We have a society, one might even argue that it is a civilization. What we seem to missing is a culture.
I am thinking that we will be developing one soon.
I wonder what it will look like?
You see, civilization and societies are big old herkin' things, good for wandering around and beating up folks that don't agree with you. They throw up some damn impressive monuments and such.
What they don't seem to do is let people live with each other. We have stripped away the culture part of the US. We have allowed ourselves to become atomized with a false sense of independence. We now have to go trudging back the way we came to find a place of group psyche that will allows us interdependence.
This won't be easy. In a way, the prepper community reflects this. The atomized tend to be those who squirrel guns away and seem to be preparing for a continental scale "Gunfight at the OK corral". Those moving towards independence seem to concentrate more on building the social networks necessary for mutual support.
This whole process is a story that will be told over the next fifty years.
I wonder what if will look like?
4 comments:
some say there is a unique american culture, and the left on the one hand, is trying desperately to say there isn't. while with the other hand they are frantically trying to destroy it.
the cowboy was an icon of the american culture. he was willing to be a loner, in order to live in peace, but if pressed, he would fight for his rights. he had the courage to do the right thing, even when the sheeple in town, out of cowardice, would accomodate evil. people the world over, wanted to be cowboys. now it's used as a pejoritive term.
in spite of bush being called a cowboy, i prefer that american culture to anything the radical liberals could try as a substitute.
Dutch:
You see, in a way that is exactly what I am talking about here. A culture built around the concept of noble loners can never truly be a culture.
We seem to be stuck at the point that you are describing. It was great for thinly populated frontier state, but it by no means appropriate for a densely populated industrial nation.
You are really talking about a divide that was extant in the bible. I think that is where a lot of this stuff come from. We continually see ourselves as the new Israel. We are Gods chosen people, Hunter-gatherers moving in on the agrarian and town folks, who are always seen as evil and soft.
Your description is that of an individual who is incapable of coming to grips with the facts that a good deal of the time, other folks have differing concepts of right and wrong and you have to make accomodations to be able to live in a dense society.
I got no problem with cowboys, but for the most part they should stay on the "lone prairie".
Not sure what you mean.
Is our hollywood movies & rap, alternative, metal, country music not culture?
Is our Gap, Liz Claiborne, Tommy Hilfigure clothing lines not culture?
Is our McDonalds & Starbucks; Tex Mex, BBQ, and Burgers not culture?
Is our back and forth defense of the 2nd and 1st amendments and our ready use of both not culture?
Seems to me the reason why it might appear as though we have no culture is becaues we have been so successful at exporting it to the rest of the world that it just seems normal.
To cfloersch:
Hmmmmm, let me mull on that one
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