Thu 6 Jul 2006
[Note: This was written on 2 July. . . I'm only getting around to sending it now. There's so much to say about things that have happened recently, but you know that I'd rather give a little thought to one topic than none to all. I think this post only presents one side of my views in returning - my first impression.]
Those of you who have spent some time around me in the last few years know that I really love living in Europe/Oxford. I love the culture, the history, and the closeness of everything. I've spent so much time over there that I have greatly forgotten what it's like being in America. This summer I have a chance to reacquaint myself with the land of plenty, as I'm spending three months at Georgetown as a Visiting Researcher. I landed on Friday, and my first recognition of culture shock was as I was filling out my landing card and designated the UK as my country of residence. I'm in the US as a visitor, much as I visited Switzerland, Belgium, or Italy. This is a strange land with customs that are foreign but still seem somewhat familiar.
Take, for example, that I am currently in a coffee shop in Arlington, Virginia. It's just the type of place I love. Tables with nicks and writing on them, a notice board overflowing with concert posters and other items of interest, a little patio with people smoking and reading the paper, light music in the background with the espresso machine whirring away. However, I'm distinctly aware that everyone who walks in is American. This threw me last night as well, when Emily and I went to the movies and I was commenting to myself how annoying American tourists are as they jabber on while walking down the street - until I remembered that they aren't actually tourists. This is their (my?) home territory, where their mannerisms are shared by all and taken as normal. The same goes for wearing t-shirts and shorts to go out to dinner. These are considered completely acceptable here, so it's no wonder why Americans don't have a clue what cultural lines they're crossing when the play the same game on the opposite side of the pond.
America is a culture about having. In Europe, it used to be (and to a great extent still is) the case that if you want a good coffee, you go to Vienna or Italy. If you want cheese, head to France. Beer, Germany or Belgium. Trains that come on time, Switzerland. In America, you just head to the nearest supermarket (in your car, of course). There, you will find a dozen different types of olives, chocolates from three continents, a hundred varieties of bread, and every fruit imaginable. You have no need to travel here if all you want is the tangible output of a culture. You are free to 'be your own person' outside of repressive cultural constraints, consuming as you choose because every'thing' is at your fingertips. There is, at least at first glance, a complete lack of institutional constraints on behaviour here. What does it mean?
It could mean that Americans have become creatures of their desires. If you have no dress code, no sense of social awareness or moral responsibility to others, it seems not unreasonable that you would become an atomised individual, able to believe whatever you wanted and see the world as you like without repercussions from others. It makes sense, in a way, that this is what America has become. After all, it is the land of opportunity, where a person shall not want nor be repressed. It's founded on a view that the world is a blank slate for our creating, a story yet to be written where the individual is the lead author.
This is all very apparent to me within 48 hours of arriving. However, what I have learned since leaving this land that contains every major geologic formation, climate, and natural resource, is that the rest of the world is very much not a blank slate, and the reason for this is that it is steeped in the culture that America lacks. Don't get me wrong - I find America very appealing, but strangely so now. It's almost like being here is like living on a diet of sweets. What do you want? America has it. Just the right coffee shop? That perfect slice of cheese? Friendly and efficient service? It's all just a short drive away. The consequence of having it all is that choice loses its significance. Should I get the Tuscan olives or the Greek ones? Should I design my house in Victorian, Han-ian, or Pueblo-ian style? What does it matter? Not a lick. Why not? Because it doesn't change the American frame of mind. Maybe one way to put it is that Americans live outside of culture. They put it on for special occasions, but it itches. It forces them to be aware of some things, to focus their mind into a particular way of thinking that brings with it an understanding of how they relate to others. Culture takes the emphasis off the individual and places it on the social system. It restricts choice, but in so doing it gives the choices that are remaining more significance. The less choice we have, the more our decisions mean. If life is about the generation of meaning, then the better life is one not where we have infinite choice, but one where we are able to choose wisely amidst a narrow range of choices.
My Italian coffee is done now. I guess I should make another choice.
July 7th, 2006 at 8.15 pm
Great post, Sam. I've been in Oxford for far less time than you have, and I'm starting to feel the same way. When I was leaving Heathrow for the US, I was painfully aware of Americans around me–very loud, very excessive, wanting everything their way (the whole "you guys do everything backwards" line gets quite tiring after a while). When I arrived in the US, this feeling multiplied, as I was suddenly surrounded by Americans. It's very weird. Are you still checking your Oxford email down there? I plan on visiting the DC area this summer (I have friends in Arlington and Reston), so I will look you up. Have a good summer!
July 7th, 2006 at 8.45 pm
I disagree with you about America not having a culture. I think America does have a culture–and you hit on it when you noted an individual's destiny is "a story yet to be written where the individual is the lead author." Our culture is about setting your own destiny, taking charge of your life, being responsible for your future. I also think it is folly and hubris to think that what we do doesn't matter and that there are no reprecussions. And because we're in a phase where our culture has become so self-centered to the point of folly as an aggregate, it's a culture some may not want to call a culture because normally "culture" is something to be proud of and show off for visitors. This individual freedom means we are all responsible for each other, collectively and individually, which is a message that has been lost in recent generations. It's not up to the government to tell us to not allow our kids to believe it's okay to kill someone who disagrees with you–it's up to us, as a society, as individuals, to take parents of children like that by the arm (figuratively or literally) and remind them that THEY are responisble for their children. It's up to us to say something to a child who is playing chicken with cars on a busy street (yes, I've seen kids do this). It's up to us to call the sherriff when a child comes to your door asking to see inside your house because "I wanna see if you got anything worth stealing" (yes, this happened to me years ago!). It's up to us to keep a friendly eye on our neighbors–or else someday we'll end up with same restrictions as some other countries because too much of the government budget will be spent doing what we could be doing ourselves. I agree that too many choices can be overwhelming–but with choice comes responsibility. And that idea–who is responsible for what–has been sparking debates in areas from school textbooks to the war on terror. Welcome home! I hope we get a chance to meet up sometime while you're here. Of course, if you're ever passing through our way, please let us know!
July 7th, 2006 at 9.52 pm
very interesting coments. I believe some of those very ideas were develpped by the French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville as early as the 19th C; you might want to check him out, if you haven't already done so. He is and remains, afterall, a founding father when it comes to studying your homeland and deciphering its habits and ways.
Very interesting comments indeed, it may effectively be that the market annuls all differences, thereby making culture an obsolete concern and, indeed, an obsolete reality. Mind you, that is one of the essential tenets of postmodernity: we live in a world of accelerated capitalism, one big, endless catalogue, if you will, and the result is that there is no such thing as value or meaning or verticality: what you see, what the western world has become, is to some extent nothing more than consumerism; an endless and horizontal juxtapositions of "things" between which you chose, as a consumer, cut off from anything but one's immediate desires (see Lyotard and Baudrillard). What you perceive in the US is gaining ground in Europe, it's only more apparent in the US because the US has a more developped economy and less history to bulldoze over. But the essential dynamics are the same: we are becoming the victims of our success and the market is bracketing off history. We no longer live in a world of verticality, but rather face the horizontality of the postmodern era; Value is out the window and we are, somehow, left bereft. Of course, some scholars, like Baudrillard, arrive at the same conclusion but with a more optimistic and playful outlook, and that is, as it were, in the eye of the beholder.
Funny that: your entry took me back to my dear old philosophical concerns, which is great, as I've always been a sucker for nostalgia.
nick
ps: you write well and in a surprisingly clear prose, odd coming from a guy who can't explain what he means over coffee ;)
July 11th, 2006 at 3.51 pm
your use of the word culture and the connotations that surround it actually equates less with culture and more with a specific type of culture, that being a collectivist culture. This is not surpising as most of the world technically fuctions as a collectivist culture. However, it is not the true meaning of culture.
Culture is a set of norms and behaviors that are learned as a result of being part of a group of people called a society.
Consquently there are many different types of cultures and America does have one.
Ther American culture is unique, as is every culture. But, it is distinctly different from most cultures that exist throughout the world. It is characterized by a low power distance, a high emphasis on individuality, monochronic time, and a middling to high tolerence for uncertainty. This creates the feeling of a society that lacks a "culture" and is based on what some feel is an almost obscene informality. For many early British perceptions on this, read 1776 by David McCullough, if you haven't already. For greater information on cultural differences and the measurement of them see www.gert-hofstede.com.
Some social scientists believe unique culture formed because America is a nation of immigrants. Something, some drive or "inner ADD" as my mother has said, caused our ancestors to leave everything behind. They left security, family, possessions to start a new life in the wilderness on some off chance that things might be better in the new world. Many people thought they were crazy. Many people still do. Some suggest that it's a genetic predisposition. Others say that it was due to the cultural trends and individual nurturing of the people who left. No one knows and it doesn't really matter. Either way, the result is the same and that result is this bizzare culture that the US has.
I would also disagree with you on the subject of choice. It is not the degrees of choice that matter. Whether you have two options or an infinite number of options is not the issue because the variety of choices does not define the choice. It does not infuse the choice with value. One can choose foolishly (for lack of a better word) just as easily with two choices as with an infinite number if one does not exercise free will and does not think. Rather it is the action of chosing, of reasoning a decision, that demonstrates the exercise of free will. This is what gives choice its value.
And finally, carefully chose that cup of coffee. Your choice is not defined amidst a collective culture. Rather it serves to define you as an individual. People around you are gleaning information on your individual nature based upon where you order, what you order, and how you order. In the US, the object of your choice is outward evidence of you as an individual.
So it does matter whether you chose a certain style of house or a specific type of olive. That object of your choice is what helps to define you as an individual to the outside world, which is a very unique aspect of American culture.
July 15th, 2006 at 2.59 pm
[…] It's been a long while since I spent any significant amount of time in the US. As I settle in for three months at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies , I wrote down my thoughts on returning to American culture. Care for a read? […]
July 16th, 2006 at 2.47 pm
I know I should say something deep and thoughtful. Not today though.
July 18th, 2006 at 12.21 am
Lisa, nested in your reply is a sense that, while everyone is setting their own destiny, they have a common set of shared values that would allow them to judge and reprimand others who act contrary to what you believe is right. what I hear you saying is that Americans should take the administration of justice into their own hands. This to me sounds like a recipe for lawlessness, not akin to the state of affairs that existed in the American West in its early days.
I think that perhaps one reason why Americans have given up taking matters into their own hands is because it is no longer clear that their beliefs and values are shared by those around them. In order for people to be held responsible for acting within cultural guidelines, those guidelines need to be (at least) implicitly understood by all parties concerned. Do you believe that this is the case in America today?
I’d really like you to expand more on the following:
How are we responsible to each other? Is it just in holding each other to the mantra of individuality and reminding people that they either have to make their own life or get lost in the midst? that’s a hard line, but I feel like some debate
July 18th, 2006 at 1.06 am
Sam,
In response…. I don’t believe telling a child to stop playing in traffic is lawlessness, nor do I believe that calling the Sheriff when a child comes to your door to see what you have to steal is lawlessness. There’s a time a place for a lot of things.
I think people stopped getting involved because not too long ago people who tried to do the right thing started getting sued. Did you know, for example, that a teacher in a public school who is attacked by a student with a deadly weapon cannot defend himself or herself? Oh, yes, in the 1990s a teacher was taken to court for self-defense against a child with a weapon AND LOST. Did you know that at one point in the 1990s if you tried to help a lost child find his/her parents you could be charged with attempted child molestation and put a list FOREVER MARKING YOU as a molester even if the charges were proven completely false? Since there’s no governance of this list, once you’re on it, there’s no way to be removed.
However, now that a lot of “government protections” put in place have proven to be so very easy to abuse (such as allowing children to stab teachers and not even sending them to jail for it and treating good samaritans as criminals), the courts are swinging back toward common sense. However, our culture has not also swung back into the mode of looking out for each other (which makes it so much easier for real child molesters to do what they do).
As to expanding on that one thought… It would be easier to know what my train of thought was at the time if your server hadn’t taken out all the paragraph breaks and made my reply one big lump. It was not one big lump when I submitted it. *lol*
Perhaps what I was thinking of is that ….because folks have gotten so self-centered that the believe THEY don’t have to stop for redlights if they’re in a hurry or that THEY don’t have to teach their children that it’s not okay to stab the teacher with a pencil simply because she wants to know where your homework is or that THEY aren’t responsible for teaching their children morals… AND that no one should be able to make them obey traffic laws or teach their children common sense or keep their five-year-old from wandering the street at eleven-thirty at night (yes, I’ve seen that happen, too)….. I wonder if we, as a society, have forgotten what it means to be a society. Have we have forgotten that sometimes we SHOULD step in (with a call to law enforcement if needed) to keep folks from harming themselves? If you see a five-year-old walking the street at eleven-thirty a night, blocks from his home, wouldn’t it make common sense, wouldn’t it be an ethical thing to do, to either call the police or walk that child home again and personally deliver that child to his doorstep, just so you can look the parent in the eye and say, “I found little Billy here walking alone five blocks from here.”? And yet, how many people would?
A group recently did an experiment big-city public parks. A child actress or child actor was hired to cry on a park bench or near a water fountain or some other place a lost child might be expected to be. The point was to see how long folks going by would let him or her sit there. This was done multiple times in different parks, with different kids of different ages. In almost every case, no one tried to help the crying child.
Is this a society? Is this a society we want to keep as-is?
July 21st, 2006 at 3.10 pm
Sarah, you bring up a very interesting point. I agree that the ‘culture’ I was talking about could probably more aptly be described as a ‘collectivist culture’. And I also agree that the US has more of an indvidualist culture. But this leads me to ask whether these two types have anything in common, and if they are able to coexist.
Am I forced to live in an individualistic mindset because I am in the borders of this country? I certain feel that way some times. In this society where we choose everything, we have become bombarded with advertising, with every product trying to scream louder than the next, ‘PICK ME! PICK ME!!’ I can’t stand to watch the news here because every 4 minutes there’s another (or usually the same) commercial for women’s deodorant. I don’t need that, no matter how much you try to convince me. Adverts on the radio, signs in the metro, product placement in the stores. Getting into the subliminal minds of people is a prefected science and even high art here. I have been highly impressed with watching how these things have affected my behaviour these last few weeks (I’m now a Michum Man). Why has this science developed? Because all decisions rest with the individual.
Does this culture play well with others? Does it even take time to understand that not everyone would like to be in this type of culture? Looking at America’s foreign policy, I find it hard to say yes.
July 21st, 2006 at 4.33 pm
Sam, the two cultures can co-exist. Just because you are in Japan and Japanese, doesn’t mean that you aspire to the collective culture of the majority in that region. The same goes for the US. And in the US you have the advantage of not suffering ostracizing and social stigma because you have a different set of cultural values. For instance, look at the criticism that young women who do not marry and stay at home and adhere to traditional values receive in Japan. They are considered parasites and blamed for the lack of strong economic recovery of Japan after its collapse in the 90s. They chose to embrace an individualist culture for a variety of reasons, mainly being dissatisfied with their own culture, yet they receive much more harsh criticism than they would if the situation were reversed the the US.As for advertising bombardment, you must remember that I am in marketing. I’ve taken courses on consumer behavior, integrated marketing communication, and brand management. As much as it seems like advertising is manipulating people’s minds, it’s really not. First, they’re not getting at you subliminally. If they were, you wouldn’t be aware of the amount of advertising that goes on. And it’s far from a perfected art. Talk to any marketer (not advertiser or sales person) and he or she will tell you just how questionable the effectiveness of many of the advertisements are. They can increase awareness of a brand, they can work to develop the personality of the brand, but they cannot drive the purchase of a brand. It’s now questionable how much awareness they influence, especially since Americans are so bombarded, they’ve built up HUGE mental blocks to advertising. I could go into all of the various explanations regarding human memory, it’s general fallibility, the questionable value of traditional media in the age of TiVo, the identity and personality of brands, etc…. It would take much longer than here, and it involves an oddly delicate interplay between human emotions, brands, product, messaging, and human receptiveness to the message. The latter is the most important.So then, the question becomes, "Why are you a Mitchum Man?" Was it because of family influence (someone you know uses it, so you do too)? Was it because you saw the ads and identified with something in them (liked their message, more of an aspirational ideal, identifying with the target market)? Or was it because it was on the shelf at Target, you read the package and thought, what the heck? Or did you used to use it before leaving for England, came back to the US and restarted out of habit because it was a product you are familiar with (consumer habit is a STRONG thing)? Each one of those scenarios has its own explanation. And let’s face it, Sam, you haven’t been here long enough to have made a repeat purchase on deodorant, and its prolonged repeat purchases that truly matter for driving business profitability.As for whether the culture plays well with others, you need to look beyond our foreign policy. You are making an attribution error in assuming that a small subsection of people in behaviorally representative of the whole. It’s a famous error in marketing and led to such products as New Coke, the classic warning against sampling the wrong target population. Rather than looking at our foreign policy, also look at our international business and other international encounters we’ve had. We’ve been very successful at international business and built strong bonds in a variety of areas around the world, even places no one thought that we’d succeed (ex. China). There have been many cultural bumps and the international business community has been very successful at overcoming those and increasing their awareness of intercultural relations.Also, one issue that frequently came up in business school was the simple one of, "We in the US are learning to deal with other cultures. We modify our negotiating style. We modify our behavior, our voices. We don’t send our top performer because she’s a woman and that might offend someone. We sometimes compromise our cultural values and morals to deal in countries with different cultural values, even though that is happening less often. When are people from other cultures going to start meeting us halfway?" The meeting halfway is happening more and more often, but in the business world, it is frequently the American who bears the burden of altering behavior to fit the cultural of whomever he or she is negotiating with as a means of showing respect.This shows that many cultures, even collectivist ones and even ones that are not American, have a great deal of difficulty playing well with cultures who are different than their own. It’s a standard issue that must be addressed by everyone, not just Americans. More Americans do need to learn how to look beyond their own cultural experiences and start to understand others from their own cultural standpoint. But Americans shouldn’t bear the burden of understanding alone. People from other cultures also need to learn and understand different cultures, including the American one, beyond the rhetoric and the interpretations they make based upon their own cultural experiences. It’s a 2 way street. I see real progress in business because of shared, clearly defined goals and mutual interests. I expect politics will lag, but at least politics can fall back on the McDonald’s Postulate* to save it in times of trouble.*McDonald’s Postulate - it is very rare, if ever, that two countries go to war if McDonald’s has a decently visible presence in both countries. The existence of McDonald’s shows a level of economic stability and likely interdependence, both between the countries and with the global community as a whole, that would make going to a full scale war disadvantageous to all sides involved.
July 22nd, 2006 at 10.10 pm
I’m going to have to second Sarah C. If you feel you are too influenced by advertising, that’s not their fault. Have you forgotten your Psych classes? Response is in the control of the owner.
I tune out commercials, ignore ads on the sides of webpages, and even avoid some websites if they have too many popups. You’ve simply forgotten how to do this, I’ll wager. You’ve found yourself facinated by the differences and can’t turn away. It’s understandable. When I livedin England, I was amazed by how car bombings were reported. Fascinated to the point of distraction, really. An anchor here would be fired for saying a Senator had been “blown to bits.” It would be considered disrespectful of the dead. There, in 1990, it was considered proper to say “MP So-and-So was blown to bits today…” because it was IRA doing the bombing.
Folks then could be arrested for some much as accidentally giving the time of day to someone who turned out to be IRA–held without charge, without respresentation, for any length of time without process. I found my own habits greatly modified. Since I happen to be Catholic, I didn’t go to Mass the whole time I lived there, afraid I might end up on some list. People were so terrified of associating with the Irish that I didn’t tell people I had Irish-Scots in my family history but instead changed it to Scotch-irish. I did a whole lot of other things I now wish I hadn’t because of this influence. But it was definitely a learning experience not to be missed.
Cheers,
July 22nd, 2006 at 10.11 pm
I’m going to have to second Sarah C. If you feel you are too influenced by advertising, that’s not their fault. Have you forgotten your Psych classes? Response is in the control of the owner.
I tune out commercials, ignore ads on the sides of webpages, and even avoid some websites if they have too many popups. You’ve simply forgotten how to do this, I’ll wager. You’ve found yourself facinated by the differences and can’t turn away. It’s understandable. When I livedin England, I was amazed by how car bombings were reported. Fascinated to the point of distraction, really. An anchor here would be fired for saying a Senator had been “blown to bits.” It would be considered disrespectful of the dead. There, in 1990, it was considered proper to say “MP So-and-So was blown to bits today…” because it was IRA doing the bombing.
Folks then could be arrested for some much as accidentally giving the time of day to someone who turned out to be IRA–held without charge, without respresentation, for any length of time without process. I found my own habits greatly modified. Since I happen to be Catholic, I didn’t go to Mass the whole time I lived there, afraid I might end up on some list. People were so terrified of associating with the Irish that I didn’t tell people I had Irish-Scots in my family history but instead changed it to Scotch-irish. I did a whole lot of other things I now wish I hadn’t because of this influence. But it was definitely a learning experience not to be missed.
July 25th, 2006 at 7.20 pm
Interesting discussion… I’d like to offer a different point of view. I live and work in a small, rural community, out in the boondox, about 20 miles from two major metropolitan areas (Raleigh/Durham/Chaple Hill and Greensboro). When I think of American culture, I do not automatically think of the blatent consumerism (though, I’ll be the first to admit it is out there, and I fall prey to it myself far too often), I think instead of the nature of the American who stops and helps someone in need, looks after the neighbors kids, and make sure that the elder neighbor is ok on a daily basis. I see this kind of care and concern every day out here in Rural America, where one litterally cannot sneeze w/out the whole town knowing about it. It would be nice to think that this is all because this small town, like so many small towns, are just one huge extended family, ergo, they take care of each other. But this is not true any more, expecially in small towns like this one which are essentially a mixture of people from all walks of life. This little town is made up of folks who are desendents of mill workers, farmers, slaves and indians. They have been here all of their lives and they choose to stay here. This town is also made up of people like me, recent transplants who live out here in the country because we have animals (horses in my case), want a simpler life w/ cleaner air (if you don’t coun’t the smell of the local dairy farm), and the space to grow a decent garden and have windows w/out curtains because the neighbors are far enough away that they won’t get a free show. (it has quite an appeal). The result is a community that is very diverse educationally (education ranges from 8th grade to post doc), economically (very poor to very rich), racially (white, black, native americian, latino, Philapino and a few others) and culturally (self-avowed white trash /redneck to overeducated upper-crust w/ a healthy dose of artists, hippys, and counter culter folks left over from the 60’s). So, we are a healthy vision of Ameriacona. The culture I see diplayed here is the one where neighbors keep an eye on each others kids, and let the parents know when Johnny, Jemahl, or Bobby Jo are getting into trouble. When the local neighor has a fire which burns down the hay barn, every farmer in the local area makes a donation of hay to make sure that the farmer who lost his barn has enough hay to get his stock through the winter. I’ve seen rich folks give cars to the single mother so she can get and keep a job (little public transportation round here, so that’s a big deal). We’ve got people who make sure that the bounty of their gardens are given to those who need it, and hunters donate meat to families who would have no meat for their families otherwise. Basically we take care of each other. Novel concept that. Social services are offered through local non-profits and churches as we are too far out to have easy acces to county, state, or federal services. Individuals make a huge difference, and people are accountable to and for each other. It’s not a perfect system, but it is working.We don’t all practice the same faith. In fact, many in our community claim no faith at all. So what is it that bindes the community together, other than a shared American culture? (if I remember correctly, a culture that our French friend Tocqueville commented on way back when). Sam, Americans are not perfect. We are individualistic self-starters who do not like to be told what to do or how to act. However, we have this strange nack for sticking our noses in other peoples business and caring about what happens to others. We may not always make the best decisions, and sometimes we do it in a very patronizing way, but we do care. It makes for a strange mix of neilism and philanthropy. Are we crass? yep. Do regularly offend others? unfortunately. Are we overly proud of our culture? yep. Should we keep our noses in our own business more often? probably. Are we the cultural equivlant of teenagers? you betcha. Yet, for some reason, we still seem to be the place that a whole lot of people want to come in order to start new lives. Maybe, there is something really good about this country. Personally, I happen to love this country, even though I regularly feel the desire to ring our leaders necks, particluarly when they act like arragant, ignorent red necks (and I mean that in a bad way, not a nice way).;-) Just something to think about from someone who choses to work in the trenches for social justice here in America. Mel
September 21st, 2006 at 2.24 pm
April 15th, 2008 at 10.03 am
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