What is the culture of the United States?

Question

When discussing culture of course it requires making generalizations. Having lived in Japan for many years I would say the culture is group oriented, people are non-confrontational, polite, they have a unique cuisine, they care a great deal for quality. Does the US really have a culture or is it just a bunch of sub-cultures and individual actors?

Answer 1

A bunch of sub-cultures mixed together.

Answer 2

We're all taught that America is the great "Melting Pot". The place where people bring thier cultures from all over the world to share and add to the greatness of our country... To some extent this is true, at least with first second and even thrid generation emigrants.

However, most Americans are now four or more generations from those adventurous new comers.

So what has this soup, this alloy of cultures become?

Yes, the United States does have a dominate culture with those it's four+ generation of American.

We are a culture of selfishness, charity, laziness and excess.
We are a culture focused on the individual's wants and needs.
We scoff at the fugal, and acuse the wealthy of greed because they have not given thier wealth away.
We resent our taxes and the poor roads or schools in our community.
We worry about the enviroment and drive our eight cylinder SUVs to the Green Peace Rally to show our support.
We instruct our children to think well of themselves as we insult the people in traffic or on the news.

In short, the United States culture is a "Me" culture. All for themselves.

There are many sub-divisions of this culture and each with a taste of the old ways from countries left far behind... But in those regions where the cities boil and the people have all thier family's traditions melted away at haste, you can see it so clear.

It is depicted in our popular culture from Rap Music to Seinfeild.

Answer 3

I haven't been to the US, so I have not witness first hand the culture of americans. All I know is that US is a free country, and that before terrorism spawned terror, people of differrent nationality could easily go to States, some really make it their adopted country. And because of that US has became what is it now multi-cultural and diverse depending on which state you are in. Like in Florida, there are lots of Latino and Cuban blood. I know California particularly L.A. has a big Filipino community. I think in Silicon Valley there are lots of Indian nationality, considering most of the indians are into computer and IT. Mississippi side is mostly African-American.

I think the best place to look into, to answer the question(what is the culture of the US) is New York. The city is a mixture of people from all parts of the world, and the culture is really rich because of it. I think New York city, represent US as a whole when it comes to culture.

Answer 4

Cultures. Plural.
You name it, it can be found.
As far as any original culture, one would have to look at the North East, New England States.
There the original Colonies were primarily of British culture. Immigration from Ireland, Italy, France, Orientals, Dutch, Scots, and many others have diluted that. Some from all over the Carribbean and South America.
From there to the West, immigrants settled from many countries. Beef was a primary product of our West. German culture can be found in many communities.
California with Japanese and Chinese cultures, as well as many others. The South had originally been of British culture, many who owned cotton plantations and of course the resultant slave trade.

Although many immigrants settled in the South, a warm climate, it was and still holds a Black culture. Their culture has very little or no relationship to their Native Africa. It was lost as a result of forbidden education as slaves and descendants knew very little of their history.

Modern Blacks have become educated and we now celebrate Black History Month and Blacks are able to honor more of the contributions by their race. They have some traces of their past cuisine.

In Louisiana, particularly, the Cajuns have settled. They were of French descent, generically, Arcadians, and had originally settled in Canada. They were ostracized from Canada and many killed and forced to migrate South, to America. During their migration, many remained along the way, along the East Coast, and finally made their way to Louisiana. Their cusine is one of the most unique in America, primarialy seafood and most notably, Crayfish, commonly referred to as Crawfish. These resemble small shrimp but are found in fresh water, native to Louisana, as well as Alligator, considered a delicacy. They sometimes use extremely hot spices.

Many fried foods began in the South.
Chicago has large Polish communities, Michigan has the largest Muslim communities in US, although many can be found elswhere.
Just about every culture has proliferated throughout the country.

This is getting too long.

Answer 5

If you travel to the Eastern Seaboard, then to the Appalachians, then the Midwest, then the West Coast; you'll see that there definately isn't a generalized culture in the United States. In my experience each individual state is very unique.

Answer 6

I am in Central Pennsylvania and today I sat through 7th grade history class two times and the topic was American culture! Our culture was discussed in terms of themes and within each theme students were asked to come up with examples of things that are uniquely American. Here's what I can remember:

Food - Apple Pie, hot dogs and cheeseburgers, cheesesteak sandwiches, onion rings

Clothing - blue jeans, cowboy hats and baseball hats, cowboy boots

Recreation - Baseball, Football (not Soccer), large gas-guzzlers to drive

Music - Country, Blues, Jazz, Rock and Roll, Hip Hop

It kind of sounds like you are trying to come up with a "personality", maybe? I would say that it's that whole cowboy thing, the rugged individualist, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, might makes right, you can have my gun when you can pry it from my cold dead hand kind of thing. I wish I could think of something else but that's all I can come up with. My ideal is that the American culture is one of rich diversity and openness to all of humanity, you know the way it all started back when those in charge had a passionate vision based on the ideals of freedom, democracy, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Some of us still believe in those ideals but they seem to have been thrown to the side of the road somewhere along the way. The loudest mouths in our country are those of the folks worked up over their right to "bear arms", or carry guns. People here love their guns. That's the "right" people seem willing to get worked up over. People now feel entitled to all of the other rights that those men pondered and discussed and debated so many years ago. They don't think about them. They expect them to always just be "there" for them. It's sad. We love guns so much we'll get all our young people massacred so we can play war. Weapons and guns and "terror" and war seem to be the more accurate description of who America is, in my opinion.

I don't teach the class. I gave you a little more there than you bargained for, I guess. :-) I think it got pent up during the class!

Answer 7

sub culturs and individual actors.
While Japanese have certainly perfected it. Americans invented it from the car to the airplane to computers to most technology.
My mon says that they are creative and our culture is conducive to a varity of ideas and thoughts. That is why we invented the sewing machine, to the cotton gin. Even permanent waves came from the uSA. Most inventions have from the internet to ipods. Were invented in the USA even the bomb.

Answer 8

It is a western culture. Native Americans helped influence their culture, amoung others.

Answer 9

no culture. we are just a big mass of fat, products, and stupidity.