

On occasion, I hear someone utter the words: "America has no culture". True, there is much that is taken/borrowed from other cultures and integrated into our own; but surely there must be something that can be defined distinctly as American.

In the musical world, I can think of two possibilities: The Blues and Country music. I really don't know if those are also icons from another culture. What about Basketball? I recall some people trying to explain how that was taken from a game that the Aztecs played. I looked it up and found out something mighty different than modern day basketball. The only similarity is that the ball passes through a hoop.

I hope we will all stay on topic here.

 

Basketball - invited by a Canadian.

I dunno, try American Football, you yanks can bloody well keep it for all I care. As far as american music goes... country sure. Blues, I dunno. Maybe a little.

Anyway when I think America I think of texans with guns carrying American flags. Of course given that a huge portion of the American demographic of SB (where I spend most of my forum time) is almost exactly that, I am perhaps a bit biased in my view.

 

Jazz is all I can really think of.

 

baseball is just an altered version of the english game cricket, like everything else the americans wanted to be 'different'

american football... i .. don't like it as a sport because it is nothing but an advertising medium, it isn't about the game at all but it's an interesting enough game. more strategy and tactics than in rugby... what's with all that farking padding though

 

I have no idea what America would do without our football. Most likely the majority of our schools would wither away without their main motvation for existing.

Well, we have so many different regions that the culture changes throughout the US depending on where you are.

Not all the US is like Texas. It's kinda in its own category.

You have the South with okra and blackeyed peas. There's the Midwest with rednecks and corn. The West Coast with our New Age and Hollywood. Theres the East Coast with NY and big colleges.

 

What about bluegrass music? Sure, it's mostly a southern thing, but would it count as being part of American culture? At least, I'm pretty sure that it's a strictly American form of music...

 

Potatoes, like corn, also originated in the US of A.

 

er
no
they originated on the continent called america

they were around long before your US of A.

 

Um…wasn’t Blues brought over to America in the 18th century by African slaves?

 

Nope. The Blues' origins are in the working songs and spiritual songs of the black slaves, taking parts of their African heritage and being adapted to fit the English language and the experiences of the slaves (both their life experiences and the new cultural influences they were exposed to). Blues, as such, was not an existing form of music in Africa. You're approximately right about the timeframe, though - during the 1800s the only real way for most African-Americans to pass things such as music down was through oral tradition, since most couldn't write, let alone take down musical notation. What the Blues actually developed from is this mixture of slave-culture music and American folk/bluegrass/country.

So, yeah, that's certainly a part of American culture.

 

Rock and Roll is, for the most part, an American creation. It was adapted by radical-minded American Jazz musicians of the 1940s, and by the early 1950s guys such as Bill Haley and his Comets ('Rock Around the Clock'), Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley were performing the hybrid sound. And of course, Elvis Presley's first album in 1956 solified the sound, which would then become known as 'Rock and Roll.'

 

I believe that rock and roll was just an adaptation of some other form of music from Europe...but I can't remember it for the life of me.

 

I brought up jazz to my English teacher when this topic came up a few years ago. As he explained it, jazz is an adaptation of African and Caribbean music.

 

Cultural fusion vs colonialism?

I'm mexican. Our country has 2 root cultures: a) Aztec, b) Spanish European.

These 2 cultures have fused in some way, so we have a completely new culture and way of living.

The problem with the US, is that there was no fusion of cultures there. Oh look! Injuns! Let's kill them! (Cowboy movies anyone?) So that leaves America with a majority of British roots. And then, the american dream: Immigrants from everywhere.

So in the end, America has no unified culture, but rather a mix of many cultures, depending solely on the individuals. Maybe this is the reason why americans (in the view of the world, and perhaps, even myself) are just a bunch of colonist b*st*rds (or ignorant sheep who follow the colonist b*st*rds) who anihilate and despise everything foreign.

[Curious note]
I heard somewhere that the US have no healthy food tradition. All cultures (japanese, chinese, hebrew, etc) have a tradition of healthy meals (eat this, this is bad for your health, etc etc). Can it be a coincidence that the US has the greatest percentage of obese people in the world?

I read on the (mexican) newspaper a note about american fat people. There was an american who arrived to Mexico. After going out the airport, he looked left, he looked right... all the people were (relatively) slim.

He shouted, amazed: "There are no fat people!"
[/Curious note]

So, well, i think that the lack of an established tradition in the US has led to maybe, some kind of "new" tradition called Yankee Imperialism. Search a country, colonize it, claim it.

And it's even more curious how the american "culture" has permeated (infected?) so many countries with their reality shows, bad-quality Hollywood movies (Independence Day), and last, but not least, porn (Playboy anyone?).

Maybe this is why people search for something more and become amazed at the works of people with an established and unified culture i.e. Japan. (I like japanese culture - at least what I know of it).

What do you think?

 

On the health food, Americans know what's bad for them(burgers, fries, etc.), and what's good for them(veggies, fruits, etc.). The problem is that we have almost demonized healthy foods in some cases. Diets, carrots, and spinach are all things we are pretty much taught to dread. Also the fact that the things that are bad for your health are some of the best tasting, and there are many opportunities to buy them. Another thing that may affect American's size maybe the steriods and hormones in our food. :anime: I heard that's one reason why the children in our country have started to develop faster. Alas I am mutated!

Well, I don't feel like defending our government since personally I don't approve of many things they have done, are doing, or will do.

I do agree with you on the fascination with other countries. I must admit that is one of the reasons I am drawn to Japan, and Europe. They have a real history(I find American History incredibly boring), and defined culture. I also found other peoples devotion and repect for their leaders very admirable, misplaced or not. I must admit that the only good thing I can say about our leader is that Will Farell did such wonderful imitations of him.

 

Well, it was started it in like, Louisiana, so even if it comes somewhat from other cultures, it's still American.

 

True, true!

If we always decided where something is from based on what influenced it we'd have a lot of problems. Everything influences everything else. That's the way the world works. One group conquers another, adapts some their practices(usually), and creating a new culture. Or they wipe out the other culture entirely, and bring in their own.

In a sense that's what happened in the US. They pretty much annihilated the Native Americans, and brought in their own ways of life. It just happened that there were a number of different groups that came in.

I'd have to say that America has a culture, it's just a mutt. :anime:

 

Err, i'll have to eat my own words about Jazz. Last thursday was our last day in Music class and one of the subjects was the development of Jazz. I'll have to trust his words over anything that I heard from other people, after all, musicology is his field. Before the Civil War, slave owners forbade and butally enforced their slaves to abstain from doing anything that belonged to their native culture (singing, dancing, dress and language). Without oral tradition, their customs died out after a few generations. After the Civil War, the first preude to Jazz was Ragtime music (Scott Joplin). Following that style, many African composers started making their own pieces; but the first instance of what we now know as New Orleans Jazz came from Louis Armstrong.

So what they developed was truly unique and American.

Our teacher also touched upon why American "culture" has affected so many others. Americans have a way of finding the lowest common denominator that appeals to a vast majority.

 

Like you said. . .americans really dont have there own "culture" persay, when dealing with religion or language etc. Americans have the form of freedom which keeps America from having a distinct culture. The only true form of culture, i supose would be popculture.
If i am not mistaken americans created Fast-Food. Or you could take any form of American band, and say they are part of our culture. If you really critique on music into genre, no we did not create it but we did create that music, just not the style. If you go into steriotypical american culture, theres always ~Cowboys~ XP

I was wondering. . . .would native american culture be considered American culture. The natives technically were the original americans. But that could be argued in many ways.

But what ever the case. When discribing American culture, it all depends on your take and point of veiw of it. There really arn't any "rules" for the term culture. o_o;;