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[biffinbridge]

Can't thank the Americans enough for saving our bacon,(at a huge financial cost),on several occasions and for the great inventions that come out of the place:ie-the plane,space travel,thr Remington microshave and skateboards,not to mention napalm,nuclear bombs and that weird 70's kids' toy 'slime'...but what does America give the world culturally and what is American culture?OK,Jazz,hip hop,Hollywood,Literature,Art.... yeah but what else?I say this as the UK has experienced 2 drive bys in 2 days and most of my teenage students, current and past use the N word to describe people of African descent...(clearly influenced by all that Gangsta rap).So homies,without wishin te dis Uncle Sam,(cos if you be doin that bi**tch I'm gone busta cap in yo a***ss),could ya'll be tellin' this wigga what American culture is...peace out...REEEspec to tha English massive.

[dyak]

Shooting stuff?

Thanks for Hendrix though.

[denise]

Depends on which American you ask, doesn't it? We're all so damn different. I mean unique/special.

For me, the highlight of American culture is the lack of cuisine. (OK, I suppose we do have steak and potatoes, but me being the snippety little vegan that I am, such things are meaningless to me--at least, the steak part. And no, McD's does not count as cuisine.) When I wanted to dine out in the States, I had to decide between Chinese, Ethiopian, Mexican, Indian, vegan Vietnamese, etc., etc., etc. Nations with longer histories and stronger cultural identities seem to cling more to their own foods, I think. Of course, some things are ubiquitous--you can probably get pasta anywhere in the world, at least in the parts of the world that I've seen--but other things are harder to find (especially in small-town Japan!).

Oh, and I suppose I should add that I also like the diversity that allows for the choice in foods. I like not seeing a sea of white people wherever I go in America. (And for the record, I am white. I just like seeing other people, that's all.)

And of course, as dyak mentioned, we like to shoot things/each other.

d

[Wolf]

[johnslat]

Dear biffinbridge,

" I say this as the UK has experienced 2 drive bys in 2 days "

Hmm, do you think books/songs/ movies CAUSE people to go out and do nasty, illegal, terrible things? If the UK has " drive-bys ", can we lay the blame squarely upon all those flics, songs, TV programs coming out of the States? And, if the answer's a resounding - YES, if bad behavior in the UK is caused by such stuff, well, shouldn't it all be BANNED ( by the government for the safety of the general public )? As you may have already guessed, I'm inclined to believe that blaming " outside influences " in such matters begs the question - I mean, were those jerk-offs who did the drive-bys just " good kids " who were corrupted by the bad influence of violent American culture? If they'd never seen a USA movie, never listened to rap, never watched MTV, would they, do you think, be fine young men who help little old ladies across the street?
Regards,
John
P.S. Oh yeah - as for " What is American culture? ", well, I'm not so sure we even HAVE one yet - culture takes a while to " accumulate " ( even in yogurt ) and the USA is still in its infancy. But when a lot of people speak about " culture " what they're really talking about is " the Arts and Sciences ". So, all things considered, I'd say the USA hasn't done all that badly in those areas in the past 225 years or so.

[biffinbridge]

Just trying to provoke a response to what is,in effect,a serious question.Drive by shootings were unheard of in the UK until recent times,our police aren't even armed,although we do have armed units within the police force.I guess ,in relation to the question I raised about gangsta rap,I personally think that the entire culture it promotes does have influence on what you might call mispent youth.While I enjoy the music, I don't think that the praise of gang culture enshrined in a lot of the music ,(NWA,Easy E,Snoop Dog,Ice T etc)can have any positive effects on youths who may already be suffering from the downside of social inequality and lack of opportunity.The lyrics are full of inflammatory language and ,I think,appeal to an underclass both in and outside America.Gangsta rap kind of represents a culture within a culture.Speaking of the larger culture what I really meant was...what does it mean to be an American?On the macro level it means,as you rightly point out,music and science and so on...but what about the micro level,where individuals might not give a toss if America is putting people into space etc?

[dyak]

[johnslat]

Dear biffinbridge,

" . . . .personally think that the entire culture it promotes does have influence on what you might call mispent youth. "

Ah, but there's the rub: does it " promote " a culture ( e.g. " But officer, I couldn't help it; that ole debbil rap music made me do it ".) or does it reflect it? Would rap music ( or any of the other less than savory aspects of " American culture " ) gain any popularity in any other culture that was not " fertile ground " for such implanting?

" I don't think that the praise of gang culture enshrined in a lot of the music ,(NWA,Easy E,Snoop Dog,Ice T etc)can have any positive effects on youths who may already be suffering from the downside of social inequality and lack of opportunity. "

Agreed - I doubt there's any " positive effects ", either. So, do you think it has " negative effects ", then? Do you suppose that, because of their listening to rap music, UK disadvantaged youth are driven to emulate what they hear in it? Hmm, that DOES sound a lot like what Tippy Gore was advocating:
" Tipper Gore, the wife of then-Sen. Al Gore, bought Prince's smash-hit album "Purple Rain," which contained a song called "Darling Nicky."
After hearing the song's allusions to masturbation, sex and one-night stands, Tipper Gore gathered a group of Washington wives and formed the Parents Music Resource Group, Nuzum said.
"The PMRC met with the Senate in summer 1985 with a list of many demands, one of them being the parental advisory sticker," Nuzum added, "and by 1990 the sticker graced albums [such as] Twisted Sister and 2 Live Crew."
"There were incidents [in which] that sticker (was used) as a de facto obscenity standard," he said.
Typical was an occurrence shortly after the advisory stickers got slapped onto albums. It involved 2 Live Crew in 1990 in Hollywood, Fla. Their album "As Nasty as We Want to Be" contained a song called 'Me so Horny,' which was deemed particularly offensive, Nuzum said.
"It didn't matter that the section of the song saying 'Me so Horny' was lifted from a line in "Full Metal Jacket," a film nominated for an Academy Award," he noted.
And the issue of race and music censorship also evolved in the '90s "with the appearance of gangsta rap," he said. "Groups like NWA received letters from the FBI after releasing a CD that had a song on it, 'F[---] the Police." The FBI asked them never to play the song in concert."
Later, Nuzum added, "[rapper] C-BO was arrested by his parole officer who thought his music broke [his] parole agreement."
What the authorities are not hearing, Nuzum said, is the reason for the music.
"The interesting thing is, once you get past the violent overtones and the language you are basically dealing with political protest songs," he added. "They are speaking out against your society and what [people] want to see changed."
Though most of the censorship appears aimed at African-American artists, Nuzum said the attacks have in fact been broader than that. He used controversial singer Marily Manson as example.
Two years ago when the Columbine High School massacre occurred, Nuzum said, people in the media and government attacked Manson's music as encouraging violence among Goth youths.
"Sixteen U.S. senators threatened Manson on this issue; and it turned out later that neither one of these kids [the two who shot 13 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine] owned a Marilyn Manson CD."
But the bigger point, Nuzum emphasized, is this: "It's never been proven that music causes people to do bad things."
"Outside of people who already had problems to begin with, there are no examples of a cause-and-effect relationship," he said.
The First Amendment Center recently published a report, Violence and the Media "

So, the subjects are - 1. does the media promote violence in " real life "? and 2. if so, is censorship then justified?
Interesting questions, eh?

As for your larger question: What does it mean to be an American - well, I suspect there may be many, many different answers to that one. What does it mean to be an Englishman, a Scot, a Welshman, etc? I don't think very often about my " American-ness ". Perhaps that's because I've spent over 1/3 of my life outside the States, anyway. Moreover, I've never felt that I " belonged " to the USA any more than to any other part of the globe - just that I happen to have been born there, gre up there and so know more about it than I do most other places. There's certainly a lot about " American culture " I don't feel ANY connection to - rap music, Jerry Springer, the Republican Party, etc. But there's also a lot about it I like: jazz, the southwest, th