Some people have started to claim that America has no culture. People who say stuff like that look like a fish in a tank criticizing their tank, dreaming of going to the lake beside them without realizing you are a saltwater fish and that's a freshwater lake, and you're a tropical fish and that lake is 4C. You look at that lake longingly, but if you were ever released into it you'd immediately die of at least 3 different things.
America has its problems, but a lack of culture is not one of them. Entire genres of music were created in America. Even in its weakened state, Hollywood still dominates filmmaking. America has produced some of the greatest novelists of all time including names like Mark Twain. The writings of the founding fathers on Government and the subsequent culture of freedom and later of diversity had global influences. Japan's anime industry is a direct descendant of Disney films. Phrases devised in the US end up trickling over to other parts of the world so countries that had the people living there living there for thousands of years claim "We're a nation of immigrants". The entire world watched TV shows like The Daily Show or MASH. Much of the world celebrates a form of the American holiday "Thanksgiving".
That's not to say America's culture is perfect or that there aren't things that need to change, but absolutely there is American culture, and it's had an outsized global influence. Hell, there's italian and japanese westerns even though neither of those places ever had a west to win.
Just as the fish in a tank doesn't realize what the tank has granted them, anyone claiming America has no culture doesn't realize how much that culture surrounds them and permeates them and how bad things could get without it.
I'll go one step further here and point out that Canada is in the same boat. People claim Canada has no culture, but that's only because it's hard to see since we live in this tank. Occasionally something comes out that is about Canadian culture that blows up and you get to see how unique the country actually is. I'm not sure of any country on earth where The Pukatawagan Song would become a sleeper hit, but The Tragically hip wrote songs specifically about being Canadian as well, such as Thompson girl or Bobcaygeon. The reference to a place is one thing, but then the lyrics also talk about specific things that are unique to the local culture as well.
America has its problems, but a lack of culture is not one of them. Entire genres of music were created in America. Even in its weakened state, Hollywood still dominates filmmaking. America has produced some of the greatest novelists of all time including names like Mark Twain. The writings of the founding fathers on Government and the subsequent culture of freedom and later of diversity had global influences. Japan's anime industry is a direct descendant of Disney films. Phrases devised in the US end up trickling over to other parts of the world so countries that had the people living there living there for thousands of years claim "We're a nation of immigrants". The entire world watched TV shows like The Daily Show or MASH. Much of the world celebrates a form of the American holiday "Thanksgiving".
That's not to say America's culture is perfect or that there aren't things that need to change, but absolutely there is American culture, and it's had an outsized global influence. Hell, there's italian and japanese westerns even though neither of those places ever had a west to win.
Just as the fish in a tank doesn't realize what the tank has granted them, anyone claiming America has no culture doesn't realize how much that culture surrounds them and permeates them and how bad things could get without it.
I'll go one step further here and point out that Canada is in the same boat. People claim Canada has no culture, but that's only because it's hard to see since we live in this tank. Occasionally something comes out that is about Canadian culture that blows up and you get to see how unique the country actually is. I'm not sure of any country on earth where The Pukatawagan Song would become a sleeper hit, but The Tragically hip wrote songs specifically about being Canadian as well, such as Thompson girl or Bobcaygeon. The reference to a place is one thing, but then the lyrics also talk about specific things that are unique to the local culture as well.
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You make an interesting point. There is a tank, but there's a lot of forces trying to shatter it, claiming it's a prison and if only we could smash the tank the world would be ours for the taking.