"America has no culture"

This statement pops up occasionally here and there. So I'm curious about what exactly leads people that believe this to say so?

Frankly, I'm just going to go with Misplaced Nationalism and pulling No True Scotsman regarding the definition of 'culture'.

Apparently being a mix of other cultures means you have no culture of your own. So these types have explained to me.

Therefore no one has a culture. We live in a cultureless world with food that has no nationality.

WHOO.

edited 1st Sep '11 2:36:53 PM by Aondeug

...the idea that America has no culture is utter bullshit. A case can be made that we don't have a native culture, sure. But we damn well do have a culture.

It just seems like we don't because we're 1) diverse, ethnically speaking, and 2) fucking huge, so there's a lot of variation. People get all surprised that we're not (relatively) monolithic like the old European nations when, you know, we're nearly the size of all of Europe. No shit, we're not uniformly the same, culturally speaking...

I see these comments all over Russian folk music videos.

American culture article on wikipedia says there is such a thing.

American culture...

Democracy, Constitution, Liberty, Capitalism, International Missions, Football, Hollywood.

What do you think?

I have heard however from some Europeans that Americans are very culturally similar to Poles. Is this true?

...WHAT?!

Sweet! Poland is awesome anyway, but this would make them more awesome.

It's too bad we aren't better friends with Poland. Poor, poor Poland...

Because wikipedia is the final arbiter of such things. Yeah.

Anyway, after two hundred plus years I think things have changed enough that any European descended stuff counts as "American culture". We have American authors and American artists. Hemingway, Sylvia Platt, Norman Rockwell. All as good as anything Europe's produced. As a people, we're rather obsessed with cars in a way other countries aren't.

I would argue, in fact, that we have several different cultures due to regional differences and Native Americans. Though quite often when I see the phrase "no culture" it seems to be synonymous with "no class". So really they're calling all of the US redneck slobs.

Ack, ninjas; Really, considering we were pro Polish when they decided to join NATO or whatever back when everyone was declaring independence from the USSR, it's a surprise we're not better friends today.

edited 1st Sep '11 2:45:22 PM by AceofSpades

I read a blog article stating Poles and Frenchmen are similar in mindset, both differing from Anglo-Saxons.

Most of the people who make this comparison are German, so it may not be intended as a compliment.

Then again there was a British article saying the US is very similar to Central Europe. I wish I still had it.

Doesn't it? Last time I checked, Yanks produced a significant fraction of the world's media.

There've been plenty of American writers, thinkers, artists, musicians... America's history is shorter, but it's fair to say that stuff has indeed happened in the US. There are distinctly American dishes, distinctly American music styles, distinctive American tall tales.

I'd say it has a culture, whether or not the Euros like it.

I think that blogger was US-Jewish, of formerly Polish-Jewish family.

I think America is currently engaged in a struggle over what its culture should be. On one side, we have people like Michelle Bachmann. On the other side . . . I'd like to say Obama, but really, I'm not sure there is a leader.

edited 1st Sep '11 3:51:12 PM by feotakahari

America has plenty culture. Canada, different story.

edited 1st Sep '11 3:56:59 PM by Erock

What do our political leaders have to do with what culture we have? If anything, the leaders we produce are a product of our culture. That we've produced Obama I count as a mostly good thing. That we've produced Bachmann is a terrible thing. But all countries have good and bad leaders.

I don't really sell on Obama,sorry.But I really do advocate Ron Paul for an example.

I agree.

What? That nutball?

@Ace Of Spades: I'm not arguing this based on good or bad, but based on the fact that the two represent dramatically different values, which I think are related to what might as well be called different cultures.

(Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be "culture shift," old guard versus new wave—something that's always happening, I'll grant, but not always this blatantly.)

The USA is a relatively young nation originally formed from a diverse mishmash of cultures and peoples. How that somehow translates to "no culture" is a bit mystifying.

Maybe it's because mass media of the brain-meltingly rubbish variety originated there?

Pagad; if not here, it would have happened somewhere else.

Feo: Culture shift is probably a better term. Culture war to me seems.... a lot more militant. And it's a term claimed by far right Christians who think they're being attacked while they still have the power. But I only imagine four years ruled by one of the Republicans currently running speeding up the change to a more liberal society because all the candidates have terrible platforms.

I wasn't trying to slight American culture, just pointing out that it's swamped by the endless volumes of crap. Other countries now of course have the same problem, but perhaps because the cultural institutions have been around longer it doesn't drown them out. Dunno, could be talking crap here.

...Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is crap, not just American stuff. It's only that we export most everything we make, so everybody gets to see it...

It might be because the most well-known aspects of American culture are so influential on the entire Western world that those aspects are no longer perceived as uniquely American.

Well, that's my point exactly. I was saying that perhaps the problem is that America had relatively few widely renowned established cultural institutions beforehand.

edited 1st Sep '11 4:16:35 PM by pagad