Why do people say America has no culture/history? It's literally the first successful liberal state

What is Cultural Marxism?

Americans are (generally) polite people, so sometimes they take banter a little too seriously and can actually get offended.

Also Americans are born and raised with a sense of exceptionalism, so when they finally learn they aren't THAT exceptional that tends to lead to insecurity.

Liberalism includes the ideas of free speech, freedom of religion, democracy, free markets, capitalism and "maximal personal liberty".

Athens certainly doesn't qualify, and neither did the USA until after the ACW (you can't be a liberal state if you practise slavery).

>It's literally the first successful liberal state.
No that's San Marino

Holland still had state religion/state preferred religion for some time. Also they weren't successful because they were Spain and France's bitch.

I don't get the America has no culture meme it definitely does think Dixie, new england, tri state/greater NYC area, the west coast, and the Pacific Northwest all have distinct cultures

The only part that I guess is kind of bland culturally is the Midwest but that's because it's underpopulated

Just simply being a republic doesn't necessarily equate to the Age of Enlightenment idea of Liberalism.

>why does the U.S. have no culture?
Because Americans have no fixed identity because they are a people of peoples. Too actually make a canon 'American culture' would be paradoxical to the idea of American core values of being a place free from fixed ethnic and religious identities which cannot be subsumed into a greater America. Which also leads to problems when the American identity comes into conflict with and ethnic/religious identities, like the Japanese Americans in WW2, Russian Americans in the cold-war, German Americans in WW1, to some extent British Americans in the 30's, and I guess Muslim Americans now.

>regional differences
>cultural
This is why no-one takes Americans seriously when they say they are cultured. Having a different accent, living in a dispersed country and having a slightly different way of cooking don't make you a unique culture.

Hell the only two cultures I see in America are the rural communities and the urban ones, which have enough of a gap between them to be said to be slightly different cultures, but they are still within the same nation.

>Having different ways in which you speak, cook, dress, worship, and live aren't cultural differences

Wow, I should have went to Europe for my education because clearly I've been lead astray.

Do north and south Italy have distinct cultures?

Does Mediterranean France and continental France have different cultures?

Does west of the Urals Russia have a distinct culture from Siberian Russia?

Yeahhhh piss off kiddo.

Fuck off I'm from the midwest. Folk music, country, jazz was big in the mid west, blues. Elitist coastal ppl say we have no culture just because we're poor. It's a culture you only experience if you live there because there's no money to attract people from outside. Then they get fucked when it's election time because they've been laughing at everyone in the middle and pissing them off. Then they wonder how it happened.

You're a complete moron.

I don't get how you claim America has no culture yet then talk about how there's an "American identity" as though that has nothing to do with culture.

When the word "Republican" can be interpreted as "Conservative" that's when you know you are under the effect of America's culture

Frankly he's kind of right. I moved from a midwestern city to Phoenix and it's the exact same damn place except for the weather / nature.

Preferred religion sure, but no prescription of religion. And it's arguable how successful Holland has been but certainly it has punched WAY above its weight on the historical stage.

I'd be ok if America truly had no culture.

But they do, and I hate being lied to.

>literally can't take the banter
Ayyy.

In fact, republicanism is not directly linked to liberalism at all. The USA was the first liberal republic but not the first liberal state, and Britain, Holland and Sweden are all liberal but also all monarchies.

That's because of the Age of Information and mass influence of media. People are more similar culturally because of this, and America is the worse culprit.

See: Hollywood

But it still doesn't negate that there are distinct cultural differences, you just need your head out of your ass to see them because they aren't as plainly visible as one's in Europe or Asia.

Jerking your chicken slightly differently doesn't make you a unique culture.
>dress, worship and live
Are you seriously saying that dressing with slightly different Levi's counts as a separate culture? Of course those things do, but the things Americans count as 'SO DIFFERENT' are barely anything.

The difference being all the places you listed are Old world, and don't have monolithic identities. They had centuries to develop different cultures, which have only recently in the last 300 years solidified into large and coherent national groups.

American culture meanwhile being relatively new has had no time to develop deep cultural differences or variations, and the individual migration of American families around the U.S. halts the growth of local cultures (this as well being stopped by having a very strong pan-American culture). So if you talk to an American on the East coast, or on the West coast, there opinions on things and general understanding of the world doesn't change. Try comparing what Europeans think on the Atlantic or Western Europe to what Eastern Europeans think, or a similar distance away North Africans, or cultural pratices, societal norms etc. No comparison at all.

*you*

You're an ignoramus who clearly knows nothing at all about America.

Going by your metric 75% of the world has the same culture because they can kinda speak English, watch Hollywood movies, and wear blue jeans.

The only really culturally distinct cities in America are NYC, New Orleans, Boston, Charleston and Miami. Everything else is the same shit, don't ever bother mentioning LA or Chicago because they don't stand out in any way outside of their massive size.

That's because you're American first and whatever else you are second. Fashion is very different in different areas, especially among non-whites.

Additionally, you're looking at what America is NOW. What American is now is a result of Traditionally, the different regions of America did have very distinct cultures. It lead to a Civil War for fucks sake.

>So if you talk to an American on the East coast, or on the West coast, there opinions on things and general understanding of the world doesn't change.

Wow, it's almost like you've never actually talked to someone from distinct parts of the US. You're delusional if you don't think that there isn't glaring difference from someone from Alabama vs one from Oregon

>charleston
>miami

What is cultural about these places? And I'd somewhat agree, although other places have culture as well. Not like european culture that is centuries old and noteworthy of a Joseph Campbell type interpretation, but more like a local meme type of way.

How do you figure Charleston?

If everyone in the world spoke Japanese, wore Japanese clothes, and enjoyed Japanese movies/books/music then people would claim that Japan has no culture.

>75% of the world speaks english
Oh dear.

>watch hollywood movies and wear blue jeans
They do. And that does make them slightly less unique as cultures. But they also do other things which make them culturally distinct; Americans are alot more uniform. There are definitely sub-cultures in America, but cultures different enough to be labelled differently but still American? Not really.

Back in the early 1800's; the South could defiantly be counted as a separate culture. But after Slavery ended? It's as you say; America USE to be that diverse in terms of culture, but times change.

>America first, then whatever else you are second
Exactly; but the whatever else in American society is vanishingly small.

I mean, to Americans maybe. I don't think you understand what you just said here, the fact that you can ask what difference between someone from Alabama and Oregon in ENGLISH is a big hint that American culture is much more uniform then you'd like to admit. That and I do say that there is a kinda split between Urban and rural Americans, especially over guns, but I hesitate before saying that's a straight cultural split.

What about San Francisco?

That's disingenuous; Japan has a distinct ethnicity as well as geographic location. America has neither (thinking of Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto rico here, America isn't geographically limited.)

Charleston is one of the oldest American cities and is full of ancient colonial/antebellum history and architecture, pretty much the Boston of the south.

Now that I think about I should've added San Francisco too.

Butthurt Europeans.
Europeans like to pretend that American brands, media, and politics don't dominate their lives. They often resort to absurd claims that one cannot have a culture unless they have a church from the 1500s in their town.

>1500s
Lmao, americans.

>it's a 'totally unique American culture' made up of inventions from the 20th century

Whoever said the only difference is urban vs rural was 100% right. There is almost no difference between rural Tennessee and rural Oregon all things considered.

Just an example picture, Nigel. You're posting on an American website. You're probably using an American operating system and an American CPU as well.

I probably am.

Does this mean America has a culture? It means a few people in Silicon Valley probably have some more money.

I think the split is certainly the BIG thing in America. Just looking at the election map and you can see it, the rural conservative vs liberal urban covers such a broad range of topics like gun control, abortion, but less traditionally debated things like globalization, immigration, religion, homosexuality, etc etc. That and there's an ethnic tension here as well, the rural areas being mostly white, the urban areas mostly being non-white, on top of the legitimate behavioral and sociological differences and experiences in their lives, living rural and living in a city being different styles of life.

Although I'm not sure they'd strike me as completely separate cultures in the traditional sense, certainly they are unique enough to be considered different.

The annoying thing about the "America has no culture" meme is that when people argue about it they're usually both USING THE WORD CULTURE IN DIFFERENT WAYS.

Anthropologically speaking, OF COURSE America has "culture." Everything Americans do (which is, increasingly, what y'all do too) is part of "American culture." Unless you think that people in their natural state act like Americans, like it's some kind of universal human default, which it obviously isn't.

When people (by which I mean Europeans) say "culture" in the context of this argument they mean what's sometimes called "high culture." They really mean, "I think American culture is stupid, crass, unrefined, etc." Which is, you know, stupid of them, but whatever, opinions are like assholes and all that.

On a history & humanities board, when people use the word "culture" they USUALLY mean its anthropological definition, and not "high culture," so saying "[x] has no culture" on here reads as a non sequitur to a lot of people. Like saying "There's no such thing as British food." OF COURSE there's such a thing as British food. The fact that British food is *shitty* does not mean it doesn't exist.

>Does this mean America has a culture?
I'd say so. You clearly find it attractive enough to come to an American website to talk with American posters (who make up the vast majority on the site).

Your confusing 'culture' and 'discourse' here. And America has *a* culture, as I said it might even have two, but it's of a different kind to European or Asian styles, and it's missing a section which is ethnic-linguistic aspect, as well as having a unifying high culture. America is united on enlightenment philosophy at the end of the day, not cultural understandings.

I contend that America, being a people united by a philosophy, cannot have a high culture based on a shared cultural understandings, because having universal shared cultural understandings and a refined high culture undercuts the point of America.

>okay America does have a culture but I don't like it so that means it doesn't exist

America has culture. What the semen slurpers really mean is that America doesn't have HIGH CULTURE but that's hypocritical considering people who say this indulge in pleb culture themselves.

Why is she so perfect

White.

>there are seriously people on this board who pretend to know anything about history and anthropology who think America has no culture
Good to know I'm sharing a board with people that have zero education of any kind.

Your so close user, you almost made it with that post, let me give you one final push
>America has a culture
but
>that culture is limited
because
>the American foundation enlightenment philosophy was specifically formed against the idea of ethnic and linguistic cliques
therefore
>American culture exists
but
>isn't very strong/has no high culture

With an exception for rural/urban, but that's down to lifestyle choices. Which honestly is true of every nation with an urban/rural split, which is all of them.

High culture does not mean you have to be a noble to participate in it. it's thrown around as literally a 'high' culture the elites participate in, but its also a also identifies a society-wide common repository of broad-range knowledge and tradition (e.g. folk culture) that transcends the social-class system of the society.

>American culture isn't strong
Are you by chance a time traveler from the 18th century? Because here in the 21st century American consumer culture has dominated most of the first world.

I think high culture has always been internationalist shit while vernacular plebeian culture is directly tied to tradition, the people and the land.

You can find a fucking Gothic cathedral everywhere from England to Slovakia, but then you have dirty Bavarian peasant songs that are only sung in Bavaria.

The fact that the rest of the world has tacked it onto there's shows that it is infact remarkably flexible, and not 'strong'. The word your looking for is 'appealing and materialistic'.

>You can find a fucking Gothic cathedral everywhere from England to Slovakia
Gothic architecture was pretty heavily influenced by climate differences. Lots of big windows for natural light since its darker up north in the cool months, less drafty openings too since they don't have the sweltering Mediterranean summers.

>remarkably flexible, and not 'strong'
I'm wondering how in your mental gymnastics you can separate these two. The opposite of flexible is rigid or brittle. Things that break rather than bend. American culture is highly adaptive, malleable, and enduring. There are McDonalds in Moscow now. Fucking MOSCOW.

"American culture isn't strong" HA

I know Spain's gothic quarters are mostly manufactured post-hoc shit that Franco funded to associate Spain with medieval history.

Are the majority of "gothic' cities in Europe authentic, or are there really only certain regions that still have buildings from that era with that architecture?

>American culture is literally Mcdonalds

Your not helping your case here.

>Highly adaptive, malleable and enduring
Or it's so meaningless and trivial that you can slap it onto anything and still claim that its 'American'. There is a difference between consuming American goods and services and accepting that American culture is a good/desirable thing.

Well you could say it started in France, and back then it was called the "new style" and it was somewhat controversial. Some of it was pragmatism, adapting to the climate, but others were more elaborations for the sake of it (like the high, pointed steeples and flying buttresses). And it was these elaborations that some of the bishops and cardinals at the time objected to, calling them a form of vanity on the part of the priests building the churches.

I'm not really sure where the term "gothic" originated but I think it might have caught on after the style spread to Spain.

American music alone kinda puts your whole thesis to shame.
>What is jazz
>What is rock and roll
>What is hip hop

But your butthurt is strong - stronger maybe than even the mighty cultures of Eurasia - so why bother.

I mean, fuck, isn't there a Starbucks in the Forbidden City? One of my profs was always bitching about that. Never googled to verify.

>Mcdonalds vs shit folk music from backwoods europoor

Actually McDonalds is not only impressive but pretty indicative of the strength of American culture. You just can't see it. Sad.

I'm not arguing that American culture is positive, I'm saying its strength is undeniable. You seem intent to keep your head in the sand though, and pretend like America's crass commercialism isn't shaping the world around you.

Forced memes.

>different music = cultures
American sub cultures are not different enough to qualify as cultures. Unless your suggesting that Jazz musicians and their audiences are a culturally significant and unique part of America?

>strength of American culture
This is ironic considering how flexible the American fast food menu's are and how they vary from country to country

>this indicates how strong it is
How? If your culture is so weak that every culture can appropriate it, it can't be a strong culture, but either a culture so fleeting it can be easily put into existing ones or superficial enough to be worthless.

You confuse popularity for strength here. Undoubtedly American sets the trends for fashion, technology etc, but it's a skin deep change. Because that's the extent of American culture, skin deep.

Whether or not you LIKE American culture is beside the point. The point is, it's dominant. American food, science and technology, language, literature and especially TV shows and movies are ubiquitous in much of the world. You literally cannot get away from their influence.

You can think American culture is trashy all you like. I genuinely don't care. But it's not "weak." Not unless you redefine the word in pretty weird ways.

It's weak in that it appeals to a majority of world cultures, but what actually *is* that culture is mostly superficial. The actual cultural practices of the United States, like systems of government, forms of discourse, worldview, religion etc is not being exported. What's being exported is a globalized consumer entertainment culture. Wearing Levi's doesn't make an average joe more or less amenable to American culture, yet you'd count that 'American culture influence' because American cultural influence begins and ends in superficial materialism because, as has been repeated in this thread, American has no high culture.

>subcultures =/= cultures
lol wut

>When our culture invades other countries its them appropriating us
ha

>American setting trends in fashion, technology, and other aspects of culture = skin deep
Bra yer killin me. This shit is classic

dude is trolling like a newfag tryhard

A lot of it is because people don't understand the things they do or believe in a broader context. For example, say your culture wears a certain funny hat, to you it's not "funny" it's just how normal people dress. Then you see the people across the border wear a different funny hat, you recognize it's ridiculous but because you don't recognize that your own hat also is you think they have a "culture" while you're just "normal". For a real world example you probably think those blue jeans and t-shirt your wearing are "normal" but those robes and turbans they wear in the middle east are "part of their culture". The fact is those middle easterners probably recognize your clothes as part of American culture but ironically think of their robes and turban as the baseline. The other main reason people say "America has no culture" is that America has such an absolute cultural hegemony that in our media which is consumed worldwide we present our ideals and behaviors as the correct and universal way things should be and that all peoples should attempt to mimic. This ironically tricks Americans themselves into thinking that everyone gravitates around the same normal that we do and we are thus unable to understand our own uniqueness.

>>>/reddit/

jesus christ you fucks can't be more than 14 years old
"dude is trolling like a newfag tryhard"

>You confuse popularity for strength here
And yet again you come up with another common way of describing a "strong" culture and claim it's not actually symptomatic of strength. So if a widespread and flexible culture isn't "strong" then what the fuck is a "strong" culture according to you? Something practiced by only a single ethnicity which has not innovated or adapted to the world in over a hundred years?

I'm going to let you in on a secret: in the anthropological scene we call those stagnant or dying cultures.

>religion
American fundie evangelicals export their shit all over the planet, in Brazil protestantism has already gained a large following thanks to those guys. And they're active in Africa and Europe too.

>America is a cultural hegemony because jeans
Yeah this is why Euros think your full of shit, they also wear those. Western cultural hegemony is a thing, "American" isn't

>he doesn't realize Europe was subsumed by American culture since the 60s

And it's fucking cancer.

Doesn't matter.

>It's weak in that it appeals to a majority of world cultures
This is some "if you kill your enemies they win" tier doublethink.

>/pol/tard
>Attacking the Republican party
You do you, Bernout.

He was insinuating that Republicans aren't liberals. (Protip: They are)

So kys illiterate

Jelly europlebs say its history is short.

It has generic first world culture, which is actually better than having culture.

Of course it has its culture. It's just very superficial like every other country in the Americas, because it lacks the history behind to complexify it.

My God I hope you're not serious

We have one culture that over encompasses the whole country but since we're such a big nation, we have different cultures all over the country.

From the Coastal people in the North-East to the Coon-Ass people down in the Bayous to Proud Texans and all the way to laid back Pacific Northwest.

I personally wish we still had our frontier spirit, it brought us a long way.

>b-but muh indians/stolen mexican lands

Oh stop it, I'm a latino and didn't have to get over it because I never had a problem with it and neither should you.

Better example

Pictured: Mecca

Mission accomplished indeed.

Nah, this is the best example. KFC is now the biggest restaurant chain in Vietnam. There's like 5 of them in Hanoi alone.

No Way dude, this is a better example.

My buddies who were stationed in Japan tell me that the japs, for some reason, all go to KFC for Christmas.

There are literally lines of people outside of KFC to get their finger lickin' going on for the holidays and some even order their chicken in advance so they can just show up and pick it up.

They tell me it's one of the weirdest things they've ever seen and they've seen Ping Pong shows in Malaysia and I can personally tell THAT is weird.

Excuse me, 17 in Hanoi alone.

I've heard that as well. It's a cultural tradition on par with celebrating Christmas in the first place.

Eh, I dunno. An American fast food chain becoming extremely popular in Vietnam seems like a stronger showing. Japan we ground into the dirt and rebuilt partially in our image. Vietnam not so much. That the chain is even allowed to operate is impressive; that they managed to make an American-style dish the most popular fast food in the entire country is absolutely stunning.

bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-34140283

>this country was bitter enemies with the US 40 years ago

True and the best/worst part is that while Vietnamese today are enjoying those famous herbs and spices, we're technically still killing them thanks to Agent Orange and UXOs.

Still better than living under the Chinese.

Miami's culture out of all the cities is the most unique in America. Go into a grocery in certain sections of the neighborhood, and you may find yourself conversing at the cashier line completely in Spanish.

>America is united on enlightenment philosophy
But isn't the subscription to one unifying philosophy in of itself a unification behind one cultural aspect?

>come to an american website

Oh lordy.

The last time I've checked I was browsing a website founded by an american to discuss japanese cartoons. Doesn't sound very american to me.