American Culture?

Question

This is a group for questions regarding Cultures and Groups. I'm interested in intelligent and respectful comments.

How would you define "American/Western" culture to those born outside of the U.S.?

Answer 1

What a question!
As a non-American, I'll try to describe American culture.
1) Idealistic, believing in freedom of the individual
2) democratic form of government
3) capitalistic form of economy
4) patriotic
Western culture would encompass the things built and developed in the "west" including democracy, technology, equal rights for men and women, a legal system that has been developed and continues to adapt to current standards, personal freedom.

Answer 2

I would define it as a culture of people who are free thinkers and free spirited. A culture that has a great love and respect for nature. A culture that puts family first and foremost. One that is hard working and hard playing. A culture that can respect the peace and property of others. That is how I would describe some of our culture. You should understand here that I live in a small town in Montana. I'm sure my definition might be different from someone who lives in New York or LA, or any other highly populated areas. Which of course people there may have a definition that is far more negative.

Answer 3

That's flawlessly comprehensible, you grew up in American tradition and revel in American meals. It is no surprise that you simply uncover respectable Korean meals too highly spiced, you are now not used to it. I have an understanding of that you simply desire to include your tradition, however you may also need to avoid the spiciest meals and construct up a tolerance. Just take it slowly, you can not difference your style buds over night time if you happen to real are set on having fun with Korean delicacies.

Answer 4

The word 'Western' in your second question is ambiguous -- do you mean 'Western' in the sense of Western European/North American?

Or do you mean 'Western' in the sense of, say cowboys and such (which is a sub-group within America)?

Also, what is it you're asking for?

How would you "define" your culture?

Does it really lend itself to a "definition"?

Maybe you have some more specific question that you're really interested in.

What you've posed is vague, and will tend to yield vague and largely meaningless responses.

(Everyone's culture values good things and is against bad things -- so what does that tell you? Nothing, really.)

As an American, I find American culture oddly inconsistent.

You'll hear a lot about individualism, but a lot of Americans have little tolerance for difference -- I, for example, am "weird" to a lot of people, though I seem basically fine to me.

I'm not interested in, for example, spectator sports. I'm interested in interesting things.

This makes me odd to many, in the Land of the Free that supposedly worships individualism.

American culture values informality. People who behave formally (even when dealing with total strangers in a business setting) are seen as "stuck up" or snobbish. There's kind of an assumption that everyone should be good friends with everyone else.

Except when that assumption is void. (Hey, we're all contradictory in ways, no?)

There are a lot of sub-cultures -- especially a lot of regional differences -- in America.

I live across the bay from San Francisco -- which is a distinct culture: politically left wing, racially diverse (and proud of it), religiously tolerant.

Most people living in this area came here from other parts of the country for these reasons.

Other areas (some other areas) are more homogeneous.

More Americans are Christian than any other religion, but every religion on Earth is represented here.

Few Americans are from one place -- all my ancestors I know of are from Europe, but from different countries.

A lot of Americans are more mixed than I, having ancestors from different continents.

So a lot of us identify with a lot of different groups of people all over the world. Few of us identify with just one such group.

In a lot of ways, our culture is a mish-mash of everyone else's culture -- especially if you look at things like food.

Without knowing what you're really interested in, it's hard to answer you.

Answer 5

I once heard someone say, "America is culturally void." I really hate repeating that, because I love my country, but I really think it's true. For whatever reason, we really haven't contributed much of lasting worth, culturally. Maybe it's because instead of choosing one cultural stream to follow we try to incorporate all of them, resulting in a fragmented mess.
Oh, and to the previous poster, I agree with the things you wrote, but I wouldn't define them as "culture."

Answer 6

Too diverse to be defined.

Answer 7

there is no american culture it died long ago