Has there ever been a country like America in all of history? A country that isn't really a "nation" per se but more of an economic zone with not much of an identity to unite it other than economic interests? Would some of the merchant republics in the middle ages count, or perhaps Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia before they dissolved?
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What's it like being moronic? You do realize that having a cultural or civic identity is not predicated on being a nation, right? How the frick do you think pre-nationalist states differentiated themselves from each other? Or do you think they just didn't?
And just in case this isn't penetrating the thick bone you use for a skull; America has a culture and an identity. In fact, it's an extremely prolific and culturally powerful one, which has penetrated pretty much all over the globe, so much so that you have entire countercultural movements dedicated to stopping the Americanization of their area. You, in a profound personal failing, are too stupid to notice what is obvious to literally billions of people.
The "America has no culture" crowd is Americanized to the core. The imbeciles in this country only use the words "culture" or "accent," for example, to apply to exotic foreign things. An accent must be exotic to be an accent, so America has no accent, the same is true for culture and everything else. Foreigners generally adopt this mindset wholeheartedly like the natural slaves they are.
Can you summarise or define American culture? Honest question, I don’t know the right words to use
American culture has both evolved and denigrated over the many years encompassing the nations' birth, expansion, and the materialistic complacency of the modern day.
There was a blossoming American culture after the nation's birth and throughout the days that continued expansion was treated as the nation's (Manifest) destiny.
Taking this all into account, if you want someone to define American culture and the reasons for its populace's unity or lack of such, you'll need to be more clear as to which cultural timeframe you're referring to.
Broad strokes: heavy emphasis on distrust of authority, individual rights, and self reliance tend to set Americans apart from Europeans.
Food is extremely variable, but Americans, in very broad strokes, have a sweet tooth, and tend to like strongly expressed flavors rather than subtle ones.
An easy example would be my own home- given the choice, my girlfriend would rather I make chicken parmesan than steak au poivre. Or failing that, that I just make her a strip steak and cover it in (spicy) seasoning rather than pepper it and make a cognac and cream sauce.
American Chinese food is also a good expression of this.
Beyond that it's hard to say because the country is so large. Different areas can have very different attitudes, but the stuff I listed is fairly universal.
Oh, and holidays. America goes over the top for holidays, I have frog friends who want to visit just to see us celebrate Christmas/Halloween/July 4th.
Putting the word "history" in the op doesn't make this an actual question about history.
Also this , people who think that Americans, specially white Americans, have no culture don't realize that white American culture is the default that everybody follows unless they are making a conscious effort to be different.
Speaking English, using the Internet, wearing jeans and tees, eating fast food, caring mostly about material endeavors and entertainment, listening to rock, pop, or rap music, etc...
You might say
>wow those things are all bad they are not refined and beautiful like X culture
And that's really funny because I'm sure the actual people of said culture nowadays resemble American culture more than any idealized view of what their culture is supposed to be like.
It'd be more accurate to say that America has a really trashy culture, rather than that it has no culture at all. It's extremely corporatized, soulless, and very low brow. They have a "culture", but Americans themselves are not "cultured" so to speak.
Nah, what's accurate is to say that you've a priori decided that America sucks, so you deride American culture as somehow being inferior to other forms of cultural expression, and then come up with a system that allows you to justify your preconceived conclusion.
Go on, come up with an intellectually rigorous set of criteria for terms like "soulless" and "low-brow".
One needs only look at a comparison of American architecture vs German architecture to see the vast gulf of difference in cultural taste between them.
Way to prove his point. Holy shit europeans are incredibly moronic
Explain McDonalds is supposed to be equally as tastefully cultural as, say, authentic French cuisine?
Explain why you manage to suck so much wiener
I accept your surrender
I detest your idiocy
Explain how blue jeans are as tastefully cultural as lederhosen.
You still haven't explained why you manage to suck so much wiener
They're both working class clothes, except the Lederhosen is rarely used for its authentic purposes now and lives on as a costume for special events, not real quotidian dress. The Jeans actually still retain their original purpose as being something you wear everyday for labour (be it construction workers or miners and so forth).
In that sense, the Jeans are actually more "authentic" than you dressing up in a Lederhosen you only bought for the tourist trap festival.
The idea of jeans and the word itself is french...
No shit, and Roman Law came from Italy but it later became an aspect of European cultures.
Something originating somewhere doesn't exclude it from being a part of another country's culture. See also: everything about Japanese court culture being Chinese in origin
Cool. Does that change fricking anything about the cultural impact of blue jeans or the near universal recognition of them as an item of American clothing?
You people literally sucked gypsy smuggler wiener for a pair of Western made Blue Jeans during the Cold War.
LOL this homie still thinks opinions are objective
Why would you expect intelligence from a europen?
Why don't you explain why one is objectively any more "culturally tasteful" than the other
You have to be intelligent to appreciate European culture. Any sub-70 IQ individual can shovel McDonalds into his face.
>He thinks fast food doesn't exist in Europe
Do you homosexuals think Euros live in Disneyland or some shit? They're all residing in quaint medieval houses, eating le authentic organ haute cuisine for every meal, and dressed up in folk costumes to sing cutesy folk songs and shit?
The average European is dressed like pic related, gets sloshed at a night club blasting EDM or Techno, and then eats a Kebab he bought for 5 euros at a stand run by Mehmet and Yusuf. After that they got home to watch their favorite Russian or Qatari billionaire owned Football team play against the other football team owned by some oligarch.
Most europeans are not nearly as IQfy as that. Just take a look at the average German street walker and you'll see moon-faced goobers walking around in the most neutral, boring clothing imaginable, and almost every single one is wearing jeans.
Kek you're right, I was being overly generous. While I lived in Berlin most dudes I saw were always wearing Adidas sneakers, sweatpants, and hoodies. Not exactly "Trad cultural" Tracht or Prussian uniforms kek
>moon-faced goobers walking around in the most neutral, boring clothing imaginable, and almost every single one is wearing jeans.
I need go to germany. It is the homeland I never had.
Are football teams really owned by Oligarchs? Kek
Chelsea was infamously owned by Abrahamovich
>makes a false comparison
>
>makes a false comparison
>makes a false comparison
You want to make a comparison? Okay then, show me a picture Hamburg's City Hall...Sure, if your comparison's are accurate, it is a million times more tasteful and elegant than this...Surely?
That's the thing though, America can only mimic other cultures like that pic, it has no unique culture of its own. The hamburger isn't even an American invention, it was invented by a dutch immigrant.
You are participating in American culture by posting here.
>America can only mimic other cultures like that pic
I wasn't talking about culture, I was talking about comparing architecture. That architecture was planned and built by Americans.
Also, by that same logic, all those european cultures such as Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Finland, and Norway are all culture-less shitholes since they're just aping their styles off Roman and Greek architecture. Checkmate.
>The hamburger isn't even an American invention, it was invented by a dutch immigrant.
No, but the internet and modern computers are. You can thank American culture and admit you surrender any time, thanks.
Read Spengler for an answer.
Of course America cannot have a truly unique culture, by virtue of its brief history. Even then, it's still good to put burgers down from time to time, so they don't get too uppity.
>Admitting to seething about Americans
>Read Spengler
How about I don't, because he's a nobody? Yea, that sounds good.
>Read Spengler for an answer
No, you read Nacirema
>Descendants of British settlers inherit and continue architectural traditions inherited from their literal parents
Wow that's fricking crazy dude, almost as if the USA is another branch of a greater Anglophone culture which now has spread far and wide.
Will you tell me that the Pantheon in Paris is not a French cultural monument, since it's blatantly copying ancient Italians and Greek designs? Pic related is the National Assembly building in Paris. It's not exactly "authentically Gaulish"
Even Gothic architecture is an example of Europeans copying each other. Are the English "lacking culture" because York Minster happens to resemble French cathedrals?
That's a building meant to replicate European city halls, there's nothing "American" about it. Besides that, what you posted is an overdesigned, kitschy mess, which isn't doing you any favours.
>REEEEEEEEE, THAT'S EUROPEAN
New York's skyline has more famous and recognizable buildings in it than any other entire country has in the world.
>Empire State building
>Chrysler building
>Flatiron building
>Radio City music hall
>Rockefeller plaza
>Woolworth building
>40 Wall Street building
>Posts a 20th century highway stop to compare it to a 14th century city center
What an utterly moronic comparison. Pic related is also German architecture, housing complexes by Marzahn in Berlin.
That's just because of communism, you can't compare authentic German architecture to what the commies imposed on them through commie blocks.
homie communism IS German culture. Do you know where Marx was educated, where Engels came from, and where Hegel came from?
>German
Oh perfect for this thread. The German Reichstag was based off of an American building in Philadelphia...
>Oh noooo why doesn't my 245 year old country have architecture from 300+ years ago?!
What a brain-dead take. American culture has noticeable variance across regions, and you can generally isolate American culture (good examples earlier in this thread). I do agree that European culture is more refined, but the gritty individualistic "true macho" culture in the US (esp. in Texas, the South, and some urban areas like Chicago) exists.
Every time I visit family/friends in Italy/France I realize every male family member of mine in the U.S is generally more "gritty" than them.
99% of the US doesn't look like that
Yup. It's amazing many dumb people exist and claim anerica has no culture. All while claiming there own is better. Usually some dumb Hispanic thst thinks rolling tortillas and wearing cowboy hats is what makes a great culture.
If your entire culture consisted of rolling tortillas, you would already have 30 times more culture than americans.
>Usually some dumb Hispanic thst thinks rolling tortillas and wearing cowboy hats is what makes a great culture.
That literally is culture you moronic /misc/troony. Everything is culture and culture does not exist in a vacuum.
How did you manage to misread that post so hard?
>What's it like being moronic? You do realize that having a cultural or civic identity is not predicated on being a nation, right? How the frick do you think pre-nationalist states differentiated themselves from each other? Or do you think they just didn't?
>And just in case this isn't penetrating the thick bone you use for a skull; America has a culture and an identity. In fact, it's an extremely prolific and culturally powerful one, which has penetrated pretty much all over the globe, so much so that you have entire countercultural movements dedicated to stopping the Americanization of their area. You, in a profound personal failing, are too stupid to notice what is obvious to literally billions of people
Why are you seething that hard over a nothingburger
Truth, i can already see usa haters dilating
Ok jimmy gomez
There are many multinational states in the world. Afghanistan, Indonesia, various different African countries, etc.
Most of those are dominated by one specific identity though, for example the Afghan state is pretty much dominated by Pashtuns right now.
For some reason, one that falls under the radar (probably because ccp censorship), is China. It’s basically a bunch of countries like Mongolia under rule of a dictatorship trying to culturally create homogeneity.
What a fricking stupid thread
>BUILDINGS N SHIEEET ARE CULTURE THATS ALL THERE IS TO IT
Are people moronic or something
America as a nation has only existed for 245 years officially. Why do you people expect it to be completely culturally separated from Europe? Europeans founded the country as well as immigrated here in mass during the 1800s and early 1900s. Europeans parented and birthed a nation and now you're gonna act shocked that it has a lot of western European influences? even most of the people are European despite the slowly changing demographics.
>america put a man on the moon
>meme countries didn't
America is, by definition, the literal physical highest humanity has ever gotten. It doesn't matter how many villages with quaint cheese workshops meme countries like Belgium have, because they're so far below America that it genuinely does not matter.
>even most of the people are European despite the slowly changing demographics
yeah, that's entirely on purpose. white hegemonic america isn't sustainable without controlling for demographics, especially since it's a former colony. that's why they need mass migration from western europe. even that wasn't going to last forever though
Anybody that says America has no unique culture has either never met an American, or is an American. You've got to be pretty fricking braindead not to be able to tell that Americans act very different from other people, almost like they have a different culture or something.
People with American personalities are worldwide, most of the time they just go by a different term. buttholes.
>t. michigander
>UH MY CULTURE IS BETTER THEN YOUR CULTURE BECAUSE IT'S OLD
>"Go tell the Americans, stranger passing by, here obedient to their laws, we lie."
>A country that isn't really a "nation" per se but more of an economic zone with not much of an identity to unite it other than economic interests?
Literally Roman Republic, which America was LARPing at the start
>an economic zone with not much of an identity to unite it other than economic interests
the hanse
Yeah. It's on America's northern border.
Canada was founded an uneasy compromise between two peoples with relatively little to unite them - English and French Canadians couldn't even agree on religion (because Catholic vs. Protestant, Orange Order autism even reached Toronto) or bullying the natives (because French traders intermarried with them, Quebec backed Riel and everything). At least they have cold weather and hockey.
I am not sure that there has been. And this is a good thing. American exceptionalism is well founded and absolute. At times it feels like it is a utility for the rest of the world, and that is to some extent okay. Showing another path forward beyond tribalism is an inherent good for humanity. The danger of this is if the world just uses the US as a piece of infrastructure and the US forgets to take care of, you know, Americans. Which is increasingly a problem in the globalized world. I am generally pleased that there is now a bipartisan consensus in the US that it must focus inward for a time to address its very real problems.
Venice.
>all the americans seething ITT because theyre uncultured golems
It is always so easy.
I know someone who wasn't born in America, but moved to America later in life, became a citizen, and seethes exactly like this. They're genuinely programmed and fed goyslop to behave like this.
>euros endlessly seethe about america
>euros endlessly take bants too far and beyond bants
>euros constantly do this shit with the gayest sense of arrogance too
yeah go suckstart a shotgun. Next you'll be telling me this was le ebin troll to own the amerifats too, and not just you seething because your country has essentially been a puppet of america for the past decade.
America is a continent spanning federation my dude, there's like 20 different major cultures duking it out for attention over here and over hundred small cultures made up of tens of thousands of individuals each. Its like expecting China to be a homogeneous country when it's got dozens of mutually unintelligible language speakers
America is the step between nationalism and globohomo.
I'm not sure if any such country exists, the closest thing I can think of are Moldova and Austria, who are separated from the bigger nation-states mostly for strategic reasons.
Arguably most multi-ethnic empires were (kind of) like how OPdescribes, a "core" people conquering others for economic and strategic reasons, but there was still a dominant culture in those.
Ottoman Empire was like that, it was a melting pot only unified by the idea of being “muslims”. Even the Ottoman elite refused to be called Turks but Muslims. Everyone was welcomed as long as they are muslim, a lot of provinces were self ruled.. etc.
Turkish Nationalism is very recent.