The U.S. Culture(s) thread

Probably not anymore than I'm able to cope with the inevitable bitching about American tourists on social media.

why are all my worst posts pagetoppers

edited 13th Sep '16 1:48:55 PM by PhysicalStamina

Let's talk about the pinnacle of American culture: The Secret Genius of Guy Fieri

Antipathy for intellectuals, or at least the idea of the cloistered intellectual, goes back centuries. Initially, it was not so much an antipathy for intellectualism as for an intelligence cultivated at the expense of other facets of life (and the notion that such people lived in ivory towers, divorced from the realities of the world). The ideal, one supposes, was to be balanced. However, the notion itself devolved over time, abandoning the notion that a balanced character is to be preferred and just turning into the idea that high intelligence=physical weakness and social awkwardness.

I read or heard somewhere (I wanna say NPR) that Australian and Chinese tourists are currently topping the jerky tourist lists for travel destinations around the world (dunno what the Australians' excuse is, but the Chinese are relatively new to being able to travel the world, and apparently haven't had a lot of cultural sensitivity drilled into them, much like the "Ugly Americans" of the mid-20th century; one imagines it'll; get better with time).

edited 19th Sep '16 2:20:07 PM by Robbery

China has Confucian notions of shame, but applies them differently than Japan, so you don't see "deferential to the point of meekness with strangers" being a defining feature like you do with the Japanese, which is a tendency that makes the Japanese excellent tourists because they're afraid of causing a stir. China has the same kind of cultural conceit as the "Ugly Americans" of the 20th century mentioned above; they've got it all figured out and it's everyone else who is the weirdos.

Doesn't mean they're being deliberately rude. I knew a lot of Chinese exchange students and plenty of them were awesome, just that they have different standards in areas that other cultures can find disgusting (spitting, for instance) and their notion of shame doesn't cover the idea that other cultures might be offended, unlike the Japanese.

Is America supposed to be one of those "other cultures"? Cause I've seen plenty of people spit in the grass or sidewalk.

It's much more widespread in China, from what i've heard from people who've lived there/actual Chinese.

People do it but it's crude to do it in public; better to spit into a tissue/sink/toilet if you need to or failing that, at least aim for a spot out of sight/immediate foot traffic.

edited 20th Sep '16 8:15:50 AM by Elle

It is typically rude to spit on sidewalks or the grass where people go. But hocking one into the side street gutter or into some bushes would be ok. It depends where you spit.

Which is better, Yamato or Columbia? I'm kinda leaning on the East side, but we Yanks aren't SO bad...

The Yamato, because a 18th century wooden ship can't compete with a 20th century WWII battleship.

Can the 20th century battleship compete with a late 20th century nuclear submarine? 'Cause there's a Columbia like that too.

It's always good to be specific about which ships you mean, considering that there is a tradition of reusing names for said ships.

Indeed — the first Yamato in the IJN was a composite-hulled Corvette.

Someone in the US Politics thread mentioned how a lot of people in the US still have a very romanticized idea of the Confederacy and don't view it being about slavery. He called them "Lost Causers".

I decided to do a little bit of digging and found an interesting article talking about that particular mythology in length. I thought he originally meant that they were "lost causes' in the sense of them being deluded and buying into entirely false ideas about the Civil War, but it's apparently a legit term used by academia to describe something very specific.

Essentially after the Civil War, southerners scrambled to find a way to not be remembered as horrible people who fought for their rights to own slaves and created this extremely rosy version of history where the South was a noble and genteel land, where slaves were treated benevolently and that they fought valiantly against the oppressive North to maintain their freedom and way of life.

This myth was even somewhat encouraged by northerners as a way to pacify relations between whites. The war was all over, and the northern and southern white man could shake hands and put their differences aside as united americans. Black people and their rights didn't figure into it at all.

This version of history found its way into several different history books for decades, and this myth still informs the way many southerners interpret the events from the war. Even as the books started to promote that history less they still tiptoed around it to avoid offending southern sensibilities, not doing much to correct that perception either.

I'm sure to US tropers living in the south this is all obvious but to me as a non-american it's very interesting and helps explain a lot of US culture, especially the one surrounding the current presidential election.

edited 17th Oct '16 2:24:42 PM by Draghinazzo

Where are you from, Draghinazzo?

Brazil. I've lived in the US for a combined period of 1 year and 4 months roughly, but most of that period was in Florida when I was 8 years old and lived a very sheltered life, so I really can't claim to have a nuanced understanding of the realities of US culture or anything, especially the specifically southern kind.

Yeah, the Lost Cause myth is super prevalent even now, even if it's a little bit less than it was. The effects are far-reaching and are definitely still felt today.

And then there's that cancer known as the Dunning School.

So another Brazilian here, you may ask Garcon about this stuff, he lives in the Deep South and has a real good understanding and first hand experience with the South's white washed history and racism.

I can't say much about it besides my usual readings about the subject here and there, what I've seen during my time in Baltimore isn't a representative of the rural US, if fact is the polar opposite.

Someone mentioned me and the Deep South?

Everything said so far is pretty accurate, not entirely sure what else to add if we're not gonna get specific.

edited 17th Oct '16 2:48:25 PM by LeGarcon

x3 What's the Dunning School, again?

The Dunning School was a set of historians who promoted the narrative that Reconstruction was a flawed mess that led to corruption and waste, while glossing over the more extreme elements of the South such as the KKK's worst activities.

In general, the Civil War period is full of revisionism from multiple angles. You have your "genteel" narrative (which focuses heavily on plantations, due to the association with wealth and class). You also have the somewhat more accurate "horrors of slavery" narrative (which also focuses heavily on plantations, due to the fact that's where the highest concentration of slaves were).

Meanwhile, the 1860 Census sits in a corner and wonders why no one pays attention to it, instead of plantations, plantations, and more plantations. Specifically, less than 3% of the total population ran plantations, and only 26% of the overall population in the South owned any slaves. Many of these slave-less people were poor farmers, stuck where they were due to limited social mobility and a lack of opportunity (especially since slavery was keeping industrialization away).

So if so many didn't own slaves, why did many of them fight with the Confederacy to defend slavery? Because, being poor and uneducated, they bought into the narrative (notice a trend here?) that they were fighting for self-determination, the very same thing that the American Revolution had (supposedly) been about. Which, assuming you've paid attention to the census numbers above, turns this into yet another song and dance number about the ultra-wealthy manipulating the poor for their own benefit. Not exclusive to the U.S., not exclusive to the 19th century.

The Civil War may have been about slavery, but that wasn't why a lot of Confederate soldiers were fighting in it. And that idea persists to this day, because people don't get how they can be conned into fighting a war.

It is also true that in that era, state loyalty often trumped national loyalty. For example, Robert E. Lee, the most famous Confederate general, opposed succession and was sometimes critical of the institution of slavery (without wholly renouncing it) but still chose to fight for Virgina rather than the Union.

Lee still has a severe Historical Hero Upgrade attached to him though

People didn't have to be misled to fight for the slave holders. For many in the South, slaves served a psychological purpose. You may be the poorest, dirtiest, least educated man within a hundred miles, but at least your weren't a slave. Slavery allowed the poor whites to feel good about themselves and feel a sense of kinship and association with the rich plantation owners by virtue of their skin color.

Also, just because they didn't own slaves now didn't mean they couldn't in the future. Southern whites had their own twisted version of the American Dream, which for them involved a big mansion, a big plantation, and lots of slaves. A threat to slavery was a threat to that dream, so they did feel like they had a vested interest in the slave system.

They fought to protect the possibility of being rich rather than face the reality of being poor.