How culturally uniform is the U.S.?

Great Debates
41

Mostly no. I am aware of basic American culture (I think!) and not more behind the times than occasionally wondering what the teenyboppers are thinking of, to wear that. Or, in very sad occasional cases, what the middle-aged women are thinking of, to dress like the teenyboppers.

There are some ways in which I’m culturally isolated, though. For instance, most of the people in the neighborhood either do not own a television, or do not have their television set hooked up to any outside source. Cable does not exist on our road, not because we’re so geographically remote, but because years ago, when they asked residents about it, no one wanted it.

I fall into the latter category and have a television set, but use it only to watch movies from the library. I do own an antenna so that I can watch The End of the World when it is upon us, but it’s in a closet somewhere. As a result, I get national news only at a very high level, and usually a day late in the local paper. If I hear about something I’m interested in, I’ll look it up online, or turn on NPR to see if they’ve got something about it. (My husband recently wondered aloud who is in the Superbowl, and who Shawn Hornbeck is, much to the amusement of his co-workers. In fairness, I wouldn’t know either, if I hadn’t looked both things up online.)

So, I’ve never seen even an episode of most of the recent shows that I hear about, like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Lost, and Ugly Betty. Does this leave me outside the mainstream of American culture? In some ways, I think it does. Fundamentally, perhaps, it does not.

I dunno, Sal. I’d be interested to hear what you think, though.

42

But they can’t move to Mobile, the Outer Banks, Grady, SC, or a rural Applachian community without severe culture shock and significant language barriers. Calling those kinds of places “pockets” is okay descriptively, but it might fail to convey the fact that there are lots and lots and lots and lots of pockets. Just lots, really. All over the place.

43

Neither have I! And I basically have no excuse. But I suppose just knowing that these are the most popular shows in America counts for something. You get some recognition value even at second hand. The other way to look at it is to ask yourself: if I’m not part of the generalized American culture, then what culture can I say I’m part of? I’d have a hard time answering that one personally. Possibly I belong to the effete Northeastern liberal culture, if such a thing exists, even though I lack many of the shibboleths.

And Liberal, I agree there are lots of pockets, of stunning variety, but numerically, what do they come to? My rough guess would be that two-thirds of Americans live outside these culturally distinct pockets.

44

TV, Radio, Books, Magazines, etc (Mass Media) are the disseminaters of American culture.

45

I can testify to this. Moving from Illinois to Southwestern Louisiana 30 years ago was quite a shock. Things there were significantly different - far more than Illinois was from New York or Boston. In fact, around Lafayette there were distinct French dialects from towns 30 miles apart that people were very aware of.

As measured by food, etc., Hawaii was a lot different from the rest of the country when we first visited, in the sense that fast food places had additiional items of local interest, not available in other states. I don’t know if that is still true.

I’ve found that we’re a lot more uniform than we were 25 years ago when we started traveling. There are a lot fewer quirky and interesting local stores than there were back then. It’s a shame.

46

The mass media in the United States completely ignorescertain subcultures. Some people let the mass media shape their perception so much that they’re not even aware that those subcultures exist. How many Americans know that there are many thousands of people in New England and upstate New York who speak French as a first language, and that this minority has been there since before the American revolution? How many are aware that you can find Korean neighborhoods in the middle of New Jersey or Indian neighborhoods in suburban Virginia or Guatemalan neighborhoods in Deleware? How many know that life on most Native American reservations remains almost totally cut off from the national culture; that these places have separate economies with no presence of nationwide corporate chains? How many now about the fringe Mormon groups in the rural west, or the hippie communes that are still going all over the country?

The mass media have been diligent in creating the illusion of cultural uniformity. Even those who are, on the surface level, aware of how the media distorts reality frequently allow this illusion to seep into their thinking.

47

As has been mentioned, the main thing is rural vs urban. It is the rural areas that are culturally most different-for example: New mexico; you could move to Albuqueque from NYC, and fit in pretty easily-but move to a remote mountain town, you would likely have a problem 9unless you speak spanish).

48

I hate to split hairs but how are we defining severe? What’s so different about Mobile, Alabama that someone from New York would have a difficult time getting around?

Marc

49

I guess that is the whole point. People that take the extreme position on either side can easily be shown example why they are wrong because it is a big country.

I am from rural Louisiana. I live and work in the Boston area but most of my coworkers that I interact with every day are in the Chicago, Houston, and Dallas areas. We don’t have any trouble talking every day about things particular to all Americans and it never seems to end. My family is very far-flung and it is the same. My wife works in an international business (European centered) and although she speaks the languages, it isn’t as easy even though she has visited them many times.

OTOH, I have seen those darn foreign people from other countries on this board claim that the only differences you will find in areas of the U.S. are what people put on their hot dogs. I don’t see how anyone can hold that belief if they have been to New Orleans, East LA, Nantucket, Las Vegas, and Alaska for example.

There is an “American” culture. Other countries get exposed to it just as we do. OTOH, we have a lot of diversity that is a subset of that based within that context. It seems offensive to us to hear that we are all about the same because we take the sameness for granted and just see where different subcultures/regions are different. People from other countries look at it from their context and see a group of people spread across a large land that have some striking similarities.

50

The examples are too numerous to list, but I’ll give a few:

  1. A Mobilian is looking at a set of three dishes. “I’ve got those, but I like the one in the middle.” What does he mean?

  2. You’re given a bowl of pintos, and there’s this big white cube in it. What is that?

  3. “El law I nevah” means what?

  4. What do you do with a toboggan?

  5. What’s the plural of “y’all”?

51

Oops, forgot to give the answers:

[spoiler]1) A Mobilian is looking at a set of three dishes. “I’ve got those, but I like the one in the middle.” What does he mean?

He’s missing the one in the middle.

  1. You’re given a bowl of pintos, and there’s this big white cube in it. What is that?

Fatback.

  1. “El law I nevah” means what?

I’m insulted! (or other things, depending on context)

  1. What do you do with a toboggan?

You wear it on your head.

  1. What’s the plural of “y’all”?

All y’all.[/spoiler]

52

Maybe so. But that means there’s a hundred million who live inside them. That’s roughly the population of Russia.

53

In Soviet Russia, there are no pockets to live inside.

54

That was possibly the first time I laughed at a “In Soviet Russia” joke. I must be tired. :slight_smile:

55

I think that stereotyping has a lot to do with our perceptions of cultural differences.

Even documentaries on PBS and NPT still play banjos in the background when the subject of the South comes up. That just makes me grit my teeth and roll my eyes. I know exactly two people who own banjos. One lives in Denmark and the other is from New York City.

madmonk, Tennessee might confuse you to no end. We are “officially” a red state, but I live in Nashville which is blue. My neighborhood is multi-cultural, but about ten miles south of here is the fifteenth wealthiest county in the country (so I was recently told). Down in Lynchberg they make that good Jack Daniels, but the county that they make it in is dry.

We have good art film theaters, museums, universities, restaurants – and so forth. And we have the traditional Southern touches that make it unique. I don’t know why any other American would feel out of place here.

It’s just part of corn, you know.

“Who on earth would want to eat corn?” – John Alden

I’ll take the one with red earth, camp stew, pine forests, azaleas, dogwood trees, cherry blossoms, war eagles and rocket scientists…

56

Well, again, I don’t doubt that there are differences I just question that they are so radical as to give people a hard time. The difference, in my opinion, just aren’t that great. That isn’t to say I’ve never experienced culture shock within the United States. The first time I went to an Indian Reservation in the south west and the first time I went to the Mississippi Delta I saw poverty on a level I had never seen before in my life. I’ll note that I was pretty young at the time.

Marc

57

Spain has had the same king since c. 1500 (feeling too lazy to look up the date of death of Ferdinand the Catholic). C. 1700, Phillip V declared Aragon “conquered land”, dissolved their Parliament and absorbed them into Castilla. At this point, the only parts of Spain that had separate laws were the Vascongadas (now called Euskadi), which were part of Castilla, and Navarra, which remained a separate kingdom until the XIX century. Euskadi and Navarra still have some “historic peculiarities”; many cultural things like sexism are completely different in old-Aragon (where women used to be different-but-not-inferior to men for things like inheritance) than in old-Castilla (where women used to be considered “incapable” and I always find it funny that their most famous king wore skirts).

Some things will become more uniform, true, simply because there’s better communication and these things called “multinational companies”: things are more uniform between Vietnam and Portugal than they were 300 years ago, too! But even though I take advantage of the EU and EFTA and of my command of English, I can tell you that Castellón and Germany are both quite alien to me. Asturias and Ireland, don’t get me started.

58

You know, I haven’t come to my conclusions flippantly. I’ve worked in over 20 countries; and I’ve been all over the states. I was born and raised in Virginia and I know Tennessee well.

I am absolutely serious (and saddened) when I say I am much more comfortable at a party full of university educated people from other countries than the same demographic from some parts of the US. I know this really upsets people, but it is true. In my experience if you get to far from the coast, interest and knowledge of the rest of the world drops off precipitously and that this relfects a profoundly different attitude about life and that these differences are what we call cultures.

I think that when you look at issues like support for gay marriage, teaching religion in science class and support for the war in Iraq, and attitudes about sexuality, there are very deep and profound regional differences in the US. I think that in some ways, these differences are more pronounced than they were 20 years ago when the culture presented to us through the three network tv stations was the only television there was.

I of course acknowledge the variations within regions that people mention but I think they are overstating how ‘liberal’ urban areas in some southern states are. A city in a conservative area might be liberal by regional standards, but it will still be far from attitudes in Boston and the same is true for a conservative PA farmer as compated to a liberal Philadelphian.

I’ve already mentioned Iraq. This is a profoundly divisive issue and I think if you were to look at polling data on opinions about this war in 2003 it would speak volumes about the cultural differences in the US. In many ways, I think the war held up a mirror to our culture and reflected a fractured image that is pretty scary.

Further I think the issues are in many cases insurmountable. I will never accept teaching Christian (or any other) dogma in a public science classroom. There are plenty of people who will never accept my position. There is no common ground there. Compromise is impossible, I won’t accept a little theology mixed in with my science curricula, so how is it solved? I think it is solved by what we see, people self-segregating into subculutes with their own television and music and the erosion of common ground in between.

(I just edited one of the more annoying typos in this flawed essay, mm28)

59

And yet, within the confines of the very liberal coastal cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia are large concentrations of black populations who overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage. And in the middle of Tobacco Road are Chapel Hill — a cross between San Francisco and Berkley — and Charlotte, where the president of the nation’s largest bank is black, as is the owner of a professional sports franchise.

I think I hear people saying that Europe is so diverse because guys in one place wear trousers while guys in another place wear lederhosen, while in the US, most guys everywhere were pants. But “culture” doesn’t have to be about who wears what or who used to be king. It can be about how groups behave, what is considered moral and what isn’t, who the most influential local families are, and the manner in which people act out rituals like dinner, worship, or revelry. People in Minneapolis party just like people in Lubbock, but the music may be different, the people may communicate differently, the norms and standards may be different, and yes even the clothes and food may well be different. There won’t be many boots or cowboy hats in Minnesota. And nobody in Dallas is going to bake a hot dish and call it “food”.

(Come to think of it, driving from Minneapolis to Saint Paul is something of a culture shock.)

60

madmonk, when I talk of pockets of culture that are outside the mainstream culture, it seems to me that you’re in one of those pockets. From this perspective, it’s not about whether you feel comfortable with the company at a cocktail party, it’s whether the rest of the company feels comfortable among themselves. I would also say that political differences do not in themselves indicate cultural nonconformity. It’s hard to imagine that even a country that has a high degree of cultural uniformity by anyone’s standards (Iceland, for example) doesn’t have similarly divisive political issues.

And Liberal, if I don’t misremember, you’re a Southerner (maybe from Mobile, even), and yet live in Maryland. This, to me, is the essential point – so many of us have moved around, so that we don’t end up where we started, and can have no expectation that any regional culture we may have carried with us has any currency in the place to which we’ve moved. That doesn’t leave us cultureless, it leaves us with a common and highly portable American culture, recognizable from Boston to Austin to San Jose.