American Culture, Infectious?
Over the years I have heard many a complaint about how America’s culture, or lack thereof, is invading other countries through our mindless, moral-less television programs and capitalistic ways. While I do believe in capitalism, albeit, I prefer soft capitalism, I rarely watch TV but that sense of shame, upon hearing the arguments about our overwhelming blame in the erosion of world culture, does not escape me . I know I am not alone in this feeling, almost every American intellectual I know has some variant of this guilt, be it little or looming.1 It stems from the attitudes expressed throughout the world. Many people in many societies find it easy to believe the U.S. is the primary cause of their own social ills.2 Often cited are our television programs and our capitalistic franchises; from Jerry Springer to McDonald’s to George W. Bush, everything becomes our fault.
Despite taking on some of this guilt, I have defended my country arduously, particularly, in the last eight years. I will continue to do so now. We are not our television programs. We are not our franchises. We are not our Government, no matter how corrupt it may or may not be. As much as any other country in the world, we are victims of the same mindless, detrimental crap. And despite all of this, I am not at all convinced this corruption stems from us anyways. Certainly, we play our part in the grand scheme but with a little research, it is easy to see we are hardly the cause.
Let’s begin with the evil franchise. Yes, we have built parasitic empires now thriving the world over (McDonald’s…Starbucks…Microsoft). We are guilty of being extremely successful in “franchising” but we are hardly responsible for its invention. This concept has been around a long time, folks. The first documented franchise was in France in 1232. 3 So, I say, let’s blame the French.
And what about all the good things we’ve given the world? Here is a list…perhaps not even a complete list, but a fun list:
The Computer, google, iPods, roller skates, mechanical refrigerators, water towers, oil wells, the burglar alarm, the motorcycle, the vacuum cleaner, the subway, the telegraph, the telephone, even the mobile phone, dentist drill, cash register, hearing aids, electric fan, fountain pen, the skyscraper, the electric iron, the fuel pump (gas station, petrol pump — station), blue jeans, the electric motor, the Ferris wheel, the escalator, the smoke detector, radio (although this is disputed), the tractor, cotton candy, the volleyball, the zipper, crayons, windshield wipers, the first safety razor, the spray gun, the coffee pot, the lock-stitch sewing machine, the combine, the motorcycle (aka the motorbike), toilet paper, Coke, the record (vinyl), the revolving door, the Popsicle (aka the Icy Pole), tea bags, Self Starter (for cars — replacing the crank), Wirephoto (think Western Union), BAND-AIDs, tape (both masking and scotch…aka cello or sticky), Liquid-Fueled Rockets, the Bread Slicer, the jukebox, Bubble Gum, sunglasses, frozen food, the bathysphere, the Chocolate Chip Cookie, the particle accelerator, Radio Astronomy, the chair lift, the photocopier, nylon, the defibrillator, the microwave oven, The Polaroid and digital camera, the video game, radiocarbon dating, the disposable diaper (aka Nappies), the heart-lung machine, the nuclear submarine (inventive, not necessarily good), the Polio vaccine, birth-control pills, the laser, the computer mouse, the internet (TCP/IP), operating systems, the wide-body airplane, optical fiber, e-mail, the electronic calculator, barcode for products, human-powered flight, space shuttles, GUIs, The Red Cross, the artificial heart, the Hubble Telescope, the Galileo, stem-cell line, HPV vaccine and last but not definitely not the least important…Scrabble!!!
So, I dare say…that McDonald’s and Jerry Springer do not make up the majority of what we’ve given to the world.
We will accept three-quarters responsibility for George W., since he was born and raised here and some of our constituents actually did vote for him. However, he was elected under the most dubious of circumstances and the process was fraught with deception and illegal tactics. We are sorrier than you can imagine about George W.!!!4
Let us not forget the many unpleasant people who did not come from the United States of America. We can thank Australia for Rupert Murdoch, arguably one of the most evil people on the planet. Our beloved Jerry Springer is a London-native brought over at the age of five…after his most-formative years cemented in British culture.5 And while we are pointing our fingers at the Queen’s home, I will go ahead and mention that most of our mind-rotting television programs originated in London. We are simply copy-cats in that regard. From “Three’s Company” in the 1970′s to the influx of ridiculous and most-obnoxious “reality TV” shows permeating every channel today…i.e. “American Idol”, “Survivor” etc. all stem from British TV. So, we could blame the Brits for the rotten television we now produce.
But is it really any one country’s fault the world is changing? Societies are melding into less personal, more commercial groups of disconnected peoples. This is reality. Who is at fault? The French who gave us franchising and an excessive need to accessorize? The Belgians who gave us the “french” fries? The Germans who gave us the “hamburger”? The Colombians for their coffee bean? The Brits who gave us poor television programming and well, they are the parents of the U.S., are they not? The Australians for giving us the most-evil social conservative ever (Rupert Murdoch)? The Americans who run far and wide with ideas, good and bad? The Chinese with their lead-riddled products falling apart in every corner of the globe? Or the Japanese with their excessively-small electronic parts and economic-cars clogging up every street and landfill?
I think it is all too convoluted and interconnected to disentangle the roots of blame.
Let’s just blame Canada6.
We each have a place in this new amalgamated culture permeating the world. We each have our responsibilities and contributions to the enmeshment of our societies. So, love us or hate us… we are not to blame for every ill in your society. Many of your countries had their own social-diseases long before we even became a country. We are the not perfect but we are not the root of all evil either.
So, get a new excuse on why your country is falling apart, why your children seem to have lost their moral compass, or why your alarm clock doesn’t wake you up in the morning. =)
- http://www.americans-world.org/digest/global_issues/globalization/culture.cfm [↩]
- http://www.loveushateus.com/main.asp?id=88 [↩]
- http://ezinearticles.com/?Buy-N-Sell—History-of-Franchises&id=1661033 [↩]
- For the record, I did not vote for George W. Bush in either election and I did vote for President Elect Barack Obama!!!! [↩]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Springer [↩]
- Just kidding! A little South Park humor … something someone told me once, I never seen the episode myself [↩]
Tags: American blame, American culture, American guilt, Australians, british tv, brits, French, guilt, Jerry Springer, McDonald's, permeating, root of evil, social, Three's Company
November 24th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Straw tail?
To pick a few, computers invented in Germany, http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm
Telephones – italy http://www.esanet.it/chez_basilio/manzetti.htm
Red Cross – Swiss http://www.redcross.int/EN/history/
I could go on but then you would hate me
America is not viewed quiet as you think, it is loved by lots of people here look at the number of people from around the world that are trying to get into it! And yes I agree that we need to look to ourselves first to solve the problems and I think, although don’t quote me on it, that its not the social ills that we decry its the way the American culture is so readily taken up by the youth.
Personally I feel we do not have enough iteration with people from the US, I freely admit that before I started talking to you I had a very myopic opinion of the US but through you and from my recent trip there I now realise that there are good people the world over, and that every country has its bad points and its good ones.
Thanks
Rupert
November 24th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I loved this post!
I personally think that people love to blame corporations, the U.S., etc. for all of their woes so that they don’t have to take any personal responsibility. Somehow it has become commonplace to find someone else to blame instead of putting on your big boy/girl pants and admitting that you perhaps could have done something to help or prevent what happened to you.
I know you said your list wasn’t complete but I couldn’t end this without mentioning my favorite U.S. contribution, the Lightbulb!
November 24th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Rupert,
Thanks for chiming in. I knew I could expect my friends abroad to give a thought or two on this post.
It is all in the name of intellectual thought, this conversation. I haven’t purchased a 300 ft flag pole to put in my yard. =) I have learned people abroad can take being poked fun at fairly well; criticized…not so well. But discourse runs through us all, doesn’t it?
I appreciate the few examples there but they are irrelevant to the greater point. Maybe you are playing devil’s advocate or perhaps you are simply being obtuse. I should have known you would, though I have to admit I did not know you were reading my blog.
I digress, I will address the examples you cite all the same.
As for the “computer” you mentioned, made in Germany, it was more like a very limited programmable calculator or a very smart calculator, if you will. Its output was on paper tape (just like a calculator). Its programmer, Konrad Zuse, did move on to make a few other versions and is credited, by some, for the first crude and simple version of computer but not as we know them today. I would venture to say that his was somewhere between a computer and a calculator…the turing machine. =) Furthermore, our machines today are not derivatives of his but of the computer created in the U.S. Yes, great minds can (and do) think alike but if you go in a different direction with a similar idea and the other person goes in another…then, that is that. A fine example of this is the Apple computer vs. the PC. They both had the same ideas but brought them to fruition in very different ways. =)
As far as the telephone, Antonio Meucci, was the original inventor of the telephone that preceded the ones we used today. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci)) He was an immigrant living in Staten Island but an American all the same. As a side note, I found it interesting to learn he immigrated from Italy to Havana, Cuba to the Staten Island, United States. What an interesting series of choices. =) Meucci created this phone to talk to his sick wife who had to stay in the basement. Unfortunately, he could not afford to keep it patented and Alexander Graham Bell patented it and commercialized it. And thus, widely takes credit for it. ((http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_telephone))
The person you cited, Innocenzo Manzetti did not get a working version of the telephone complete until well into 1870. Whereas Meucci invented his first phone in 1834 when Manzetti was only 8 years old! Albeit, it was an acoustic phone but he went on to improve upon it and got the electronic telephone working in 1856. Before 1870, he went on to invent about 30 different types of telephones. =) And he did so in America.
Touché on the Red Cross. I meant the American Red Cross. How egocentric of me… LOL! =) I will correct that or delete it. Good catch. Thanks.
I wouldn’t hate you, even if you tried to dispute each and every item in the list. Although, you will no doubt irritate me in every way you possibly can like a child trying to gain attention, in whatever manner he or she can. And the list is not about tit-for-tat…it is about American contributions to the world. It was to represent a greater concept, one speaking to what the United States has given to the world. I was focusing on the positive marks we have made, to demonstrate the point to so many angry, judgmental foreigners. =) And please do not patronize me by citing our immigrants. I know many love this country. Of this, I have no doubt. However, I also know that many people from other countries who do not live in this country, who may or may not have even visited here, have made a lot of negative sentiments towards the U.S., particularly in the past eight years. I can understand why in some sense but it has run amok more than a few times. You cannot deny this.
I was making a point to the people who take criticizing the U.S. too far. Those who have never been here. Those who do not really know what they are talking about when they are criticizing the U.S. and its citizens. Please do not make me cite examples of the many hostile, rude and anti-American statements made, you know I can but I’d rather not have to, simply to drive my point home. You could check the website I cited in the first place. One has MANY anti-American statements on it.
I think it is always good to reflect on the good and bad in a society, in a country, your own and others. =) I hope to continue this debate with myself as well. Despite this post, you also know that I have no problem critiquing my own country and fellow Americans as well. =) I am an equal opportunity gadfly.
All that said, thank you for your thoughtful response and for reading my rambling.
Meg =)
November 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Terence,
OOOooooOOOOoooo How could I forget the light bulb! =) Thanks for shining light on that omission. Hahahaha…punny, I know. I will add it in lieu of the Red Cross I must delete. =) I am, if anything, correctable and amenable to interjection.
I think people blame ANYTHING or ANYONE as to avoid blame. I was mulling the idea about writing a book on this very topic; the avoidance of blame. I will let you know if I choose to do this to get your thoughts or whatnot.
However, the Corporations are to blame for a lot of things or more so, corporate greed. The could be controlled by having regulations on them, such as we are controlled by having laws put on us. =) Couldn’t we stretch the social contract to include the corporations?
And while most may try to evade guilt and blame, I am always picking up extra. Hahahaha… I so have a guilt-complex.
Thanks for responding! I’m off to add the light bulb and delete the Red Cross.
Meg
November 24th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Oh, and Rupert…
I did not know what “straw tail?” meant so I looked it up. Is it right that you are asking if I was upset or if someone upset me? If so, then your answer is no. No one irritated me aside from my thoughts of discussions and comments in the past. You know I am capable of riling myself up.
And…
I know “America is not viewed quiet as I think”… I do not think America nor Americans quiet.
(Sorry, had to do it!)
And I didn’t address your sentiment about the youth sucking up our culture in my first response. I disagree with your premise. I think they are absorbing corporate culture, much like the youth throughout the world. This is not the “American culture”. It is the globalized, corporate culture. Furthermore, one need only look at one’s own culture to examine why the youth are rejecting it, if they are indeed choosing a foreign culture over their own. This is true in EVERY country. They should come around.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Of course I read your very interesting site, it was a really good way to keep up with what was going on during the elections and getting the view of the left.
I am not go down the road of picking items, suffice to say that each one can be disputed and given the time and inclination I would, and it wouldn’t be being obtuse or squawking for attention but more a case of belief in fair play and as a response to your stimulating post.
As for USA cultural imperialism, The US did have an active policy of exporting its culture during the time of the cold war when they were countering the perceived soviet threat, with the now defunct United States Information Agency . Whether this has stopped or not who knows? It is also true that other countries have and do carryout very similar activities. However, the US is particularly good at this. Perhaps its the demographic make up of the US that lends itself to this?
It is not corporate culture that the youth aspire to it is the OC, friends, CSI. But this is not the USA’s fault I suppose, it’s the fault of our own TV stations who buy cheap US imports. Something they have done since I was young, so I guess its not surprising that the kids all now ask when “thanks giving is?” and wanting to go trick or treating.
Rupert
November 25th, 2008 at 3:30 am
By the way, Dyslexia is a learning disability that manifests primarily as a difficulty with written language, particularly with reading and spelling.
Sorry just had to do it
November 25th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Ok, now I feel like a jerk for giving you grief on your spelling error. I am genuinely sorry. =/
As far as your argument on U.S. cultural imperialism, I still do not see it your way. The examples you give “CSI, the OC and Friends” I believe are still very much a product of corporate culture. The OC couldn’t be more of an interactive advertisement for music, clothing and other products. It serves as an hour long commercial. However, I do not watch it. I can still see clearly how corporations benefit from its popularity or even shape it. I am not certain how your youth are aspiring to CSI or Friends but I personally like both shows. Friends was funny, quirky and had a variety of intellectual, hard-working friends who mostly respect one another and encouraging each other to push themselves to do what they are capable of doing. I am lost on the CSI reference.
As far as your “fair play” argument on why you did and should have disputed things on the list of contributions of the U.S. to the world, I think you are still missing my point. I have no doubt every country in the world has given the world many inventions, many contributions. I also have no doubt that someone can dispute anything ever said about anything and perhaps everything in the list and in every list of “first discovered or invented” is all incorrect. Perhaps the ancient Egyptians or Mayans or people even further back discovered each of those items. Who knows? We may never. My point was larger than those items/technologies.
Do you think that anything noteworthy was ever founded, invented or discovered by an American or in America?
If so, then you can extrapolate from it, my point. The U.S. has given a lot to the world, even if it has exported a TV show that you allow your stations to import and your children to watch and mimic.
And if you wish to talk about U.S. cultural imperialism with a mindfulness for fair play, let’s discuss the violent European cultural imperialism which dominated the world for centuries. Or the Catholic or Christian cultural imperialism. In all fairness, exporting TV programs is hardly noteworthy in comparison.
I hear your arguments and I am aware of your points. I know people can argue who invented what and when. I am aware of the belief and dislike of the notion of “American cultural imperialism”. I can see some validity in it but I would argue it is more a question of capitalistic modernity rather than culture. And I am even inclined to argue the idea of “American culture” itself. However, I digress, I still stand by my post. I am still more interested in making the point that the many people outside the U.S. have demonized it and even went as far as assuming the people in the U.S. are ignorant and lazy. The jokes, the statements, the sentiments can be found all over the internet and newspapers, TV shows, foreign news commentary, etc.
Every argument can be multi-faceted. I am cognizant of the many ways we could look at what I wrote but I am also keenly aware of what particular point I was addressing in my post. I hope for all that you see “wrong” or “lacking” with my post, that you also can see what I was saying.
November 26th, 2008 at 4:18 am
I did understand what you were saying in your post, and I felt that in my own little way I supported it lol, Winston Churchill said we were two countries separated by a common language
. For example (and please forgive me if I am wrong here) In the USA if someone compliments you on something you say thank you (Right??) if they do the same here in the UK we say “really I didn’t do anything”, we seem to be afraid to own up to the things we do right lol. And I think it is this that shows the greatest difference between the two peoples.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:56 am
I did say please forgive me if I was wrong
Similarities? Are we speaking generally or personally?
November 26th, 2008 at 8:32 am
You are wrong in this assumption as well. Both in your country and mine, we are taught it is polite to say “thank you” when complimented. However, most of us discredit compliments, downplaying ourselves. We are taught this is rude but we do it anyways. I believe most people feel genuinely awkward being praised or complimented in such cases. Or we simply feel people are being “polite” or passe. There are entire books dedicated to trying to teach “Americans” how to accept a compliment gracefully (i.e. “Thank you”).
I regularly shrug off compliments or disregard them. As do most the people I know.
You speak in generalities about that which you are not really informed. There are differences between every people of every country and every person and his neighbor. This silly point on self-effacing is hardly the “greatest difference between English and Americans”. I could argue we do not have as many differences as you wish to believe. And even if we do, how we accept or do not accept compliments is hardly one of them.
Shall we discuss the similarities?
November 28th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Here is a similarity, The US and the UK are universally hated by the rest of the world. the terrorists in india have singled out or at least targeted British and US nationals.
November 30th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
LOL…yes, yes we are but I think we might be on the upswing here in the U.S.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I have been ignoring this thread way too long! Sorry!
However, the Corporations are to blame for a lot of things or more so, corporate greed. The could be controlled by having regulations on them, such as we are controlled by having laws put on us. =) Couldn’t we stretch the social contract to include the corporations?
Since corporations are separate entities, yet entities none the less, I feel that they should definitely be held by the same social contract as humans are. They may not get exactly the same rights (corporation entities should not be able to vote, it would be like allowing someone to vote twice), and so they will not always face the same problems (as an entity, corporations cannot steal…only the employee(s) of a corporation can) but if they are going to get benefits of the social contract, they should be held to reasonable restrictions as well.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Precisely, Terence! =) I agree with you. You have given it some thought obviously. I would not immediately think of the voting rights.