How To Tell If You're An American

from http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html

Not long ago, one of those earnest-freshman puppydogs on the Net declared that there was "no such thing as American culture." Right. Fish have also been known to doubt the existence of water.

The following is a first crack at an ostensive definition of 'American culture'-- things shared by the vast majority (let's say 90% ) of native-born Americans. Many of these won't sound 'cultural' at all to Americans; they'll sound like just descriptions of the way things are. But each one of them would be contested in one or more non-American cultures.

This test has spawned a growing host of responses (most of them better written than mine). To wit:

Canada John Bayko and Damien Ponech
Quebec Valerie Bourdeau
France Nicolas Duvernois
Italy Riccardo Distasi
Brazil Emilio Neto
Mexico Acoyani Garrido Sandoval
Scotland Geoff Eddy
England Graham John Francis de Sales Wheeler
The Netherlands Bas Suverkropp
Germany Raphael Landeck
Sweden Anders Janson
Poland Pawel Stachura
Japan Hirofumi Nagamura
New Zealand Gareth Wilson
Australia Chris O'Regan
South Africa T'Mar
Turkey Cyril Alebard
India Apurva Mishra
Verduria me
Offsite
Brittany Damien Erwan Perrotin
Austria Klaus A. Brunner
Finland Johanna Laakso
Louisiana Andrew Chaney
Texas Tom Wier
Charya Boudewijn Rempt
Khadra wligon1
Gnomish Aidan Elliott-McCrea

These pages are all organized by nation or culture. Robert Delaney has put up an interesting page with the same information organized by subject.

--Mark Rosenfelder

If you're American...
You believe deep down in the First Amendment, guaranteed by the government and perhaps by God.
You're familiar with David Letterman, Mary Tyler Moore, Saturday Night Live, Bewitched, the Flintstones, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Donald Duck, the Fonz, Archie Bunker, Star Trek, the Honeymooners, the Addams Family, the Three Stooges, and Beetle Bailey.
You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you're male, you can argue intricate points about their rules. On the other hand (and unless you're under about 20), you don't care that much for soccer.
You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year.
If you died tonight...
You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.
You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.
You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food. You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.
A bathroom may not have a bathtub in it, but it certainly has a toilet.
It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.
You expect, as a matter of course, that the phones will work. Getting a new phone is routine.
The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.
You find a two-party system natural. You expect the politicians of both parties to be responsive to business, strong on defense, and concerned with the middle class. You find parliamentary systems (such as Italy's) inefficient and comic.
You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended. Communism, fuhgeddaboudit.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someo

as for your first statement i have a joke:

what is the difference between america and a pot of yogurt?

in 100 years the pot of yogurt grows a culture.

Actually, my first statement was:

from http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html

...meaning, I didn't write it.

Of course America has culture. If we didn't have a culture, other countries wouldn't be complaining about American culture invading their own.

lol, that is an excellent point.

yes good point. but i'm sorry i love history but i fail to rember what happened on 11/22/63. I for one can't rember unless is was the revlution or the siging of the constition. But i do have to say this made me cry inside for such things are true.
worse is we losse some of our own clutrure hertaige from the older generations. we need such...

11/22/63 the day kennedy was shot. of course, i first thought it might be the day rosa parks refused to get off her seat so I cheated and looked it up online.

lol, I couldn't figure out if it was, 1763, 1863, or 1963 we were talking about...

Even I knew it was the day kennedy got shot. Its in our history books just like in 1952 when king G died

okay i'm sorry i care more about the consiton then a dead pres. who was good but wasn't shot by the magic bulliet i'm sorry i find that the 2 first documents are nearly more mootemntal then nearly half of our presidents combined far as impact on this hemphsihere the world and us Amreica....

"November 11, 1963 - also the day Aldous Huxley died."

That's in a Sheryl Crow song. I think it's "Run Baby Run".

Interesting post.

I like Huxley's books. Downright interesting fellow, that. As far as a fixation with time: I was the only one in my dorm room to bring an alarm clock to orientation. I did a major term project this past year on the history of time, too, for psychology. I'm also a percussionist- the timekeeper of the band. Lastly, I have an incredible sense of time passage and I can't ever seem to shake the "on the clock" feeling.

Don't agree with everything in that post,thought everyone knew when Kennedy was shot it was in a few movies too you know. That article makes americans sound boring some of us
travel and go to plays at home .Most important even though
its not really done here when I travel I sunbathe topless!
🙂

Every one here suns topless some bottomless. no big deal. As for being boring we the brits hold the title.

Thought the Brits stayed out of the sun except on holiday.Th
Why do you say boring ,is it all the tradition or just get into a certain routine and then stick with it?The ones I've met like to have a good time and a good laugh.
I know Americans get loud and demanding and that can be embarassing especially in another country.

quite right. We have the rep of being boring because of our upper class. the Parker bowls and chuck types. we lower class have all the fun, think about it they can't even have fun in adultry. Were us pub drunks get plowed and shagg a lot.

lol Josh I'm amazed. I love Aldous Huxley even though I've only read two things by him. In tenth grage, we read Brave New World and I was the only one to like it, everyone else said he was sick and hated the book as if they didn't realize it was a satire.

OFF TOPIC:
Why the hell is the name of this thred "West Coast ports remain closed"?

it just is...every thread on this board has been named that.

The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them. they just got morgan.

Well I vote for "Sunburned Antarctic Penguins Lead Revolt", as our next one.

another redo of an old thread

Hey you were brits to begian with so the indians were beat but it wasn't america then

Ugh we were never REALLY brits. No offense but thank goodness. 🙂

who founded the U.S. they may have born in america but they were Britsh citizens at the time

the english settled the american cont that became the U.S. there were french. germans spain but it was mostly english who did you fight for your independs?