Is There a Culture in the US?

Does the United States have a culture, or in fact any culture?  If you ask our sophisticated European friends the answer is yes the US has a culture but it more like a bacterial one found in sewage.  They would know of course as their various histories and cultural achievements are well known and obvious.  If you ask our unsophisticated enemies who hate us passionately the answer is also yes, the US has a culture that is Satanic, decadent, and one that must be destroyed.  Ironically this latter view of the United States is almost exactly that of our far left leaning fellow citizens.

Actually the United States does have culture, not a culture, but many.  This is why we are loved, hated, envied, emulated, admired, and discounted.  I know this to be true because in my life I have been fortunate in having been able to travel the world and have been exposed to many peoples, cultures, and ideas.  In the United States one can do this almost every day without much trouble.  We are of course a nation of immigrants and as such we have imported everything from everywhere.

The main cultural aspect of the United States is capitalism which is the prism through which we must be viewed.  Capitalism makes success possible as it encourages personal development while socialism breeds self-contempt and ingratitude.  It is human nature to want to do it yourself.  The greatest gift any government can give is the chance to succeed.  All the rhetoric notwithstanding we are a very peaceful people and we hate any endeavor that keeps us from succeeding in our personal lives.  We will fight if forced to but we are not warlike.  Our defense is strong but its use is preferably dissuasive in nature.  We are currently in a situation which feel we have been forced to fight.  We are selfish.

In the United States there is a strong anti-intellectual bias.  My guess is that this is a result of experience with intellectuals in the “Old Country,” whichever old country that might be.  Cuba, for example, is still reeling from Castro’s intellectual takeover.  Our own political left would behave the same way if given a real chance to take over; which is why they won’t get it.  Our citizens have a healthy disrespect for authority and this makes us strong.  We also have, in general, a low level of interest in academic pursuits for their own sake.  College and University are simply for getting ahead and making connections for later life, this is probably true elsewhere but there is a pretence not found in the United States.  This is the reason high school and college graduates to a large degree can not read or write effectively.

We are a shrewd people; a native cunning has evolved from our immigrant natures.  We know how to survive and are not afraid to do so.  We come from everywhere and are disdained for it.  Ask any German and he will tell you that Americans are the dregs of the societies they left.  Americans are the descendants of failures in the homeland.  That probably is the case when viewed from the exalted heights of the European class system, but we like it.