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In terms of architectural beauty, foreign countries win. And maybe even in terms of scenic beauty. The U.S. does have a certain examples of grandeur - the Grand Canyon - but not so much. Perhaps a case could be made that Americans don't care much about sensory beauty;
How many countries have volcanoes, deserts, Arctic and Sub-Arctic Tundras, 14k mountains, rainforests, and pretty much every other type of ecosystem on Earth?
The USA has 59 national parks and 154 national forests, spanning over 200 million acres, with over 300 million visits per year. Clearly Americans don't care.
Yeah, in the USA, the Cuban part of Miami is EXACTLY like the heavily Finnish influenced Upper Michigan. Those cultures are so close, you could easily be confused.
So it's not a Florida thing. Most of the diversity in USA was brought by recent immigrants. Basically you have to look for diversity in places you normally don't go. The mainstream culture is very homogenous, the subcultures are ethnic enclaves.
So it's not a Florida thing. Most of the diversity in USA was brought by recent immigrants. Basically you have to look for diversity in places you normally don't go. The mainstream culture is very homogenous, the subcultures are ethnic enclaves.
If you go to rural France, you're not going to find diversity. It's completely homogenous. The only way you can claim that it's different is to compare to somewhere else.
What exactly is the mainstream culture? Are people in the Midwest the same as in NYC?
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,540,027 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GoodHombre
So it's not a Florida thing. Most of the diversity in USA was brought by recent immigrants. Basically you have to look for diversity in places you normally don't go. The mainstream culture is very homogenous, the subcultures are ethnic enclaves.
heh NO. NO that is WRONG. *smacks with newspaper* Sit down, boyo and listen a bit.
You seem to be operating under the recently popular notion that white = homogeneous and bland. That's misguided and ridiculous.
In truth the Irish, the Scots, the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Fins, the English, the French, the Spanish, and so on all have distinct cultures. All of which were brought over-seas, and then began to change into something even newer while on American soil.
Old European influence can be found throughout our country, but not uniformly. Architecture changes wildly from region to region, and only in the last 50 or so years have McMansions been changing the landscape to be more similar.
You have to go back before the internet, which was not that long ago in the grand scheme. You'll notice that before the mass media saturation cultural regions in the US were far more distinct. That includes food, music, businesses, dialect, social standings, basic interaction, so forth.
Go further back and the differences grow even stronger.
It's only been recent times where an overall and more uniform American culture has grown to its current state, and still there are major differences.
Sure, Tennessee and Maine aren't as different as Iran and Japan, but that's not what we're arguing here is it? We're focusing on internal gradients.
There are people in Louisiana who don't speak English. Native, white, European descendants who grew up in the state of LA and do not speak English. Something similar is true in NY. There are far north country natives who primarily speak French. People who grew up near Quebec, but in NY state.
Plenty of Spanish only speaking residents in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona too. Ones who were actually born in the US.
There are sub-cultures that transcend state borders. Appalachia, is one great example. The people of that region are more like one-another than they are like their home state overall; and even then it's not exactly the same from north to south.
There are still native cultures! Tribes who still exist despite the odds dot the US. Each with their own flavor of living.
What you tend to see along the interstate is never truly representative of the land and its local people.
NY state alone, where I live, is not uniform even within its own borders. The NYC region (downstate), the southern tier (northern most Appalachia), the Ontario plains (second most urban region, but more Midwestern), north country (most rural region, very Canadian in places). People from all over this state can feel out of place inside their own state.
When I go north into the plains I feel different. People talk different there, there's a different economy, there are different social standards. I haven't left the state, but I have left my cultural boundaries.
In terms of terrain I go from forested rolling hills and deep valleys to flat farmland and enormous cities on the great lake. Houses get bigger and richer, people change. There are far more Amish and Mennonites up there. It's a different NY altogether than the southern tier.
Sure, we share some American staples. Wal Mart, McDonalds, what have you. However, that doesn't say anything for the personality differences. McDonalds exist worldwide. Wal Marts change dramatically from place to place depending on the local economy.
Sure, we share a language, but local dialect is different.
You see where I am driving with this? It's a foolish notion to think the US is the same all the way across and always has been.
Don't know if anybody said it, 'cause this is a lot of pages to make the point that the USA has some pretty cool sights... But I used to find LIFE kind of bland and boring. I lived in the burbs. I shopped at WalMart. I raised my kids, and went to work and came home and made dinner and watched TV. Boring. Bland.
But you know what was really boring and bland, was not the world around me, it was ME, in it, the life I chose to lead. So a time came when I could change that. And I did. And I found some awesome people who do fun things pretty much constantly. And I started doing fun things with them. And now my life is almost TOO exciting, and I occasionally miss the quiet of the suburbs, at least when times were good...seems there was less GO GO GO and more time to just chill out and read a good book, then. I am now thinking I need balance, somewhere between "party naked" and "spend the afternoon reading and napping." Funny thing is...I have discovered that there are often wild subcultures in the most supposedly conservative and quiet of towns, and you really never can tell what your neighbors are getting up to.
Oh, and because we all like to share pretty pictures...my favorite local landscape photographer, who likes to send his work in to the local news often enough...
Comparing America to Europe is not really apples to apples because we are comparing a collection of distinct countries with a single one, so naturally the shared language in the case of America will immediately make it appear more homogenous.
A more apt comparison may be with another primarily English-speaking country like England. There are a lot of comparisons to be made there; and after living in various parts of the UK over the course of a few years, I found a lot of British rural and suburban culture to be very homogenous. Sure, the coasts had different topography than the inland towns, but from Manchester to Nottingham to Leicester, you had the same betting shops, grocery stores and travel agencies, surrounded by mostly the same cafes and the neighborhoods mostly consisted of the same brick row houses or double bungalows. The same argument could be made in comparing various cities within, say, the Midwest USA; albeit our greater land mass means less homogenous landscape and the shared Canada/Mexican border also guarantees some cultural influence as well.
If you go to rural France, you're not going to find diversity. It's completely homogenous. The only way you can claim that it's different is to compare to somewhere else.
What exactly is the mainstream culture? Are people in the Midwest the same as in NYC?
That's why I brought up China.
For the same size geographically, China is much more diverse. Each region has its distinct culture, dialect, food.
In fact, before the government enforced a national language, Chinese from different cities can hardly understand each other. For instance, Cantonese and standard Chinese are not mutual intelligible. The same can be said for food. The spicy food in Sichuan is unacceptable for a typical Fujian native.
The English spoken in Seattle isn't that different from Houston. The difference in accent doesn't impede mutual understanding. But language barrier is a real thing between many Chinese.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,540,027 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GoodHombre
That's why I brought up China.
For the same size geographically, China is much more diverse. Each region has its distinct culture, dialect, food.
In fact, before the government enforced a national language, Chinese from different cities can hardly understand each other. For instance, Cantonese and standard Chinese are not mutual intelligible. The same can be said for food. The spicy food in Sichuan is unacceptable for a typical Fujian native.
The English spoken in Seattle isn't that different from Houston. The difference in accent doesn't impede mutual understanding. But language barrier is a real thing between many Chinese.
China is also several thousands of years old. The US is not. Your comparison isn't as spot on as you'd hoped.
If you go to rural France, you're not going to find diversity. It's completely homogenous. The only way you can claim that it's different is to compare to somewhere else.
What exactly is the mainstream culture? Are people in the Midwest the same as in NYC?
In most parts of the world, the agrarian countryside is nondescript and boring. Land used for farming tends to be flat and unvariegated. Towns in the area tend to focus on markets for foodstuffs. Centers of learning or culture are rare – and if a town grows sufficiently as to aspire to such level, well then, the surrounding locale is no longer torpidly agrarian.
It seems to me, that the American rural Midwest deserves no particular blame for being boring or unimaginative, than do its counterparts in Europe or Asia or wherever else. I don’t believe that the French peasant is more educated, more worldly, more astute or whatnot, than the American peasant. Both will struggle to find various countries on the map. I don’t believe that the French peasant is any more familiar with Racine or Moliere or Hugo or Dumas, any more than the American peasant is familiar with Twain or Melville or O’Neill.
But there IS a crucial difference! The difference is that American mainstream culture lionizes the peasant, the “common man”, the aw-shucks small-townsman. Maybe even a smaller percentage of French people have read Moliere, than have Americans who have read Melville. But the difference is that in France, the idea of having read Moliere is cool. The peasants admire those who can quote from Moliere. In America, reading Melville carries no particular cachet. The peasant doesn’t care if the neighbor’s kid can quote from Moby Dick, while his own kid can not. Speaking bluntly, the French peasants don’t pace French culture. American peasants do pace American culture.
The American mainstream culture is a peasant culture. That is the difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CookieSkoon
Sure, we share some American staples. Wal Mart, McDonalds, what have you. However, that doesn't say anything for the personality differences. McDonalds exist worldwide. Wal Marts change dramatically from place to place depending on the local economy.
America invented Wal-Mart, McDonalds and so forth. Pop culture worldwide is American culture. Pop music, processed food, mass production, mass consumption - these are all America's gift to the world (and to America itself). McDonalds exists worldwide, and is popular amongst hungry, busy consumers worldwide. But the IDEA of McDonalds is only grudgingly accepted in some places, whereas in America, that idea paces the culture.
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